The 'Outlander' Season 7 Teaser Confirms Summer 2023 Return

Outlander fans got an extra present from Santa this year, as cable network Starz confirmed that the mega-popular period romance will officially return in 2023. The series, known for its swoony central love story, and complicated time-traveling infused plot, will kick off its seventh season this summer (though the official premiere date has yet to be announced.) Starz also dropped a tantalizing new teaser for the upcoming season, which promised romance and danger in equal measure. 

The lush and romantic series follows the story of Claire Randall (Caitriona Balfe), a World War II nurse who is transported back to mid-eighteenth-century Scotland thanks to a group of magical standing stones. She falls in love with the handsome Scottish warrior Jamie Fraser (Sam Heughan). As Season 7 begins, the Frasers were homesteaders in North Carolina in 1776, and the American Revolution looms in the distance. But if the first teaser trailer for the new season is anything to go by, the question of where — and when — the Frasers belong remains an open one. 

The clip features audio of Jamie describing a dream to his wife, one in which he has apparently dreamed of electric light. When Claire asks how he can dream of something he’s never seen (but knows exists, thanks to her!), he simply says: “I dream of the past. Why would I not dream of the future?”

Unfortunately, that sweet sentiment is somewhat undercut by the omnipresent reminder throughout the brief thirty-second spot of the constant threat of violence that the Frasers and their family constantly lives under. There's a shot of Claire on a gallows with a noose around her neck, Brianna (Sophie Skelton) screaming in what is presumably childbirth, a funeral procession in which the person being mourned isn't revealed,, and a very angry-looking Young Ian. There's also a shot of several characters scooping buckets of water during what appears to be a dangerous fire, presumably the same fated event that initially prompted Brianna to travel to the past in the first place. 

Season 7 of Outlander is reportedly based on An Echo in the Bone, the seventh in author Diana Gabaldon's popular series of novels. However, it will likely include some events from its predecessor, A Breath of Snow and Ashes, that were left out due to Season 6's unexpectedly shortened length. (Thanks for nothing, coronavirus pandemic.)

Season 7 will see the returns of several fan favorites, as various time travel shenanigans will presumably somehow allow us to see some familiar faces again. Graham McTavish (House of the Dragon) is back as Jamie’s uncle Dougal MacKenzie, along with Nell Hudson (Victoria) as Jamie’s ex-wife, Laoghaire Fraser; Layla Burns (She Will) as Marsali’s sister, Joan MacKimmie; Steven Cree (COBRA) as Ian’s father, Old Ian Murray; and Lotte Verbeek (The Blacklist) as a fellow time traveler, Geillis Duncan. Kristin Atherton (Waterloo Road) will take over the role of Jamie’s sister Jenny Murray, which was previously played in Seasons 1-3 by Laura Donnelly (The Nevers). 

Several new faces will also be joining the show this year, including Charles Vandervaart (Lost in Space) as William Ransom, Jamie’s grown son; Izzy Meikle-Small (Ripper Street) as Rachel Hunter, a Quaker woman: Joey Phillips (Doctors) as her brother Dr. Denzell Hunter; and loria Obianyo (Dune) as Mercy Woodcock, a free Black woman trying to navigate life in Colonial America. Rod Hallett (The Last Kingdom) plays the infamous Revolutionary solder turned traitor Benedict Arnold, and Chris Fulton (Bridgerton) is Rob Cameron, a new acquaintance of Roger and Brianna’s. 

Outlander Season 7 will hit our screens in the Summer of 2023. Seasons 1-6 are available to stream on the Starz app.