Outlander season one could arguably be the best book to television adaptation ever, but it did have its missteps. We look at the top five blunders the show made and hope they do not repeat in season two.
Duke of Sandringham
In the first Outlander books, the Duke of Sandringham is mentioned but does not get to meet Claire until book two. Bringing in the Duke of Sandringham in episode ‘By the Pricking of My Thumbs’ was not necessary. The show had already established in episode one the Duke had some relationship with Black Jack Randall. Actor Simon Callow did an exceptional job playing the Duke of Sandringham; I just felt his talent was wasted just for the one episode. Outlander could invest the time used to introduce the Duke and Jamie’s dual by solidifying the relationship between Claire and Jamie.
Claire Voiceover
If you have read the first Outlander book you know the story is told from Claire’s perspective. I can appreciate the producers trying to stay faithful to the book, many of the voiceovers were entirely unnecessary. Claire’s voiceover was attempting to explain thing viewers could see for themselves. The only episode where voiceover seemed to work was in the episode ‘The Wedding‘ and ‘The Reckoning‘. Claire’s voiceovers were needed in the bedroom scenes because we did not know her feeling of what was going on. The episode ‘The Reckoning’ was made better because Jamie was the voiceover this time, and it was great to have his thoughts of what is going on. Hopefully, they will abandon the use of voiceover in every episode and only use it when it is required.
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The Watch
If you haven not read the book, you might not know this is not how the Red Coat soldiers capture Jamie. In the book, Jamie is betrayed by one of his tenants. Jamie also never runs into the Red Coat deserter Horrocks again. I would rather have had the original book storyline preferably than what the show did. The show adds more strife and angst just for the sake of doing it. The book writer Diana Gabaldon did an excellent job filling the book up with anguish and fighting; no more was needed. I wish they could have used the time to show the Fraser family reconnecting and how life on Lallybroch made Claire the happiest she had ever been.
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Claire and Jamie
I do not think anyone could try to make the argument that the sex scenes were not sizzling. What was missing are more of the intimate moments from the book. This was evident at the end of the episode ‘The Devil Mark’. When Claire comes back to Jamie from the standing stones. Nonbook readers were left scratching their heads wondering if Claire chose to stay, or the stones did not work. I think the desire to push the story forward, load it with action and time constraints might have contributed to the lack of intimate moments between Claire and Jamie.
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The Search
The episode I found hardest to watch was ‘The Search’. Caitriona Balfe (Claire) and Duncan Lacroix (Murtagh) tried to save the episode with its tug at your heartstrings scenes but could not make it work. Claire singing the bawdy 1950’s song Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy almost throughout the entire episode was completely irritating. I understand they were doing it to lure Jamie to Claire and Murtagh, but it felt like it added awkwardness to already disjointed episode. The addition of the gypsy storyline just continued to annoy viewers because it seemed like it took us away of the primary focus of finding Jamie. It is not because this never happens in the books; many of the original television series scenes have been great. The only redeeming portion of this episode was when Claire and Murtagh talk about Jamie’s mother and the last scene with Dougal. I would like to pretend that the actual search never happened.
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What producer need to remember is Outlander is many things but at its core it is still a romance story. If you try to move the story away from that, you will be hard pressed to keep viewers happy. Hopefully, this is not a mistake the producers will make in season two.