I've never read the books and I won't be doing so. This review is purely based on the series alone.
The concept of time travel and period drama is what drew me to this and, initially, my interest was peaked. Magical stones in a magical land (you'd understand if you've been to Scotland, which I have many, many times), time travel, romance, and intrigue all drew me into the plot.
A WWII war nurse, Claire (Caitriona Balfe) from 1945 London meets up with her historian husband Frank (Tobias Menzes) after being years apart due to the War and try to rekindle their romance/marriage by travellingt to Inverness in Scotland for a proper honeymoon. While there, they find their way to an historical/ritual site on All Hallow's Eve (Samhain), where they observe local women holding a ritual dance to commemorate the event. Soon after, Claire revists the same site to look for flowers she is interested in as someone who dabbles in apothecary and by pulling said flower, manages to open up a magical veil between her time and that of 18th c Highlands, where she has to learn to survive, adapt, and thrive while waiting to find her way back home to 1945 England. In the process, the audience gets to learn and meet lots of historical aspects of the time - from the clothing, to foods, way of life, language (sort of, it's still too modern), politics of the time, war, disease, punishment, and death - while we go along for the adventure.
The first series was rather interesting and I kept watching but by Series 2, I was beginning to lose interest. Not only is the main actress (Balfe) poorly cast (she's pretty and pleasant, just not a very good actress - her crying scenes are evidence enough), but the series is full of too many sex scenes, a sick fixation on extended rape scenes and plots focused on rape incidents, and very unrealistic characters that just don't ring true after a while. Jaime (Sam Heughan) and the Scottish cast is probably the best cast for the series, Jaime is just too good to be human! He's barely 21 when we first meet him and while people, back then, lived a lot shorter lives so 21 was probably our version of 31 years of age today, he is still much too perfect and mature, kind and noble...well, he's a typical romance novel hunk come to life and - yes that could be good for those preferring a fantasy man (don't exist), I would prefer some version of realism.
And then there is Claire's immense power to always adapt, always win everyone to her cause, to end up in 18th c France and immediately connect with royalty and the King himself, as if that was such a regular occurence. Super unrealistic and laughable. But everyone is at Claire's feet, she's so clever and canny, so stunning she's lusted after by every man (!!), and she can do the work of five modern-day surgeons with her 1940's nursing knowledge, like, what?? The number of times I have rolled my eyes at this series!
Anyway, I've never been able to finish it, twice giving up by the 3rd series and often falling asleep trying to watch, when I'm generally an insomniac.
If the series' creators had kept to the initial tone and premise of the series, it could have ended up a highly-rated classic. As it is, it's no more than a fantasy romance, doing a complete disfavour to the cast and production, and making it a lame experience for those of us who know something about history and TV writing, and instead putting us to sleep with it.
It's just too bad or, as the French would say, quel dommage.
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