Outlander Is No Game of Thrones, but That’s a Good Thing

The story starts in Scotland in 1945, not long after VE Day. Claire Randall (Caitriona Balfe), a former battlefield nurse, is on a second honeymoon and sightseeing trip with her beloved husband Frank (Tobias Menzies), a historian and ex–British Intelligence officer. Somehow she gets transported via druidic henge to 18th-century Scotland, which was then in open rebellion against the British Crown, and falls in with a roving band of Scottish soldiers, including the aforementioned kilted beefcake fantasy object, Jamie Fraser (Sam Heughan). As Claire comes to terms with the fact that she really, truly is stuck in another century, and that she has no obvious means of return, her chemistry with Jamie starts to morph into an actual relationship, though it would be unfair to describe the twists and turns of that journey in too much detail. She’s a stranger in a strange land. People don’t like or understand the way she talks to them, and they think her bra is some sort of corset (it kind of is).