Outlander breaks new ground

The latest season of time-travelling action-romance series Outlander might be set in the 18th century, but its themes feel both timeless and timely. As the series’ fourth instalment of 13 episodes (each dropping Mondays on Lightbox) opens, it’s been four months since Claire (Caitriona Balfe) and Jamie Fraser (Sam Heughan, both pictured) washed up on the shores of Georgia.

Since then, they’ve made their way to North Carolina, but 1767 America is no place for the faint-hearted, even if you’re a 20th century nurse or a Highland warrior.

After witnessing the brutal justice carried out by officials, the pair begin their search for a passage home to Scotland. But when they cross paths with a wanted criminal, Irish pirate and smuggler Stephen Bonnet (Ed Speleers), they are faced with a choice – hand him over to the authorities, or help him escape.

After much debate, they decide on the latter, a course of action for which Bonnet appears most grateful. That also prompts Jamie to reflect on whether they shouldn’t stay in this country

‘‘where the only limitations are a person’s own ability and will to succeed’’.

However, Claire warns that things aren’t quite so rosy for the natives in the future and that they are only eight years from ‘‘being on the wrong side of history again’’.

Based on author and series consultant Diana Gabaldon’s fourth Outlander book – 1997’s Drums of Autumn – the first hour certainly provides plenty of food for thought and compelling drama to be resolved. It’s true that with its steamy love scenes, soaring-strings score and soft-focus fantasy this is more Dr Quinn Medicine Woman or Quantum Leap (although Gabaldon was actually inspired by one of the companions on Doctor Who in the 1960s) than Game of Thrones, but, thanks to the charismatic Balfe and Heughan the melodrama never feels syrupy.

Their new surroundings also help refresh the action, even if some of the dialogue is still a little too ripe.

‘‘You and I know better than most how fleeting life can be,’’ Claire reminds Jamie. ‘‘Nothing is lost Sassenach, only changed,’’ he replies.

‘‘That’s the first law of thermodynamics.’’

‘‘No, that’s faith.’’

However, by the end of the inaugural offering, entitled American the Beautiful, even newbies to the storyline will be shaken and stirred by a perfectly pitched and haunting final scene – one that resonates as much with the United States of 2018 as it does with the show’s setting some 250 years earlier.

- James Croot

The first hour certainly provides plenty of food for thought and compelling drama to be resolved.