Outlander Season 6 will be based on Diana Gabaldon’s best-selling novel A Breath of Snow and Ashes, and will pick up the love story of Jamie (Heughan) and Claire Fraser (Balfe) in the tumultuous time in the American colonies prior to the outbreak of the Revolutionary War. One of the reasons why Outlander had a longer delay in production than other shows which resumed filming last fall is that showrunner/executive producer Matthew B. Roberts didn’t want COVID changing the way they tell the story. “We have a lot of intimate scenes—that’s where we live and breathe,” Roberts told Elle. “The solution was relatively obvious: ‘testing, testing, testing, testing.’ We had to figure out how to make sure we tested everybody a million times before they walked onto set and keep that bubble as safe as possible. That was our main focus–making sure everybody feels safe walking onto a set in the studios and locations." And they did that by building a private COVID testing center at the Wardpark Film Studios, where Outlander is filmed, to make the “testing, testing, testing, testing” as easy and timely as possible for the cast and crew. No season of Outlander worth its salt is without at least two passionate sex scenes between Jamie and Claire, which we look forward to in Season 6. But additionally, it’s the day-to-day intimacy between the couple that keeps us coming back for more of their epic love story. And that was another important aspect that Roberts took into consideration when crafting Season 6. “I don’t know how to write ‘COVID-friendly scenes,’ certainly not an Outlander scene, because we are going to have people next to each other, being emotional—you talk close to people, and that’s where it transfers COVID,” Roberts continued. “We had to figure out, how do we keep Outlander, Outlander? So, we wrote the scripts [as originally intended] and dove in with production: Our producer in the U.K., Guy Tannahill, and our new production designer, Mike Gunn, and our staff over there who have worked on Outlander for a long time. We said, ‘Okay, this scene can’t happen like this. If we did this, this, and this, then we can make it happen.’" Since the events that took place in the Season 5 Outlander finale–the rescue of Claire from her abductors–was also adapted from A Breath of Snow and Ashes, there won’t be a big time jump when the series returns. Rather, it will deal with the aftermath of certain aspects of those events, as it continues on with the story as war draws closer and Jamie has a difficult balance to maintain. He must pretend to be loyal to the Crown because Fraser’s Ridge was established on a land grant from the Crown, while he secretly supports the colonists, especially as he already knows the outcome of the war thanks to Claire. “I think what’s going on in the world at the time, 1775, is really similar to what’s going on with Jamie and Claire,” Roberts told Elle. “There’s going to be a revolution with them as well, and I think that’s what’s going on throughout the season: You have a foundation and when that foundation is shaken and there is a revolution, you have to deal with it. That’s kind of the theme of the season.” Want more? See what we learned about Sam Heughan from the first episode of Men in Kilts.
