2024 Year in Review

As we prepare to close out 2024, here's a look back at some of the notable events in OUTLANDER fandom over the past year. It was a good year for me personally, in many ways. Here are some of the highlights:



January 17 - A real treat for fans of the Lord John audiobooks: OUTLANDER fan Angela Hickey did an in-depth video interview with Jeff Woodman, the narrator of the Lord John books and stories. This is a long video, about 1 hour and 50 minutes, but definitely worth watching! Thanks, Angela!



January 22 - STARZ announces the episode titles for the second half of Season 7!

Episode 709: "Unfinished Business"
Episode 710: "Brotherly Love"
Episode 711: "A Hundredweight of Stones"
Episode 712: "Carnal Knowledge"
Episode 713: "Hello, Goodbye"
Episode 714: "Ye Dinna Get Used To It"
Episode 715: "Written in My Own Heart's Blood"
Episode 716: "A Hundred Thousand Angels"



February 5 - Big news today about OUTLANDER: BLOOD OF MY BLOOD, the new prequel series! STARZ announces the four main cast members (pictured above) and releases more details about the show that we hadn't heard before. From the press release:

The series will examine the lives of Jamie’s parents, Ellen MacKenzie (Slater) and Brian Fraser (Roy), as well as the origin story of Claire’s parents, Julia Moriston (Corfield) and Henry Beauchamp (Irvine). Per the official description, “The series will center on these two parallel love stories set in two different time periods, with Jamie’s parents in the early 18th century Scottish Highlands and Claire’s parents in WWI England.”

I'm not crazy about the idea of Claire's parents being main characters in this series (because Diana Gabaldon has said she has no interest in writing about them), but I'm trying to keep an open mind.



February 6 - FOURTEEN DAYS, a "collaborative novel" featuring stories by many different authors, is published. Diana Gabaldon has two non-fiction stories in this book. For more information, look here.

March 15 - Diana Gabaldon releases a revised version of the OUTLANDER Timeline!

English version: https://dgabaldon.de/timelineenglish/
German version: https://dgabaldon.de/timeline-der-ereignisse/

For those of you who don't know, this timeline was originally created in 2012 by Barbara Schnell, Diana's German translator and longtime friend. I helped with some of the dates on the original version. Barbara and her son Alex have updated it to include events from MOHB and BEES, and I think it looks great!



March 21 - STARZ announces that the second half of OUTLANDER Season 7 (aka Season 7B) will be coming in November, 2024. Many fans were disappointed to hear they'd have to wait eight more months to see it. I had a somewhat different reaction: "November?!? So much for my nice relaxing holiday season this year!" (And indeed, keeping up with Season 7B has kept me busy through the holidays this year!)

March 25 - STARZ announces that Season 8 filming has begun at last! This will be the final season of OUTLANDER, and it will be 10 episodes long.



April 8-9 - This one has nothing to do with OUTLANDER, but it was definitely one of the highlights of the year for me personally. I visited Niagara Falls with my brother and sister-in-law. It turned out to be much too cloudy to get a good view of the total eclipse where we were, but I had a great time seeing the Falls (for the first time since I was about 13) and I'm glad I was able to go.



May 1 - In honor of Jamie Fraser's birthday, I put together a new collection of quotes, focusing on Jamie's ability to learn from his mistakes over the course of his life. Hope you enjoy it!



June 1 - In celebration of World Outlander Day (the anniversary of OUTLANDER's publication in 1991), STARZ releases a new trailer for the second half of Season 7, including the news that OUTLANDER Season 7B will premiere on November 22, 2024.



June 10 - In honor of the 10th anniversary of WRITTEN IN MY OWN HEART'S BLOOD (Book 8 of the OUTLANDER series, aka MOBY or MOHB), I put together a collection of some of my favorite quotes from that book. Hope you enjoy them!



June 29 - Road Scholar's alumni magazine publishes an interview with me about their Adventures Online series of virtual travel programs, which I really enjoy. Some of my favorite destinations have included Easter Island, Machu Picchu, and even Antarctica! Here's a copy of the article in PDF format so you can read it for yourselves. (Yes, there's definitely an OUTLANDER connection to my Road Scholar adventures! Look here for details.)



July 26 - To celebrate the start of the Paris Olympics, I updated my OUTLANDER Olympics blog post, a collection of quotes from Diana Gabaldon's books that feature athletic prowess of various kinds. Not all of these examples have equivalents in the modern Olympic Games, but many of them do. Hope you enjoy it!



Mid-July through late August - I didn't do a lot of blogging in the summer of 2024, because I was suffering from pain in my left (dominant) wrist, affecting my ability to type for long periods of time. Wearing a thumb splint (shown above) seemed to help, but the pain didn't go away. Eventually I saw a specialist who diagnosed it as a form of arthritis affecting the small bones in my wrist, and I got a cortisone shot in late August that has relieved the symptoms.



August 28 - Outlandish Observations turns 16 years old! Sixteen years....wow, that's amazing, even to me! Really hard to believe I've kept it up that long! I'm delighted, as always, to see that people are still enjoying it. Thank you so much!



September 27 - "It's a wrap!" The last day of filming for the 8th and final season of OUTLANDER. Many, many thanks to the entire cast and crew!!



September 30 - October 6 - My travel adventures continue! I took a week-long trip to Sedona, AZ, and the Grand Canyon! I'm disabled and use an electric scooter to get around, so traveling is difficult for me. This was by far the most logistically complicated trip I've ever done without a friend or family member along to help, but everything worked out really well, and I had a wonderful time! I loved the gigantic red rock formations in Sedona, and the Grand Canyon is just breathtaking!



As a special treat, on the final day of my trip, I was able to spend the afternoon with Diana Gabaldon, who lives in Scottsdale, AZ. We both enjoyed that rare opportunity to spend some time together as friends, just relaxing, without the pressure of hordes of fans at a book-signing or other public appearance. Given how busy Diana has been this year, I very much appreciated the fact that she took the time to get together with me! We stopped briefly at her house, where I took this photo of her.



October 9 - STARZ releases the new opening credit sequence for OUTLANDER Season 7B!



October 18 - STARZ releases the new key art for Season 7B.



November 11 - Outlandish Observations has a new look! I updated my blog theme to a more modern, responsive theme that should be easier to read on mobile devices. Hope you like it! I also announced that I have deleted my X/Twitter account, and I'm starting to explore alternative social media sites. You can follow me on Threads and Bluesky, as well as my Outlandish Observations Facebook page.

November 22, 2024 - Mid-January 2025 - The second half of OUTLANDER Season 7, aka Season 7B, is airing on STARZ! I'm enjoying the new episodes very much, especially as they seem to be sticking closer to the books. As always, I'm delighted by the reaction to my detailed episode recaps! It takes a lot of time and effort to put those together, but it's worth it.



December 5 - Caitriona Balfe is nominated for a Critics Choice Award for Best Actress in a Drama Series!



December 12 - My Outlandish Observations Facebook page now has more than 16,000 followers!

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I hope you enjoyed this look back at 2024. Wishing you all a Happy New Year, and all the best in 2025!