Random thoughts about Outlander
It's been such a long time since I haven't fangirled on a TV show it seems almost alien to me. I remember having this weird behaviour of the crazy fangirl (aka make unhuman noises when scrolling through tumblr, trying HARD to dream about the show but falling just as hard, reblogging even the randomest and/or ugliest edit from the show just because and counting the days before Saturday) since...? Hum, I think since Game of Thrones season 3 and Once Upon A Time season 1. All I have to say is it's a heart-warming, nice and good feeling. Finally I have something to look forward to, a brand new obsession to talk, search, drool about all day.
I think there is a strong link between the fact Outlander is marketed for women and that's I'm crazy about. Like every complaint I can have had for Game of Thrones mysteriously doesn't appear in Outlander. I can think of the uselessness of having as a background (or in the foreground) nameless naked women who are all probably porn stars and will not re-appear in the show or will have a name attached to their faces at some point of the story. Nudity and sex is gratitious in Game of Thrones or all the other cable shows I've watched (except Sex and the City). The sole purpose of those scenes are to please the male's gaze while they don't even show the same courtesy for the female's gaze. But I finally shut up when I read the demographics of GoT (58% of male are watching this show) and some male comments ("I love there is a lot of sex"). Business' first and sex sells.
Let's not talk further about GoT and let's concentrate on Outlander. I feel like it's really for women because even though it's a cable there is no useless nude scenes. The director and the scriptwriter only focuse on the story and refuse to throw some cheap filler in other to make it 55 minutes long. I can think of episode 3 where it has as a filler (in order to make Claire's time at Castle Leoch less dull and more entertaining for us) an unknown illness which is revealated by Claire to be a poisoning instead of the Devil coming for innocent children. I didn't know it was a filler (well, I haven't read the books yet but I bought it. I hope I can spare some time to read 600+ pages plus the sequels) until I read it on some review blogs. I couldn't have even figure it out if it wasn't for those blogs. It just shows how it worked well.
As for the story of Outlander, I think it has everything in it to drive me crazy. By the way, it's first thanks to the synopsis I gave this show a try. Since I'm bad at resuming series, I'll use Taystee's words from Orange is the new black "Lady travels back in time to Scotland, hooks up with this big sexy outlaw type and they be gettin'it on and shit". Of course, it's not only that but I'm craving for some historical show (I totally love period costumes and raw sceneries) and I loooooove time travels. Let's not talk about how I'm totally crazy about fantasy and then imagine all that in one show.
As if it wasn't enough, the cast is flawfree so are the characters. The main character Claire Beauchamp (played by Caitriona Balfe, an ex-model no less) is strong and convince us really well she's not only an outlander but also lost and confuse and actually has natural reactions (like trying to run away to go back to her husband -Frank Randall- in the 40s). She's refreshing. I've read a ton of Young adult fantasy (yeah I know, that's bad) and the girl always forget who she is when she set her eyes on the pretty bad boy. Gah. No brains at all. But here, with Jaime Fraser (played by Sam Heughan), I can actually understand them. Look at this Nature's masterpiece:
*SIIIIGH* That's all I do when I see this fine red-haired Scot. He's a big bonus on this show and add even more layers to my current obsession. It is Saturday yet?