From Sea to Skye: Outlander is your next obsession

Outlander is a television series on the STARZ network about a woman who time travels and is made to choose between two lives, the one she was born to and the one she was sent to. The series is based on Diana Gabaldon's book series by the same name and encompasses genres of romance, historical fiction, fantasy, science fiction and adventure.

I love this show so much I even ended up spending my 2019-2020 New Years in Scotland.

Here are my top five reasons why this gem is a must-watch:

5. You will be lost in this well-developed world

From the expansive and stunning cinematography that shows you the green, luscious scenery of Scotland to the care taken into the very costumes of each character, the audience is immersed into the lived-in world Outlander provides. This is due to most of the show being filmed on-location in Scotland!

I am a dork and actually went on an Outlander tour given in Scotland when I visited the country in late December 2019, early January 2020.

These aren't exactly your typical sets. There is real history in the castles and great manor locations used in Outlander that provides the background to this historical fiction story. I am neither artist nor photographer but its logical to say that there is no bad picture of these architectural wonders.

This is obviously not about my trip there, which was fabulous by the way, but how the show invests you into the world of Outlander. You are an outsider looking in just like the main character is, a Sassenach, and you discover this world around you past the mysticism it is shrouded in. You cannot understand the Gaelic language being spoken or the actions being taken but you slowly start to become a part of this world like Claire.

4. Every character gets a perspective

Sometimes in stories of time traveling we never get to see what happened in one story line left behind in another time. That is not the case with Outlander. Though our heroine Claire may be stuck in the 18th Century the story hops back and forth through the time she came from to the time she fell through to tell the story of the people she left behind.

From the very beginning you are drawn into the action and emotion. The show does a fantastic job in setting up our side characters as they struggle to process what is happening in the story. You feel the pain of loss as well as the push for adventure.

Though our main POV is always with Claire, other characters are not left behind or made static. This may seem like a normal thing for an ensemble show to pursue but it is done in a very unique way in Outlander.

With our heroine being plucked out of time, we get to see the worlds around her as they develop and change.

This sweeping through the years of a story turns adversaries into friends and vice versa. You get to see everyone's development regardless of what time they are in. No character is left a mystery without their motivations laid bare to the audience. Whether you sympathize with their struggle is completely reliant on the individual audience member yet you are not left without answers to why a character chose a path.

3. The Villain of this story is the most terrifying man imaginable

I cannot stress this enough, the main villain in the beginning of this show used to give me literal nightmares. It is not much of a spoiler to say the villain of this story is the ancestor of a beloved person in the heroine's life.

She is left with the conundrum of if she destroys this vile man will she be destroying the life of a good person from her own time period? This is made a more difficult matter to the audience as both the ancestor and the descendent are played by the same actor.

You cannot look at one without thinking of the other.

There is nothing redeemable about this villain and that is made clear very quickly in the storyline. One of my favorite quotes from the show is when the villain asks our heroine, "You think I cannot control the darkness I inhabit?" The man is a sadistic abuser who makes it very clear that it is not possible to debate the matter.

The show does have its twists and turns with this character but there is no focus on a redemption arc. Many characters do try to forgive and give the man a chance only to be reminded what a horrible person he is. Eventually, we as the audience learn that there is neither reason nor sympathy to be had over our villain.

In a world of endless excuses for white angry male privilege that fangirls tend to bend over backwards to try to sympathize with this is a refreshing albeit frighteningly honest take.

We are made to experience the heart of darkness here, if you will, and the show leaves no stone unturned in terms of the depravity this character sinks into. To add to the sucker punch of that, this villain wears the face of a beloved character in another timeline. We go through the emotions of that with Claire as her love for that character is constantly at odds with her unbridled hate for this villain.

A heavy trigger warning in this show in matters of themes of rape. I will say it now and I will say it again, this show is extremely realistic about the abuses people suffered in a time of war and little justice.

2. Holy Shit, Scotland History is Fascinating

I think when most of us think of Scotland we think of Mary Queen of Scots. Consequently, the story of Outlander is based on her descendant, the last of the House of Stuart, trying to regain a foothold of power in England from the House of Hanover.

The main storyline in the beginning of the series is the impending doom of the Battle of Culloden Moor. Our heroine knows that this battle not only ends badly for the Scottish rebels she is finding shelter with but also marks the end of the Scottish Highland culture altogether. Now I consider myself a nerd of this kind of subject and though I knew the Scottish culture was subdued around this time the emotion behind this loss never really registered in my mind.

We never think of Scotland as a place that had another nation's ways imposed upon them. Perhaps this is an American folly. Though most of us know The United Kingdom is made up of several surrounding areas the British imposed their rule upon how that cultural divide still holds comes as a shock.

As a Puerto Rican and an American, I can sympathize with the Scottish rebels.

The show does a good job of showing the disrespectful way the British treated its Scottish citizens. The undermining of the Scottish Clan system, the brutality of the invading army, and the impending loss of this rich culture is felt deeply. It is more complicated than that of course when you add in the Jacobite Rebellion's reasons for uprising but from the perspective of the show it is impossible to not grow sympathy for their cause.

Of course, we know Scotland never truly lost its flavor. Though historically the English tried to repress Scottish culture by banning the wearing of tartans and the systematic way they tried to force their language over the Gaelic one we have seen a resurgence of Scottish pride. The Gaelic language has been saved from extinction linguistically speaking and tartan wearing is no longer a criminal offense.

The show does not outright villainize all its British characters either.

It shows that there are both sides to a war, losses that shape the choices made on each side, and consequences to one's actions. We are all tumbling down the rabbit hole of historical fiction with our heroine, Claire, as she comes upon the big figures of this historic moment in U.K. history. Later on, we even get to meet historical figures from other places like France and even the United States.

Every character is humanized with their faults and their strengths. This is not just for the historical figures but the fictional ones as well. Easily, this story could have made villains out of certain characters and stuck with it. Yet we see the humanity in each person Claire meets, even the ones we don't want to understand because they scare us, and that is a reflection upon the show's great casting as it is on its use of the storyline.

1. Romance Lives

We follow Claire Randall, a nurse coming from her World War II tour in the 20th century, onto the mad world of 18th Century Scotland on the brink of their ill-fated rebellion against the English.

Now, usually when I see something favored for its "romance" aspects I get flashbacks to when everyone was into Fifty Shades of Grey and I recoil. However you may feel about those books and consequential movies, Outlander made me change my mind entirely about what it takes to make an epic love story.

What I have come to find in most media is that a love story between a woman and man lacks depth and connection. I find more compelling stories of people loving their pets than each other in this day and age. Nothing is wrong with that, I too love my dog more than I have loved any boyfriend or girlfriend I have had, but the lack of captivating stories that evoke emotion takes its toll.

I can only speak from my experience, but I had started to associate love stories, at least straight ones, as a matter of self-interested parties. You got in, you got what you wanted, and you got out without any investment into anything. If this is what love had to offer then I wanted nothing to do with it. Whether the story was from a man's or a woman's perspective, I still did not see any growth that made me connect to the characters and their plight.

One can grow cynical forever or try something new.

As Outlander was advertised as a science fiction adventure show I initially had no idea what I was getting into romance wise. I had not (and still have not) read the books the show is based on despite they seeming right up my alley but I am a sucker for a time traveling story line. It takes just a few episodes to get drawn into the drama of Claire's life as she tries to balance her old life and the new one being thrust upon her. Initially, we do not see Claire as the object of anyone's desire but as a heroine of the story itself.

She is our time traveler and we are on this journey with her. As matters begin to grow more complicated we start to understand the stakes. Claire is not just choosing between her old life and the new one thrust upon her but the husband left behind in the 1940s and the young strapping hero of the 18th century world she has been dropped into.

Romance novel cliche aside, this is less a matter of longing as it is one of survival. The show is realistic on what it means to be a woman alone in these difficult times when simply having medical knowledge could be mistaken as witchcraft. Claire is not here to swoon over either choice set before her, she is here to be a calculating, inventive, and clever main character who you find yourself rooting for.

Yet being the hero of the story does not mean she has to face everything on her own in order to be considered "strong".

Claire is often the one rescuing others from whatever calamity is on its way. That being said, she is facing a task set before her that would drive any person insane. She is relatable in her panic and worry and made realistic in the mistakes she makes sometimes trying to survive this gritty world. She comes to find someone she can rely on is this strapping young hero Jamie Fraser and we as the audience start to put down our guards along with Claire.

The story is not about which one saves the other more though if we are counting Claire is the hero here really. The story is about how these two strangers with their own challenges come to rely on each other to face them head on. Everything between the two of them has a build up, a reasoning, and the intimacy is made only more precious by the vulnerability both characters share with each other.

I had never felt so swept away by a romance between a man and a woman because they simply don't develop them like this anymore.

Though the show certainly does not disappoint with its long list of sex scenes to entice the audience that is something any show can give these days. A story that allows its characters to develop not only as individuals but as a couple without sacrificing one for the other is a rarity.

I, for one, was tired of every couple storyline being about how much dissatisfaction they get with each other. The romance carries the story forward in Outlander and you will find yourself swept away by it just as much as you will be by the breathtaking Scottish scenery and the heart-stopping storyline.