Outlander notes: Squashing silly rumors; Sophie Skelton comments
Let’s start with the one about season 5 being “delayed,” which has spiraled in a number of weird ways. Some sites are speculating that Sam Heughan’s schedule has led to the show being pushed back; one site even claimed that the plan originally was for the show to be done filming this month. Seriously. Here’s the truth: There’s a lot of silliness in all of these claims. When Sam got his honorary degrees recently, one of the things that he noted was that he had the “day off” from filming. Other people were still working!
While we know that we’re in the middle of a long delay until season 5 premieres, there’s nothing unusual about having to wait until 2020 — which is when new episodes will likely premiere. Season 4 premiered in November 2018 and we’ve seen, time and time again, delays of more than 12 months between seasons. Nothing is unusual here.
Before we get off the subject of silly Outlander rumors, let’s also discuss for a moment the Master Raymond “spin-off” — there aren’t any plans for something like this within the TV world at present. This is something that Diana Gabaldon has been looking to do in book form — there’s been a discussion about that for some time but, randomly, it’s starting to be talked about like it’s some recent development. In a lot of ways, consider all of the rumors evidence of the show’s popularity — more and more people are trying to just push out stuff on the show for traffic, regardless of whether or not it’s true.
On a different note…
Sophie Skelton recently spoke with Entertainment Weekly about a notable scene from season 4 — Brianna slapping Jamie during “The Deep Heart’s Core” — and discussed the motivations behind the way that it was played on the show. One of the prevailing thoughts was that “Brianna is Jamie’s daughter,” and after the “gravity of the comment that he’s made” to her in the moment leading up to the slap, this was a reaction that the character would have. As she puts it, her character was “in defense mode” as a victim of a terrible assault:
“I think if somebody questioned you or told you it was your fault or that you lied about it, you would lash out in a way that you might not be able to comprehend, had you not been through that experience.”
The entire interview is a fascinating look at the thought and care that was put not only into the horrific assault scene with Bonnet, but also the aftermath of it.
Photo: Starz