The Outlander team had to make some changes in post-production
The team behind Outlander has disclosed that they had to tweak a particular scene due to a time travel slip-up.
The Starz series, which delves into time travel, has kept many details under wraps about its mechanics, but author Diana Gabaldon has set certain rules as part of the story’s lore.
In the world of Outlander, the ability to hop through time is passed down genetically, meaning only a select few can journey across different periods.
Moreover, time travel is restricted to specific times of the year, like Samhain and various equinoxes.
Additionally, gemstones can facilitate time travel, and blood sacrifices have been shown to assist in the process, as demonstrated by Gillian Edgars/Geillis Duncan (portrayed by Lotte Verbeek), who murders her husband to time travel in Inverness
A key detail is that travelers can influence their destination by focusing intensely on their desired location.
During the second season, the show’s creators had to modify a scene involving Claire Fraser’s (Caitríona Balfe) rings in post-production.
On the Outlander podcast, executive producer Ronald D. Moore shared: “At the very beginning – way back at Craigh na Dun, her discovering that she lost the ring and trying to find the ring, and then realising the stone of the ring was gone – that was something we added much later in the process, well after the show was done for various story reasons of time travel that we needed to establish – that you will discover later.”
Moore hinted at the importance of gemstones for safe time travel, a fact Claire only discovered later after going through Geillis’ notes.
It seems the show’s creators only later realized that Claire had to lose the gemstone from the ring Jamie (Sam Heughan) gave her, which once belonged to his father.
Season seven featured a lot of time travel, with Roger MacKenzie (Richard Rankin) ending up in 1739 while searching for his son, whom he believed Rob Cameron (Chris Fulton) had kidnapped.
While in this era, he encountered his father Jerry MacKenzie (Nicholas Ralph), who’d ended up in the past after his aircraft crash-landed.
Roger attempted to help his father return to his own time, hoping that his parents would have survived and he wouldn’t have been orphaned.
Unfortunately, given Outlander characters’ history of failing to change the course of history, Roger was unable to alter his father’s fate.
The final season of Outlander is expected to provide more insight into how time travel works in this universe, especially since Master Raymond (Dominique Pinon) smuggled Claire Fraser’s stillborn infant to another time and saved her.
Furthermore, questions about Jamie and how his ghost appeared in 1940s Inverness will finally be answered.
Outlander season 7 is available to buy now on Digital and is streaming on MGM+ via Prime Video now