The end of the latest Outlander drought is coming to an end before the end of the 2024 TV schedule, with Starz confirming the second half of Outlander Season 7 will premiere in November. The Season 7 midseason finale ended all the way back in August 23 with Jamie, Claire, and Young Ian arriving back in Scotland, and some sneak peek images show what they'll encounter there. Still, with months left to go, it's worth considering the upcoming Outlander: Blood of My Blood prequel series and what executive producer Ronald D. Moore told us about how it could provide what Outlander fans have been missing.
Ronald D. Moore has been an executive producer on Outlander from the start and is credited as such for Outlander: Blood of My Blood with its focus on the parallel love stories of Claire's parents and Jamie's parents. Given that the prequel was announced in 2022 following the end of Outlander Season 6, when did Moore realize there's was an audience for a spinoff set a generation before Claire and Jamie? CinemaBlend's Mick Joest posed that very question in an interview at San Diego Comic-Con, and the executive producer shared:
I think we always kind of knew that there was an audience who wanted to explore more of the backstory. Especially since Diana [Gabaldon], in the books, had said a lot of backstory. There's a lot of deep, pretty deep mythology in all the books that the fans really kind of eat up. And one of the other things that we know is that the general audience said, ‘Oh, we kind of miss Scotland. We’d like to go back to the castle,’ because the way the show is structured that first season, there's a lot in Scotland. Then they leave, and then they come back briefly, and then they leave, and they've been in the American colonies for the past couple of seasons.
As with any adaptation from page to screen, a lot of what happens in Diana Gabaldon's novel saga had to be cut for the TV show. While Moore and Co. keep the author in the loop on changes and Gabaldon openly appreciated the show's approach in Season 7, a lot of background has been missing... and a lot of time in Scotland, which Moore acknowledged has been a sticky issue for many fans. The Frasers returning to Scotlander for the second half of Season 7 also might not stick for the rest of the series, which will end after Season 8. Moore went on:
But there was a big chunk of the audience that missed the days of the Highlands, and some of those characters and some of that mythology. So it felt right that you could go back, and if we're going to do a spinoff series, this is a great period to put it in and it could really bring people into the show again.
There are still a lot of questions about Outlander: Blood of My Blood, even though Starz has confirmed that the spinoff is expected to premiere in 2025. Even whether or not Outlander time travel has a part to play remains to be seen, as well as whether Claire's parents will end up anywhere near the iconic standing stones at some point. The ability to time travel that passed to Brianna does run on Claire's side of the family, so it seems unlikely that any time hijinks will be happening with Jamie's parents.
The castings for the four key characters have been announced. Ellen MacKenzie and Brian Fraser – a.k.a. Jamie's parents – will be played by Harriet Slater and Jamie Roy, respectively. As for Claire's parents, Julia Moriston will be played by Hermione Corfield and Henry Beauchamp will be played by Jeremy Irvine. Luckily, the wait to see Blood of My Blood might not be too painfully much longer, as the planned premiere date is in 2025, which could mean early in the new year.
Then again, a premiere in 2025 could also mean December 31, so I'm going to focus my optimism on looking forward to the arrival of Outlander Season 7B on Friday, November 22. The first six seasons of are always available streaming now with a Netflix subscription.
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