Outlander has been taking viewers back to the 18th century for the past few years. Claire's accidental journey through time from the 1940s to the 1700s resulted in a love story that has taken her and her husband Jamie all throughout Scotland and France. The upcoming third season will take the lovebirds farther than ever before, and it turns out that the show was able to crossover with Starz' Black Sails in a pretty unexpected way. Executive producer Ron Moore revealed the way Outlander crossed over with Black Sails at San Diego Comic-Con, saying this:
We were able to use the Black Sails sets. It's a fantastic facility with full blown tall ships. We were down there for three months, almost four. We used a lot of the Black Sails crew and technical advisors.
Yes, the two Starz series will soon have ships and sets in common as well as a network. Traveling on the ocean was obviously a huge deal for Black Sails, and it seems that the Outlander crew was determined to make sure that its scenes at sea will look just as intricate and genuine. Outlander spent months down in South Africa filming on the Black Sails sets, with even the Black Sails crew and techs on hand to help them out. If the scenes on deck are going to look and feel as authentic on Outlander as they did on Black Sails, I think we'll be able to understand why poor seasick Jamie was so stricken.
Given that Black Sails actually came to an end in April after four seasons, the sea-faring scenes of Outlander might be a fun blast from the past for fans of both series. Ron Moore's comments are also good news for readers of Diana Gabaldon's book series, as it sounds like Season 3 will be able to do justice to what amounts to a huge chunk of the third book.
Warning: spoilers ahead for the third book of Diana Gabaldon's Outlander saga, called Voyager.
In Voyager, Claire and Jamie end up leaving Scotland behind and setting sail after young Ian Murray is kidnapped and taken to the West Indies to be sold as a slave. The book definitely earns its name, as there are plenty of voyages to be found in Voyager, and the characters go for quite a while without spending much time on solid ground. Diana Gabaldon has already said that Season 3 will be more faithful to her books than Season 2 was, so fans have had reason to expect some fantastic episodes with Jamie and Claire at sea. The Black Sails crew and sets should allow Season 3 to deliver something truly spectacular.
The early footage for Outlander Season 3 (which we broke down in gif form) is focused on reuniting Claire and Jamie after their heartbreakingly long separation. We haven't gotten a look at the Black Sails ships just yet, and we may have a while still to wait. A lot needs to happen before Claire and Jamie set off on the next leg of adventure together. When last we saw them, they weren't even in the same century.
Outlander will return to Starz for Season 3 on Sunday, September 10 at 8 p.m. ET. Check out our rundown of what we know so far about Season 3 for a peek ahead, and swing by our fall TV premiere schedule for all the other dates for returning TV series.
