A STARZ Original Series From Executive Producer Ronald D. Moore: Outlander

[OC Richard]

I see kilts4less/tartan4less is offering an "Outlander" outfit, which appears to be an ordinary outfit with a blue/green tartan in reproduction/weathered colours; of course the outfit is entirely modern and is completely unlike the period dress of the show itself. (Yes there's the ubiquitous ruche tie!)

http://www.ebay.com/itm/OUTLANDER-8-...item20fbd996e7

[ASinclair]

I have not read the books, but I just finished watching season one of the STARZ series Outlander. Beautiful scenery, wonderful music, many interesting characters. The story itself, not so much. My sweetie convinced me to watch so we could have a conversation when others want to discuss it. Although I watched all 16 episodes, she stopped after 3. She told me that was not a conversation she wanted to have.

[OC Richard]

My wife and I have started watching Outlander on DVD, we're four episodes in, and I find the show enjoyable. The casting is excellent, I especially like the MacKenzie chief and his brother. The scenery and cinematography are beautiful.

I'm most impressed by the bold and risky decision to have fairly long stretches of dialogue entirely in Gaelic, and that without subtitles! My sketchy and rusty university Gaelic is being put to the test for sure.

Risky because Pixar's Brave, though in English, was widely shown here in the USA with subtitles, and many Americans complained that they had difficulty understanding the actors.

I applaud Outlander for correctly showing that the Highland milieu was a Gaelic one in the mid-18th century.

The music is very nice, in general, though I find "Comin' through the Rye" a bit corny. The part that rings most true to me is having the piper play piobaireachd in the Great Hall, as he would have done. The piper, by the way, doesn't seem to be playing at all, his bag doesn't seem to be inflated. That surprises me because it's easy to cork off the sounding-pipes and blow the instrument silently but at full pressure, and this is usually how it's done when filming pipers. His pipes are quite anachronistic, the turnery style being the one that didn't come in until the 19th century. This is puzzling because there's a pipemaker in Peebles named Julian Goodacre who makes wonderful reproduction mid-18th century style Highland pipes, and a Scottish piper named Barnaby Brown who plays one of Julian's sets in piobaireachd competition.

Later in that Great Hall scene the piper switches to reels for dancing; my understanding is that the respected pipers who played piobaireachd for the aristocracy disdained of playing ceol beag, and fiddlers or dance-pipers would most likely have played for the dancing.

Of course the Dalgliesh "Reproduction" tartan colour-scheme is an anachronism (by two centuries). One thing that filmmakers always do, which is absurd, is to have kilted people riding around on horses. Think about it. Actually a good proportion of the Highlanders on foot would be wearing trews, and all of the mounted ones.

At the Highland Games last weekend I chatted with a woman who claimed to be a historical costume expert and she went on an anti-Outlander rant, something about knitting in the mid-18th century which went totally over my head. Whatever, I'm enjoying the show.

[Farmer Jones]

I see kilts4less/tartan4less is offering an "Outlander" outfit, which appears to be an ordinary outfit with a blue/green tartan in reproduction/weathered colours; of course the outfit is entirely modern and is completely unlike the period dress of the show itself. (Yes there's the ubiquitous ruche tie!)

http://www.ebay.com/itm/OUTLANDER-8-...item20fbd996e7

<snip>

This has little right to be associating itself with the show. Remove that ridiculous tie and fly plaid, and change the sporran, and the shirt. The basic tweed outfit and colour combination is "fine country gentleman", and I rather like it.