Starz has found its biggest hit in Outlander, the ongoing series that blends romance, time travel, and historical drama to make for a unique tone that has pleased both fans of Diana Gabaldon’s novels and fans who only watch the show. Season 6 is set to premiere this March, and the show has already been renewed for a seventh season after that.
So far, each of the five seasons has been based on the corresponding novel in Gabaldon’s Outlander series. If the show continues on this path, Outlander will likely clock in at 10 seasons, as Gabaldon is planning to write one more novel to finish the story she started with the first Outlander novel in 1991. With Season 6 approaching, we thought a rewatch was in order. Here, we’ve come up with our ranking of each season of the show, so far (from worst to best).
Season 4
Season 4 struggled in the villain department with the introduction of Stephen Bonnet (Ed Speleers). Where the series' previous villain Jack Randall (Tobias Menzies) was grounded by a fantastic performance from Menzies, as well as a more interesting psychological profile, Bonnet is cartoonishly cruel, seemingly for the sake of causing problems for our protagonists.
Another thing dragging this season down is its fumbling attempts to reckon with Jamie (Sam Heughan) and Claire’s status as white settlers in America. All attempts to grapple with real issues like slavery and stolen indigenous lands are done via the centering of Claire’s experience, inextricable from her whiteness, making storylines of violence against people of color come across as deeply uncomfortable.
Season 4 delves into the romance between Brianna (Sophie Skelton) and Roger (Richard Rankin), an ultimately baffling relationship that never quite lands how it should. Roger’s extremely misogynist attitude towards Brianna is framed as passionate and romantic, and it’s difficult to reconcile his unlikability with the way his character is handled within the narrative. Brianna, on the other hand, has the potential to be a great character, but her journey is constantly overshadowed by the actions of the surrounding men. Her motivations and attitudes seem to turn on a dime, an unfortunate side effect of the show never really going too far into Brianna’s wants and needs.
Despite being the weakest season overall, Season 4 does contain some great moments. The series deviates from the books greatly by keeping Murtagh (Duncan Lacroix) alive past the Battle of Culloden. His reunion with Jamie and Claire (Caitriona Balfe) in Season 4 is a highlight. Another comes from Jamie and Brianna finally meeting, a long-awaited moment that doesn’t disappoint.
Season 3
The strongest element of Season 3 comes from Menzies as Claire’s first husband Frank. His handling of her return to the present, and their attempts to make their marriage work again make for a compelling storyline, and some great scenes between Menzies and Balfe. The second best comes from Jamie and Claire’s reunion midway through the season, which is every bit as over-the-top romantic as you’d expect from this show.
Though Jamie and Claire’s time apart was shaky at times, the season really starts to stumble in its latter half. The reunion was solid, but it’s after that things get a little weird, even for the standards of a show about time travel. Not long after Claire’s return, Jamie’s nephew Ian (John Bell) is abducted by pirates, leading Jamie and Claire on a nautical journey to rescue him. This storyline is a lot less swashbuckling and a lot more mystical, but just comes off as rather goofy and somewhat out-of-place.
Season 3 does offer up what would become a constant high point for the show moving forward: the addition of Marsali Fraser (Lauren Lyle). Her marriage to Fergus (César Domboy) makes her a series regular, but it’s her relationship with Claire that’s most compelling. Their dynamic goes from one of hostility to one of genuine mother-daughter affection, and it’s quite lovely to watch.
Season 2
After the success of Season 1, Season 2 took some big risks that mostly paid off. While the first season was set in Scotland and mostly focused on Jamie and Claire getting married and falling in love, the follow-up shifted the location to Paris and moved toward the inevitable separation of the central romance.
The Paris plot is something of a mixed bag. On the positive side, costume designer Terry Dresbach was able to create some truly stunning looks for Claire and co., fully embracing the fashion-forward society in Paris. The score offers a creative and fun reflection of the shifting setting, and the friendships Claire is able to form during their time in France are a nice way of giving her meaningful relationships outside of Jamie. Paris is also where the couple finds and adopts Fergus, who quickly becomes a fan-favorite.
However, Jamie and Claire’s plans where the Jacobite rebellion is concerned is where things start to get a bit hairy. In fact, their ideas where time travel comes into play are almost too confusing to consider. They both appear to accept the idea that they can change the future, but following this logic, Jamie’s reaction to Claire’s resistance to him killing her future/past husband’s descendant is baffling given the implications such an act would have on Claire’s own presence in the past. However, these issues are mostly set right (or ignored altogether) when the couple returns to Scotland about halfway through the season, after which some truly great episodes take place.
Season 5
Plot-wise, Season 5 of Outlander has a focus the series hasn’t had since its first outing. Jamie is given his most interesting storyline yet, as he’s caught between protecting his family and protecting his godfather, Murtagh. This conflict eventually comes to a head in one of the best episodes of the series, "The Ballad of Roger Mac." It’s after this episode that the series finally figures out what to do with Roger, who finally gets to shine in an episode about male bonding in the aftermath of trauma.
Claire and Marsali’s relationship continues to develop nicely, as the former takes the latter on as a medical assistant. Claire’s story takes a backseat to Jamie’s this season, but the show remembers to touch on the bond between the two that started it all.
Brianna and Roger still aren’t the most compelling part of the show, but they do get a decent storyline via the realization that their son is able to time travel, thus opening up the option for them to return with him to the future. After all the time they spend with their extended family on Fraser’s Ridge, their choice to stay at the end of Season 5 feels earned. Season 5 also ended with a controversial ordeal for Claire, putting yet another character through a brutal assault that will undoubtedly have a ripple effect throughout Season 6.
Season 1
No other season has yet surpassed the first season of Outlander in terms of quality and consistency. Much of the success of the first season, and the series ongoing success overall, is due to the character of Claire Randall. As a female character, she’s refreshingly rounded, equipped with skills and virtues as well as vices and flaws that make for a compelling protagonist.
The initial storyline of a woman out of her own time is relatively straightforward. The show does a great job of introducing Claire before throwing her into a mysterious and dangerous circumstance she must navigate. Once she puts together that the impossible has happened, she must rely on her own resourcefulness to try to find a way back to her own time.
Jamie complicates things, but also makes things better. Introducing a new love interest into the equation forces Claire to choose between her two lives, and of course, her choice, which the show builds to quite brilliantly, has consequences that result in the rest of the series fans have come to love so much.