Outlander's Ronald D. Moore talks Revolutionary War era, teases 'more than one' spinoff idea

After all the hell it put its hero through, Outlander ended its fifth season with a satisfying reunion between Claire and Jamie (and perhaps an even more satisfying death, thanks to Marasli’s newfound gumption). With all that Claire had to endure to reach that moment of peace, the Season 5 finale almost felt like a retrenchment; a way to pause and look forward at what Starz might be planning next.

While the series has mostly followed the one season/one book formula as it moves through the Diana Gabaldon novels on which it’s based, there’s still a ton of ground to cover as development on Season 6 gets underway. Speaking recently to Collider, show creator Ronald D. Moore didn’t get too specific about the details, but said the upcoming season will definitely lean heavily into the Revolutionary War setting that Gabaldon has laid down in the novels.

“People who saw this last season; the fifth season, saw that we were already starting to pull from certain things from Book 6 and other books in the series. We’ve always been sort of free to kind of play around with some of the chronology and borrow things from different books,” Moore said. “So we’re not perfect about a book a season, and we’ll continue that going forward.

“The large arc that’s still defining where we are is, we’re in the New World; we’re in the American colonies, and the American Revolution is getting closer and closer. So that’s like a big thing that’s gonna be moving front and center the further we get into Season 6.”

A Breath of Snow and Ashes, the next Gabaldon book due for Starz’s TV adaptation, takes the Frasers out of the turmoil of establishing a homestead in North Carolina and into the turmoil of negotiating loyalties as the violent beginnings of the colonies’ break with Britain looms. As with all of Outlander, things only get more interesting because of Claire’s time-hopping back and forth to her original 20th-Century life, as well as encountering and recognizing fellow time-stranded travelers back in her new (or is it her old?) 18th-Century haunts.

Fans eager for a status update on a potential Outlander spinoff won’t come away with any big revelations from Moore’s new remarks about whom that series might involve and where it could be set. But it definitely sounds as if Starz is serious about getting one of Moore’s ideas off the ground.

“We’re still talking about it,” Moore said. “Starz is interested and we’re definitely in conversations. Sony and Starz are in conversations about a spinoff series, yeah…We have more than one idea. We have a couple of ideas, and it’s still in internal conversations, so we’re not really prepared to go out and say what it is.”

While Outlander already has gotten the green light for a sixth season, we don’t yet know when to expect Claire’s next TV chapter to begin — especially with the industry-wide production delay brought on the by coronavirus pandemic. In the meantime, there’s plenty of ground to cover if you’re just now getting on board: You can catch up with all of Outlander’s first five seasons at Starz.