I came into this series having not read the books, only knowing it involved time travel + historical drama + romance elements, all of which sounded great. And it was! Really! the first 15 episodes of this I love! Yes, it overuses the rescued-from-rape trope (twice in episode 8), yes the episode where Claire becomes a singer is...bizarre, but mostly it had great acting, great production values, and engaging story, and I'd have recommended it strongly.
Then came the final episode, which made me thankful I didn't have Starz and had to watch it on DVD with a fast-forward button. It's not that a major character is tortured and raped, it's not that we see scenes of it. It's that those scenes go on. So. Long. Eventually I got to the point that I didn't feel as though I were witnessing their torment, but somehow participating in it by agreeing to keep watching. Hence the fast-forwarding. And it wasn't just my moral sensibilities being offended here either - it's that there was no storytelling justification for depicting things in this level of length and detail. Skipping the scenes after about a minute into them, I didn't lose any of the emotional or dramatic impact. Had they been briefer, there would have been much more time for the scenes at the monastery of the victim's recovery and everyone dealing with the shock of what happened.
Outlander, season 1, mostly about THAT episode
I came into this series having not read the books, only knowing it involved time travel + historical drama + romance elements, all of which sounded great. And it was! Really! the first 15 episodes of this I love! Yes, it overuses the rescued-from-rape trope (twice in episode 8), yes the episode where Claire becomes a singer is...bizarre, but mostly it had great acting, great production values, and engaging story, and I'd have recommended it strongly.
Then came the final episode, which made me thankful I didn't have Starz and had to watch it on DVD with a fast-forward button. It's not that a major character is tortured and raped, it's not that we see scenes of it. It's that those scenes go on. So. Long. Eventually I got to the point that I didn't feel as though I were witnessing their torment, but somehow participating in it by agreeing to keep watching. Hence the fast-forwarding. And it wasn't just my moral sensibilities being offended here either - it's that there was no storytelling justification for depicting things in this level of length and detail. Skipping the scenes after about a minute into them, I didn't lose any of the emotional or dramatic impact. Had they been briefer, there would have been much more time for the scenes at the monastery of the victim's recovery and everyone dealing with the shock of what happened.
Basically, it felt like they went for