Caitriona Balfe wonders if Outlander could end with season 7

The droughtlander grows ever shorter. Season 6 of Starz’s flagship show Outlander is due out on March 6, and after long production delays due to COVID restrictions, it’s coming not a moment too soon for fans who were left hanging by the season 5 finale in early 2020. Outlander is getting a shortened run this year, only six episodes, but they’re likely to be pretty powerful, as we’ll see Claire (Caitriona Balfe) recovering from her brutal assault at the end of the previous season and the Frasers navigate the beginning of the Revolutionary War.

It’s been quite a run for the historical drama, which has come a long way since Claire touched a standing stone in Craigh na Dun and was transported back in time to 18th century Scotland. The show has traveled from the Jacobite Rebellion to the intrigues of the French nobility, the Caribbean, and the Americas. It’s spanned centuries and generations.

But all shows must eventually end, and while Outlander is still one of Starz’s leading series, star Caitriona Balfe at least is wondering how long it will go on.

Will Outlander go past season 7?

The topic of Outlander’s eventual conclusion came up recently in an interview Balfe did with Vanity Fair. The actress admitted she wasn’t sure when the show might finish, but wondered how long it could continue. “We will have hit the almost 10-year mark by the end of [season 7], which feels like a nice kind of time frame, but we don’t know. Those decisions are far above my pay grade.”

The Outlander book series by Diana Gabaldon currently spans nine novels, with the author hard at work on the tenth and final book. The latest, Tell The Bees That I Am Gone, came out in November of 2021. The show’s sixth and seventh seasons will be roughly adapting books six and seven respectively, which means that even after the end of season 7 there will be three more novels’ worth of material to get through.

Should the show continue, Gabaldon is confident that she’ll finish her book series ahead of it. “They’ll never catch me,” the author said, when asked about the show’s steady pace. “I will certainly finish the 10th book before they finish the show.”

For what it’s worth, the brass behind the scenes still seems very gung ho about Outlander carrying on as long as it can. Per the Daily Record, executive producer Maril Davis made it sound like the show still had plenty of steam behind it at the Television Critics’ Association in 2019.

“We’ll keep making this until Claire and Jamie are a hundred,” she said. “Honestly, we will. There’s still many more books to go. And if Starz and Sony are willing, we’re willing, and if the actors are willing, we’ll keep going.”

Whether Outlander finishes after season 7 or makes it all the way to the end of season 10, it’s already given viewers one heck of a ride. In the end it may come down to how long the studio can keep on the actors who have already given almost a decade of their lives to the production.

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