Back to Fraser’s Ridge. Outlander fans have been waiting for season 7 since May 2022, and the hiatus (nicknamed “droughtlander”) finally has an end in sight.
Outlander season 7 will debut in summer 2023, Starz announced in December 2022. The network revealed that Jamie (Sam Heughan) and Claire (Caitríona Balfe) will be back in a trailer released just ahead of the holidays.
The teaser features Jamie telling Claire about a dream. “There was light all around you. It wasn’t a candle light nor fire light. I thought, ‘Now that must be what electric light is like,’” the 18th century Highlander tells his wife.
Claire, who time-traveled from the 20th century, asks, “How can you recognize something you’ve never seen in real life?”
It’s simple to Jamie, who replies, “I dream of the past. Why would I not dream of the future?”
The twosome look happy in bed together in one scene, but it quickly becomes clear that it won’t be all romance for the Frasers. The American Revolution is in full swing with a notice about the Declaration of Independence being ripped down, a casket being carried to a grave and Claire in a noose at the gallows.
The sixth season of Outlander ended with Claire being arrested for murder, and Jamie has to find her. “We pick up shortly after the end of last season, which is a great cliffhanger,” Heughan exclusively told Us Weekly in June 2022.
“America really is in sort of turmoil. There’s revolution, and Jamie and Claire are separated,” the Waypoints author teased. “There’s also the prophecy of Jamie and Claire’s death, you know, that they’re supposed to die in a fire. There’s just so much going on.”
That’s partly because last season was cut short after the eighth episode amid COVID-19 protocols and Balfe’s maternity leave (she and husband Tony McGill welcomed a baby boy in August 2021). The four missing installments will be part of the upcoming season, bringing the historical drama‘s 2023 arc to 16 episodes.
“This really is a super-sized season,” Heughan told Us. “We really start off with a bang. The first couple episodes are really strong.”
As they head into season 7, it’s still hard for the Scottish actor to imagine Outlander coming to an end one day. “We’ve been in it for so long now, [and Balfe and I] talked about what it would be like without the show. And I think both of us — I don’t know. It’s gonna be like not having your whole life, right? And it is, it’s my whole life, so it will be strange.”
He doesn’t have to worry about running out of story, though. Diana Gabaldon‘s Outlander book series includes nine novels so far and the author has stated the 10th will likely be the final book.
“I suppose you do [think about it as a 10-season show],” Heughan said. “I know that we’ve pulled from other books last season — this season as well we’re doing that. … There’s so much still to happen before we even get toward the end. But we shall see, I guess. It’s all in Diana Gabaldon’s wonderful mind.”
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