Saying that Starz hit TV show Outlander is unique in understatement. Whereas most TV offerings give us what we've seen before, Outlander strived to be different from the very start. The series began by focussing on Claire Randall—a nurse who finds herself taken back in time from 1940s England to Scotland in 1743—but went on to introducing many more interesting characters.
While Outlander's plot is quite flawless, the series has a couple of mistakes. The most common mistakes are continuity errors that are not quite easy to notice at first glance. Perfection isn't easy so such errors aren't really surprising. Here are some of them.
Claire's White Dress
The pilot episode introduced the viewer to many key elements of the show. Most importantly, there was the time-jump from the 20th century to the 18th century. Claire suddenly finds herself in the bizarre new world and she has to fight to stay alive.
The very first time she walks through the stones, she has a clean white dress with a belt on her waist. There is also a pearl button at the area around her neck. But when she is fleeing from the soldiers and stumbles down the hill, the dress suddenly changes. The belt disappears and the neckline changes too. No pearl can be seen.
Claire's Marriage To Jamie
In Season 1, Episode 7 titled "The Wedding," Claire is already trapped in the past but she's surviving thanks to her good relationship with the Highlanders. However, Black Jack Randall is hunting her, and if she doesn't become a Scot, she'll get captured and suffer eventual torture.
To become a Scot, Claire has to marry Jamie. She suggests that she can't get married to Jamie because she doesn't know his real name. However, in the previous episode titled "The Garrison Commander," she read the full contract which showed both her name and Janie's name.
What's Up With The Sandwich?
Claire doesn't appear in the seventh episode of Season 4 titled "Down the Rabbit Hole" but we see Brianna stepping in the footsteps of her mother and eventually finding herself in Scotland in the 18th century. Roger also tries to follow her after finding the letter she left.
At the beginning of the episode, Brianna can be seen making a sandwich for the trip. She goes on to slice it into two halves. However, when takes out the sandwich to devour it, it's whole again. Well, it appears even sandwiches don't want to be left out of the magic.
Jamie's Severe Injury
In Season 1's fifteenth episode titled "Wentworth Prison," Jamie was in prison, waiting to see how his fate would turn out. Black Jack Randall was eager to give him a death sentence. In the previous episode titled "To Ransom a Man's Soul," Randall had severely tortured him, injuring his hand in the process.
The injury was quite bad but in various consecutive shots covering Jamie, the hand is shown to be severely injured and at other times, it is just covered in a little blood. A fake hand was probably used but the director ought to have stuck with that one instead of switching between it and the real hand.
Jamie's Beard Grew That Quickly?
Another continuity error was seen in the thirteenth episode of Season 3 titled "Eye of the Storm." The main focus was on finding Young Ian who had just disappeared. Claire and Jamie managed to find him in Jamaica. They didn't have to search for too long really.
When all those events are behind them, Claire and Jamie are seen on a boat. Jamie is just about to shave off his stubble. He does so but when they dock at the New World shores only a few hours later, Jamie's beard appears to have grown so much once again.
Brianna's Magical Cape
Jamie and Claire's daughter Brianna was given all the focus once again in Season 4, Episode 12, titled "Providence," the episode sees Brianna learning about Stephen Bonnet's arrest from Lord John. Brianna is still with Lord John due to the fake engagement.
She demands to speak to Stephen Bonnet again before his death sentence is carried out. When Lord John's carriage moves away, Brianna's outfit doesn't have a cape on it. But when she and Lord John move closer to the jailhouse, she is suddenly seen with a black and blue cape.
Discussing Jamie
How often do screenwriters forget what happened in the previous season? Not often. But when you are dealing with a TV series with multiple episodes, amnesia can kick in. A continuity error occurs between Season 1's ninth episode titled "The Reckoning" and the Season 2 premiere titled "Through a Glass, Darkly."
In the latter, Claire finds herself in the modern-day once again and she is still trying to digest the crazy experiences she had in Scotland. She finds it hard to tell anyone about it but she eventually decides to speak to Mrs. Graham. She tells Mrs. Graham that she referred to Jamie as a 'sadist' once and he didn't understand her. However, in "The Reckoning," she also called him a sadist and he denied it, implying that he understood her perfectly well.
The Plaid Seemed Unsettled
Going back to the pilot episode. we see Claire being taken to a cabin filled with Highlanders after being captured by Mutargh. There she finds Jamie, who suffered an injury during the battle in the forest battle. She offers to give him some minor help with the injury and thus includes adjusting the bones on the injured shoulder.
The Highlanders decide to go on a ride and they bring Claire with them. Jamie, who initially wearing a plain shirt before, puts a plaid over his shoulder as they step outside. During his conversation with Claire, the plaid keeps changing positions between consecutive shots without him touching it. In some shots, it appears over his shoulder and in others, it's around his neck.
Healing Powers?
Heading back to Season 1's episode titled "The Wedding," plenty of events take place. Claire resigns to becoming the new Mrs. Fraser to avoid punishment from Black Jack Randall and the Red Coats. A Scottish wedding is thus arranged and Claire looks kinda gloomy throughout the ceremony.
A couple of Scottish traditions are adhered to during the ceremony and one of them involves the slicing of wrists to allow blood to flow out. Claire and Jamie have their wrists sliced and they bleed a bit. In later shots, the cuts disappear as though they never existed. Did someone steal Wolverine's healing powers?
When Did He Wear The Coat?
In Season 1, Episode 5 titled "Rent," the MacKenzie clan gathers in order to go around collecting the rent from the tenants together. They drag Claire and Jamie along with them. When Dougal is addressing villagers at the pub, he brings Jamie to the front and tries to use his scars to draw sympathy and outrage for the rebellion.
When he rips Jamie's shirt to reveal his scars, the camera in on Dougal's back. He is wearing a white shirt and no coat. In the next shot that shows him facing a camera, he suddenly has a coat on. The shots were consecutive so he really didn't have time to wear the coat.