Outlander: Starz TV adaptation, the novel by Battlestar Gallactica honcho

Starz has offered the pilot online for the past week. Anyone else watch?

Very minor spoilers to the basic conceit of the program--if you've seen the trailer or read the back cover of one of the books, you'll be fine.



I've heard about the Outlander series for at least a decade--a close friend of mine loves the series, and I know it's considered to be one of the more literary works while still being somewhat of a historical romance novel series (with fantasy overtones.) But I never got around to reading them. Frankly, the covers of the early editions with roses and lace were a bit of a turn off (and I say that as a soap opera fan.)



Funny thing is, two weeks ago I was taking a cab to the airport and had an annoying talkative, mid 60s, really macho seeming cab driver. At one point he mentioned the series and passed me the third book which he was reading. The edition he had had a very Game of Thrones style cover--black with just a symbol on it. He said that he rarely reads female writers, but he was really loving these books and went on about why--all the historical stuff, the time travel, etc. I didn't have the heart to tell him that when they first came out they were categorized as romance novels for women...

Anyway, so I always planned to watch the series, especially since it's being developed and head-written by the creator of the Battlestar Gallactica reboot, Ronald D Moore. I didn't love Gallactica as much as many of my friends, but I always felt Moore had a clear talent and idea of where he was going with the show. The show has also gotten some really strong reviews (many of them, annoyingly, give the caveat that some of it does seem like romance novel cliches--and annoyingly, when writing about the show I have to say the same.) Metacritic has its overall rating at 74%, but Starz also gave critics the first *six* episodes (out of 16,) and not just three as networks usually give reviewers. After watching the pilot, I think I know why this is... it is very deliberately paced, but I think that will prove to be smart (ie we don't get to the time travel bit until 2/3rds into the show.)



I like it a lot. I don't love it, yet, anyway. I thought having three sex scenes in 30 minutes between the same characters seemed like overkill, but I appreciate they are trying to show the bonds between the lead and her husband in their "normal time,"--which is partly based on sex and also an equality in their marriage, so that the contrast with 150 years earlier makes more sense. Even if someone had never watched a soap or read a romance novel, the fact that she would fall for the only Scottish dude who is her age (sorry, I still don't have a handle on the names,) and is hot comes off seems ridiculously inevitable as does the fact that he only has one working arm and yet it is with him the other of his brigand insists she rides with, etc. These are cheezy cliches, and yet, I am willing to go with it. I think they do a good job of showing how a woman who has always felt her right as an equal to any man has to deal with being in a situation where nobody else feels that way. The show looks gorgeous. The music is Enya-celtic but works, and I really like the acting. I've not been spoiled about the books, so really know nothing about where the story is going, but I'm enjoying it.

Updated On: 8/9/14 at 03:54 PM

I've been a fan of the books for years so I watched the pilot as soon as it was available. I really like the two leads so far and I'm looking forward to seeing more of them.

The slow pace is fine with me. I liked that they took so much time to establish Claire and Frank's relationship. It's important for the audience to see what Claire is trying to get back to and to see the contrast between Jamie and Frank. The marketing of the show as a love triangle makes me roll my eyes a little, but that is the central tension at first.

The only real complaint I have is that the voiceover got a little heavy handed sometimes. And the flashbacks to things that happened earlier in the episode seemed unnecessary.

I'm really looking forward to finally seeing the second episode on Saturday!

The first episode, perhaps the first few episodes are slow, but I've started to appreciate the pacing, and it's really become one of my favorite current shows. I thought Emily Nussbaum (sorry to bring her up again :P ) nailed my feelings in her New Yorker review:

“Outlander” is a new show on Starz that is smartly made, but it, too, falls into a tricky genre category: the female-skewing action adventure. The series is based on a hit literary fantasy series by Diana* Gabaldon, which is to say, a romance novel—but that shouldn’t block snobs like me and you from watching such a lively, rich, and emotionally satisfying story. We all have our demographic kinks, but if you take a brazen brunette from the nineteen-forties, send her back in time to eighteenth-century Scotland, dress her in corsets and furs, and leave her torn between her twentieth-century husband (a witty, ardent scholar) and her eighteenth-century crush, Jamie (a well-built redhead who is capable of “gentling” horses), well, welcome to my TiVo’s Season Passes.

Caitriona Balfe stars as Claire, a nurse who, in the aftermath of the Second World War, goes on a second honeymoon with her historically minded husband, hoping to rekindle a marriage that has been strained by years of wartime separation. In the Scottish Highlands, she finds herself transported, via witchcraft, to an era when brawny laddies are fighting the redcoats—and nobody knows about disinfectant or germs. (Between “The Knick,” “Outlander,” and “Call the Midwife,” cable television these days is practically an advertisement for Obamacare.) As Jamie, who leans very close to Claire during all their conversations, Sam Heughan helpfully fills the shirtless-male-redhead slot left empty by “Homeland” and “Dexter,” so that the couple’s protracted game of Scottish footsie flares with convincing eroticism. Yet this love affair has gravity, too, because it’s woven into a tragedy: Claire is embedded among Jacobite** rebels, a culture that she knows is on the losing side of history, doomed to be crushed by the English. With each episode, the series intensifies, invoking interesting parallels with modern political issues—about nations whose enmity is so ancient that it feels indelible, links between wartime violence and sadomasochism, and the ethical questions raised by conflicts of unequal foes.

The show has sumptuous cinematography and gorgeous period costumes: everything is lushly green, or covered with mud, and, for anyone interested in details of the era, there are fascinating sequences set in the castle where Claire is trapped, suspected of being an English spy. Instead of panicking, she uses her nursing skills to make herself invaluable.

The ensemble is full of great characters, including one of her husband’s ancestors, the vicious English officer Black Jack (Tobias Menzies, who also plays Claire’s husband, Frank); a hilariously witchy Lotte Verbeek, as a trophy wife who advocates that Claire adopt feminine wiles to survive this violent, patriarchal universe; and Graham McTavish, as a Scottish elder who begins as Claire’s enemy but becomes her ally. Claire is a satisfying character—alternately sharp and naïve, cunning and impassioned—but, then, she’s a fantasy herself: a feisty avatar for female viewers, in much the same way that brilliant male characters have operated on so many adult cable shows, both good ones (“Mad Men”) and bad (“Californication”). The female perspective is a welcome change, particularly in a cable landscape that finds every possible excuse for a middle-aged male detective to interrogate a teen-age stripper in her dressing room. But the show is more than tit for tat: it’s sheer pleasure, no guilt allowed. ?

I'm so excited! I reread the wedding scenes on Sunday because I just couldn't wait.

What did everyone think about The Garrison Commander? My sister and I are both book readers, she is the one who convinced me to read them, and had very different reactions. I loved the episode and she said it was her least favorite so far.

He's a great actor, but I think he's physically miscast. Frank/Jack Randall should be a lot more visually appealing.