This is another post long in the making, but with filming moving to Cape Town, South Africa for a few months now, I think it’s a good time to get on with this here as well.
28: Virtue’s Guardian | 29: Culloden’s Last Victim | 30: Rendezvous | 31: Smuggler’s Moon
When I listened to these chapters (some time ago, I admit) with the “how to adapt it for TV” focus in my mine I almost felt guilty for all my “Oh, they can easily leave that bit out, I wouldn’t mind” thoughts. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy reading (and listening to) every part of the story, because I do. The multi-layered narrative and all the different characters are one of the reasons I did enjoy the story so much when I first read it. And I still enjoy them, while I’m reading it. But they are not all vital to the core plot about Claire and Jamie and their family and friends, right?
So, plots I can do without. The whole Reverend Campbell and his sister Margaret bit. For a while I thought they’d be in the TV story because of something that happens on Jamaica later on, but I realized events on Jamaica could just happen any other way as well. So I kind of hope they will just leave them all out. The same goes for most of the smuggling story. As much as I like that Jamie has various aliases and does all these things in secret, it’s might be too complicated with all the little subplots to make it work on TV. I’ve read “Voyager” a couple of times, but even now when I listened to these chapters again I still can’t figure out (or remember) what the whole deal was. Who was working against Jamie and why? Who killed the excise men and who was the guy who died in the fire? I guess they will have to include some of this plot, because I think they’ve filmed the fire at the print shop?
Something in favour of including some of the smuggling storyline is that they would have needed to film some of it at the wild Scottish coast and I always love seeing footage of that. So we’ll just have to wait and see, I guess.
There are a few single scenes I would love to see on screen, but I’m not sure how they will fit in.
Fergus talking Jamie into letting Young Ian have sex with one of the whores and explaining that he did the same with Young Ian’s brothers.
And the conversation between Jamie and Claire after Jamie went to confession (as good example for Young Ian) in which Jamie tells Claire that she is a great-aunt.