Outlander season 5: The timing of the Big House build
Have you seen our latest Outlander character questions video? – If not, take a look below for more information on what could be coming up for Brianna! Subscribe to CarterMatt on YouTube and remember to bookmark our Outlander playlist. We record new videos on the show on Sundays and don’t want you to miss any of them.
We don’t think it’s too big of a book spoiler to say that the Frasers are going to need a bigger home for themselves than just a cabin. Back when this was first constructed at Fraser’s Ridge, the idea at the time was for the two of them to live together alone. They had no idea that Brianna would be joining them, let alone Roger and their newborn grandson. The safe assumption is that everyone is going to head back to the wilderness together, where they can live a shared life for at least the immediate future. (Who knows what the future holds in terms of traveling back to the future, at least for Roger and Bree?) You need a bigger house to fit everyone in.
Production designer Jon Gary Steele has been working on this house for a while, and the question for show fans should be simply this: How long do you decide to wait before the big unveiling on the series? How much time should it be “under construction”? It wasn’t a huge criticism of ours per se, but one of the things that did make us a little antsy in season 4 was how big some of the time jumps were within the first few episodes. We missed a lot of the time after Jamie and Claire’s immediate arrival in America, which is a bit of a bummer since we didn’t really see them land on their feet. Meanwhile, the cabin was mostly built between episodes — and was also furnished in that time. (Recently, our voters voted on the cabin project as the one storyline they wish there was more of on-screen.)
With all of this spelled out, we don’t think you can introduce the Big House as a part of season 5 right away. There are some other events to get to (hello, Gathering?), and we think that this is something that you could include around episode 3 or episode 4. You want to show the passage of time as a gradual thing, and it’s also nice to have something more to build towards, both physically and metaphorically.
The hardest part of waiting is simply going to be through the Droughtlander, especially since there’s going to be a lot of time spent in there wondering what the show version of the house looks like. Our feeling is that it’s something that could be revealed in a trailer — we do think that production will want to keep it under lock and key for a while, but it’s not something that is so secret and sacred that they need to keep it from fans until season 5 premieres. It’s a part of the story, but not so much a key component to the overall plot. It’s not a main source of conflict.
Speaking of production…
Check out the timeline here of all of the different things that need to be done between now and when season 5 premieres.
When do you want to see Outlander season 5 introduce the Big House as a major part of the story? Sound off with some of our opinions below! (Photo: Starz.)