Outlander star David Berry disappointed Lord John Grey spinoff fell through, but remains hopeful

Tomorrow, Starz will begin airing new episodes of Outlander, delivering the second half of the show's seventh season. The new season will continue digging into the Outlander books by Diana Gabaldon. We'll get to catch up with the likes of Jamie and Claire Fraser (Sam Heughan and Caitriona Balfe) as well as long-time Fraser family friends like Lord John Grey (David Berry) and John's "son" William (Charles Vandervaart), who is actually Jamie's son, even though Lord John Grey raised him.

William doesn't know Jamie is his real father yet, which will no doubt lead to all kinds of drama once the new episodes start up. In fact, Lord John Grey is such a dynamic character that Gabaldon has written a series of novels and novellas just focused on him, which has led to a lot of fans asking for a Lord John Grey spinoff over the years. Now, for the first time, David Berry is openly talking about the time that almost happened.

“I haven’t spoken about this. But I think that since the series is over, I feel a bit more comfortable talking about it,” Berry told Deadline. “There was a time in Season 4 when we were going to shoot our Lord John series; it had been written— well, there was a writer attached and I’d signed a contract to do a series. It went down to the wire of whether or not it would get approved by the network, but ultimately, at the time, it was decided that that wasn’t the right fit, or wasn’t the right thing for them. I was prepared to do it, and I’m still prepared to do it.”

"Matt [B. Roberts] and Maril [Davis], executive producers on Outlander, have also expressed a lot of interest in doing it. So I guess it really depends on finding a network for it and audience interest in moving forward and doing a spin-off. But definitely, it was something that was on the cards at one point. The fact that it didn’t go ahead was very disappointing at the time. But whether or not it will go ahead again, that’s really in the hands of the audiences, and whether or not there is still an interest in seeing more from this character."

After the second half of season 7 concludes, Outlander only has one season left, and as Berry suggests, they've already filmed it. Outlander has been consistently popular for years, and Starz is already trying to trade on that success with a spinoff called Outlander: Blood of My Blood, which will be all about the romances between the parents of Jamie on the one hand and Claire on the other.

New episodes of Outlander start dropping on Friday, November 21. The first season of Outlander: Blood of My Blood will air sometime next year, and then the eighth and final season of Outlander will follow after that. So Starz is set up with Outlander content for a while, but who's to say they won't want more? Especially with the Lord John Grey books just sitting there waiting to be adapted, a spinoff about the character seems like an idea whose time has drawn near.

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