Outlander NY Premiere

Last night I attended the NY premiere of Outlander’s second half of Season 1. It was a #TartanAffair filled with lines, Scots, and good-looking men in kilts. Oh the episode was pretty good as well 😉

I arrived around 5 to get online as one with Confirmed tickets. I can’t tell you the confusion this was. There were two lines, people with confirmed tickets, and people with first come first serve tickets hoping to get in. We later found out confirmed tickets meant nothing for some (which I will delve into a little later). To give you an idea of the craziness, here are the lines:

They had men dressed in kilts handing out Flasks and taking pictures with the fans. These two gentlemen were most obliging.

Outlander!

The line started moving and my friend Christie and I were stopped RIGHT BEFORE we would move on to get our tickets. Of course we didn’t think anything of it at the time. It was 5:30. Plenty of time to move on and get them for the 7pm showing. So we waited. And waited. And waited. There were scores of people still behind us in the confirmed ticket line and at 6:50 we were all growing a bit impatient/concerned. Finally they let 10 of us go through after standing in the cold, where we were rushed through ticket collection and told, “Hurry! It’s about to begin!” Umm DUH. Not my fault dude.

We finally got in, although the rest of the people in line were left waiting outside. Even though they had been guaranteed seats. I couldn’t understand why they had kept us all waiting and then took a look around when Christie said, “Ahh. All the bigwigs and their press friends are here“. I get it. I do. I’m an actor and I’m far from naïve about these things, however I do have to say that it was poor planning on STARZ part to overbook the fan tickets and leave people (literally) outside in the cold…for hours. Some had travelled from across the country to be there, thinking they were guaranteed seats. Somebody needs to talk to their marketing department. People took to twitter (rightly so) to complain, and @Outlander_Starz apologized and told them there would be a 9pm showing that the cast would attend. However, from what I heard, the cast briefly introduced the episode and then left. Not what people were promised (a red carpet costume exhibit and a Q&A with the cast). Christie and I didn’t get a chance to see the costume exhibit, but we considered ourselves lucky at that point to have gotten in. Hopefully, this won’t happen again and STARZ can better organize events like this in the future. Had to rant about that, now on to the actual episode!

It was introduced by some lassies playing the bag pipes, the president of STARZ and Ronald D. Moore.

Episode 109 “The Reckoning” was very well done. Although were we really surprised? The first part of Season 1 was fantastic, so why would you doubt that part 2 would be any different? The episode picks up right where we left off, with Jaime in that window and Claire at the mercy of Captain Jack Randall. I won’t go into detail for those of you who haven’t read the book, but this episode dealt with some uncomfortable issues that many people have had a problem with in the book. I thought it was done extremely well and handled with humor and understanding, considering the time period. The acting was superb. Some of the material was not the easiest to handle (which sets the tone for what’s yet to come in Part 2 of Season 1), but the actors did a fantastic job of portraying it. There were of course certain things that were cut from the book (unfortunately one of my favorite parts was put to the chopping block 🙁 ) and this was expected due to time constraints, but the way the adapted it made sense. You could see where they still kept the essence of what they removed to get the point across. I really enjoyed Episode 109 “The Reckoning” and can’t wait for everybody else to see it this Saturday!

Following the episode’s premiere, there was a Q&A with the cast moderated by Alicia Quarles from E! News. Sigh. She moderated the first-ever panel for Outlander last year and honestly…she’s not the best. She tries to say she’s a huge fan of the books, but anyone who’s read them and watched her first panel could see that she had no idea what she was talking about half the time. Her interviews tend to be a bit awkward. Wasn’t the best Q&A I’ve seen, but the episode more than made up for it. Here are some pics I managed to snag during the Q&A.