TV Guide Magazine Outlander Forever

“Sing me a song of a lass that is gone…” When we first heard composer Bear McCreary’s haunting adaptation of Scottish folk tune “The Skye Boat Song”—the opening credits for the historical drama Outlander—we were hooked. And we knew it was going to be a favorite for TV GUIDE MAGAZINE readers when we witnessed the off-the-charts chemistry between time-traveling World War II nurse Claire Randall and fiery Highlander Jamie Fraser (Caitriona Balfe and Sam Heughan). Since the series’ August 2014 premiere, we’ve featured Outlander on the cover for each season—and you’ve always snapped it up from newsstands. Our intrepid senior writer Kate Hahn flew out to both the Scotland and Prague sets for the Starz drama’s first five seasons. Over the years, Kate has received on-set Gaelic lessons, was dressed in 1700s…

CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: MAARTEN DE BOER; MATTHIAS CLAMER/CONTOUR BY GETTY IMAGES; MAARTEN DE BOER; COREY NICKOLS; MAARTEN DE BOER…

BEFORE OUTLANDER EVEN started steaming up our TV screens on August 9, 2014, the sexy saga had superfans. They were the deeply devoted readers of author Diana Gabaldon’s bestselling time-travel romance series. The frisky franchise already numbered seven volumes when Starz announced in June 2013 that its fiery couple, Claire Randall and Jamie Fraser, were coming to television. Early buzz was deafening—and it has never let up. Call it the ecstatic moan heard round the world. But that initial fervor was no guarantee the epic drama would turn out to be the cultural phenom it is. After all, TV had never seen this kind of genre mashup: a love story with a sci-fi twist, plus some historical fiction thrown in. How would that fare in a lineup of procedurals, medical shows…

Strong-willed English army nurse Claire Randall (Caitriona Balfe) is just trying to reconnect with her historian husband Frank (Tobias Menzies), after returning from war, with a trip to Scotland. Instead, she finds herself transported from 1945 to 1743, where she must survive alongside bloodthirsty redcoats, determined Jacobites and one very alluring redheaded Scot. “Claire has to make a big choice. She’s determined to get home to her husband. Then she meets Jamie, and things change”—EXECUTIVE PRODUCER RONALD D. MOORE STEP ONTO THE set of new Starz drama Outlander, deep in the countryside north of Glasgow, and it’s easy to relate to series heroine Claire Randall (Caitriona Balfe), a married English World War II combat nurse suddenly—and mysteriously—thrust back in time to strife-torn 1743 Scotland. Kilt-clad men and corseted women mingle in the smoky…

SOME YEARS AGO, I was in Germany, being interviewed by a gentleman from a literary journal. He’d read all my books, and he said, “They’re fabulous! Your narrative drive, your imagery is magic—and the characters…they’re so three-dimensional!” “Yes, yes,” I thought, “go on…” Instead, he paused and said thoughtfully, “There is just the one thing—could you explain to me, please, what is the appeal of a man in a kilt?” (Well, he was German. And you know the old saying: “Any man looks good in a kilt. No man looks good in lederhosen.”) Well…a kilt’s a unique garment. Made of wool from local sheep, dyed with the plants from the Highland mountains, woven by the local weaver, it reflects a man’s sense of himself and his place. He’s a Scot, a Highlander, a…

HE PLAYS TWO Outlander characters related by blood but separated by time: Frank Randall, a gentle British historian distraught over the unexplained disappearance of his wife, Claire (Caitriona Balfe), in 1945 Scotland; and Black Jack Randall, a sadistic English army captain so dangerously fixated on Claire after she unexpectedly time-travels to the 18th century that she must marry Highlander Jamie Fraser (Sam Heughan) for protection. WHERE YOU’VE SEEN HIM On Game of Thrones as Edmure Tully and on Rome as Brutus. “They are unlike the characters in Outlander,” Menzies says. “Brutus was a boy in a man’s world—a study in weakness, moral indecision. Edmure is buffoonish—well-meaning but slightly inept. Frank and Jack are fully capable men but flawed in different ways. They’re both formed by war. Frank has been through the…