History Series / Outlander

''Outlander'' is a British-American television drama series adapted from Diana Gabaldon's [[Literature/{{Outlander}} series of novels]] and airing on Creator/{{Starz}}. Created by [[Creator/RonMoore Ronald D. Moore]] of ''Franchise/BattlestarGalactica'' fame, it stars Creator/CaitrionaBalfe, Creator/SamHeughan and Creator/TobiasMenzies. The series premiered on August 9, 2014, with the seventh season scheduled to premiere in Summer 2023. On January 19, 2023, the show was renewed for an eighth and final season.

* CoitusEnsues: Like with many HBO shows, there's a lot of gratuitous sex scenes. While some make sense in the plot, the level of explicitness can't really be called anything except {{fanservice}}. This is not only done with the leads either-some of the minor characters get into it too.

* FutureSlang: Claire introduces Jamie to the word "fuck".

''Outlander'' is a British-American television drama series adapted from Diana Gabaldon's [[Literature/{{Outlander}} series of novels]] and airing on Creator/{{Starz}}. Created by [[Creator/RonMoore Ronald D. Moore]] of ''Franchise/BattlestarGalactica'' fame, it stars Creator/CaitrionaBalfe, Creator/SamHeughan and Creator/TobiasMenzies. The series premiered on August 9, 2014, with its most recent sixth season airing from March to May 2022.

* PlayingGertrude: This happens in season 3 after the TimeSkip to 1968. Claire is supposed to be 50 years old, but Caitriona Balfe was 36 at the time, although she wears a salt-and-pepper wig to make her look older, [[spoiler: and when she makes it back to the 18th century, she dyes her hair to cover the grey anyway.]] Balfe is also only 15 years older than [[spoiler: Sophie Skelton, who plays her daughter Brianna, who was 23 at the time.]] It also eventually happens with Jamie, although unlike with Claire, they don't bother to make Sam Heughan look any older, aside from giving him reading glasses. Claire lampshades this when she notes that he is unusually fit for a man of his age and occupation.

* ThatOldTimePerscription: Played with. While Claire prescribes plenty of these, she herself thinks of them as old timey remedies, generally inferior to modern medicine. Most of her herbal remedies are her attempts to replicate modern medicine, and she herself knows they're inferior compared to their modern equivalents. More than once, she laments having to make due with moldy bread and joint-fir herbal tea rather than real penicillin and epinephrine. In-universe, multiple characters admire Claire's almost supernatural ability to diagnose and divine the right treatment, but the audience knows that while she's a competent healer, she's working with a huge advantage compared to her peers.

* OldTimePerscription: Played with. While Claire prescribes plenty of these, she herself thinks of them as old timey remedies, generally inferior to modern medicine. Most of her herbal remedies are her attempts to replicate modern medicine, and she herself knows they're inferior compared to their modern equivalents. More than once, she laments having to make due with moldy bread and joint-fir herbal tea rather than real penicillin and epinephrine. In-universe, multiple characters admire Claire's almost supernatural ability to diagnose and divine the right treatment, but the audience knows that while she's a competent healer, she's working with a huge advantage compared to her peers.

* OldTimeyPerscription: Played with. While Claire prescribes plenty of these, she herself thinks of them as old timey remedies, generally inferior to modern medicine. Most of her herbal remedies are her attempts to replicate modern medicine, and she herself knows they're inferior compared to their modern equivalents. More than once, she laments having to make due with moldy bread and joint-fir herbal tea rather than real penicillin and epinephrine. In-universe, multiple characters admire Claire's almost supernatural ability to diagnose and divine the right treatment, but the audience knows that while she's a competent healer, she's working with a huge advantage compared to her peers.

* ThatOldTimeyPerscription: Played with. While Claire prescribes plenty of these, she herself thinks of them as old timey remedies, generally inferior to modern medicine. Most of her herbal remedies are her attempts to replicate modern medicine, and she herself knows they're inferior compared to their modern equivalents. More than once, she laments having to make due with moldy bread and joint-fir herbal tea rather than real penicillin and epinephrine. In-universe, multiple characters admire Claire's hyper-competency and almost supernatural ability to diagnose and divine the right treatment, but the audience knows that while she's a competent healer, she's working with a huge advantage compared to her peers.

* GoodPeopleHaveGoodSex: The sex between Claire and Jamie is a cornerstone of their relationship and is portrayed as not only physically satisfying but mentally and emotionally, as necessary as regular meals.

* SignificantNameOverlap: The name William/Willie is significant in Jamie's life. Jamie's beloved, deceased older brother was named Willie. When Jamie is being held prisoner, Willie of Clan [=MacKenzie=] is the first to volunteer to help break Jamie out. Lord John Grey, Jamie's eventual lifelong friend, is initially introduced as William Grey (Gabaldon says she intended for him to be a minor character but he [[HeroOfAnotherStory took on a life of his own]], causing her to change his name to John William Grey to distinguish him from all the other Williams in Jamie's life). Lord Dunsany, the English man who agreed to Jamie's parole, allowing his release from prison, has the given name of William. And of course, Jamie's son is named William Ransom.

* SignificantNameOverlap: The name William/Willie is significant in Jamie's life. Jamie's beloved, deceased older brother was named Willie. When Jamie is being held prisoner, Willie of Clan MacKenzie is the first to volunteer to help break Jamie out. Lord John Grey, Jamie's eventual lifelong friend, is initially introduced as William Grey (Gabaldon says she intended for him to be a minor character but he [[HeroOfAnotherStory took on a life of his own]], causing her to change his name to John William Grey to distinguish him from all the other Williams in Jamie's life). Lord Dunsany, the English man who agreed to Jamie's parole, allowing his release from prison, has the given name of William. And of course, Jamie's son is named William Ransom.

** Although Charles Edward Stuart is correctly portrayed as a Catholic, raised in Italy, the Scottish were not still mostly Catholic at this point. Scotland had been majority Reformed Presbyterian all the way back to John Knox in the 1560s. Thus, the talk of the "heretic" Hanoverians is pretty far off. The difference in religion was the least of the Scottish concerns at the time. This series seems to underline that most Scots still are Catholic by faith (Jamie, for instance, is constantly crossing himself). In reality, it was only a small minority of Highland clans who were still Catholics (and not surprisingly make up the bulk of Jacobites).[[note]]Clan Donald, centred on the remote Hebrides archipelago, was the most prominent one.[[/note]] The series doesn't make this clear.

** Although Charles Edward Stuart is correctly portrayed as a Catholic, raised in Italy, the Scottish were not still mostly Catholic at this point. Scotland had been majority Reformed Presbyterian all the way back to John Knox in the 1560s. Thus, the talk of the "heretic" Hanoverians is pretty far off. The difference in religion was the least of the Scottish concerns at the time. This series seems to underline that most Scots still are Catholic by faith (Jamie, for instance, is constantly crossing himself). In reality, it was only the Highland clans who were still Catholics (and not surprisingly make up the bulk of Jacobites)-- and even then not even all of them.[[note]]Clan Campbell, one of the largest and most famous of all the Scottish clans, was firmly Protestant, as were several others.[[/note]] The series doesn't make this clear.

* ArtisticLicenseHistory:
** Claire and Geillis Duncan are prosecuted for witchcraft. The year is 1743, and the British Parliament had abolished this crime in 1735. Under the Witchcraft Act they passed, it was made a crime to ''accuse'' someone of this. It's brought up by their attorney, but they're being tried in a church court, which is a separate jurisdiction. The last real Scottish prosecution for witchcraft was in 1727.
** Claire and Geillis are condemned on the testimony of a Catholic priest. In a Church of Scotland court. Catholicism being illegal at the time, and Catholic clergy subject to imprisonment, a priest would keep as far away from a Church of Scotland court as he could; nor would such a court accept testimony from a priest.
** Characters from the Highlands are often heard using words from the Lowland Scots language to give the English dialogue a more Scottish flavour. Historically very few Highlanders in this period would've spoken Scots, as English was considered the language of prestige and was the medium of instruction in schools, while Gaelic was the vernacular. After the language had been neglected by the Scottish government and the Lowland nobility for the better part of a century, it had been replaced by English even in some parts of the Lowlands.
*** Most of the accents in the show bear fairly little resemblance to the way English would be spoken by a native speaker of Scottish Gaelic. Justified in that this accent would likely not be as recognisably "Scottish" to American or international viewers (it's often said to sound more like an Irish or Welsh accent).
*** In general, most of the less well-educated Highlanders, such as Angus and Rupert, would likely not have been able to speak any English at all. For obvious reasons, this is altered in the show.
** During preparations for the Battle of Culloden, a Jacobite soldier can be seen wielding a large two-handed Claymore, a sword which had not been used for around 100 years at this point.
** Claire introduces Jamie to the word "fuck", which he is initially bewildered by, the suggestion being that it wasn't a word used in Scotland. Though not as common as in English, prominent Scots writers had been using the word since the 16th century.
** The Jacobite rebellion is presented as very much an England vs Scotland conflict in the show (not helped by the fact that the terms "English" and "British" are occasionally conflated). The truth is far more complex, as there were a number of Jacobites in England, and certainly not all Scots supported the cause. Within Scotland itself, it could probably best be characterized as Catholics and Episcopalians vs Presbyterians. Still, there would have been no real reason to suspect Claire just because she happened to be English. In the 18th century in particular, Highlanders would likely have had more loyalty to their clans, and, more broadly, other Highlanders, than they would have had to the nation of Scotland.
** The difference between Highlanders and Lowlanders in the 18th century was far larger than is depicted in the show. Their languages, political systems, culture, and music were all completely separate from one another. For a modern viewer, the difference can be thought of as being roughly equivalent to that of somebody from France and somebody from Germany.
** The term "Sassenach" (literally "Saxon") was used by 18th century Highlanders to refer both to the English and the Lowland Scots--essentially a person who didn't speak Gaelic. In the show, it is presented as meaning only "English person."
** The show gives the impression that there was some settlement of Highland Scots in the Appalachian mountains of North Carolina. However, nearly all of the Scottish-origin people who settled in the Appalachians were Scots-Irish, descended mainly from lowland Scots farmers who had moved to Ireland in the 17th century, and had very little cultural overlap with the Highlanders. The location of Grandfather Mountain as the setting of the North Carolina Highland Games was chosen not because of an immigrant connection but because the real location the Highlanders had settled--the Cape Fear Valley, where Jocasta Cameron's plantation is located--was deemed not atmospheric enough (too flat).
** When Claire mentions Germany in the third episode of Season 1, Jamie initially doesn't know what she is talking about until she uses the term "Prussia" instead. There are two problems with this: First, the Kingdom of Prussia, even at its greatest extent, never encompassed the entirety of what is now known as Germany. Second, although the various German principalities had not yet been unified into a single nation state by the time the series is set in, the word "Germany" as a general term for the geographical area where German was the dominant language had been used since the early middle ages, making Jamie's confusion an anachronism.
*** In contrast, "Italy" (which was similarly fragmented at the time) is correctly used to refer to the whereabouts of Charles Stuart.

** Jamie and co. [[spoiler: kill the men who had been involved with Claire's kidnapping (she can't remember which ones raped her, so they simply [[KillEmAll kill all of them]])]].

* IChooseToStay: Jamie chooses to stay [[spoiler:at Helwater over returning home out of love for his newborn son William and to watch him grow up. Despite wanting to claim William as his own child, Jamie is prevented from doing so because Willie will be outed as illegitimate if he does and the Dunsays -- the family of William's mother Geneva -- must keep the scandal of William's true parentage under wraps. However, in order to have as much of a hand in raising Willie as possible, Jamie stays at Helwater as a groom, where he and Willie develop a close and loving relationship. When Willie is 8 years old, people begin to notice [[LikeFatherLikeSon Willie's growing resemblance to Jamie]] and Jamie is forced to separate from his son to protect him. Jamie and Willie are [[{{Tearjerker}} heartbroken]] when Jamie must leave.]]

* UsefulNotes/TheThirteenAmericanColonies: Series 4 onwards is set in the 13 colonies with season 6 taking place at the beginning of UsefulNotes/TheAmericanRevolution

''Outlander'' is a British-American television drama series, adapted from Diana Gabaldon's [[Literature/{{Outlander}} series of novels]], and airing on Creator/{{Starz}}. It's created by [[Creator/RonMoore Ronald D. Moore]], of ''Franchise/BattlestarGalactica'' fame. It stars Creator/CaitrionaBalfe, Creator/SamHeughan and Creator/TobiasMenzies.

In [[TheForties 1945]], married UsefulNotes/WorldWarII nurse Claire Beauchamp Randall goes on a second honeymoon to Scotland with her husband Frank only to find herself transported back in time to 1743. It's a time of danger and Civil War, where she encounters both her husband's vicious ancestor "Black Jack" Randall and dashing Highland warrior Jamie Fraser.

Same as the books it's based on, the genre of the series is a little hard to classify. While the producing network seems intent on categorizing it mainly as a romance (and marketing it towards women), it does tick off many boxes where HistoricalFiction tropes are concerned, and [[HistoricalFantasy due to the time travel involved can also be of interest to fantasy and sci-fi fans]].

Also notable for casting actual Scots in the main Scottish roles, showcasing Scotland's landscapes as far as possible, and using Gaelic (that isn't subtitled!) in most episodes.

Its sixth season premiered on March 6, 2022.