Have any Diana Gabaldon fans out there seen the first episode of the miniseries yet? I saw it last night, thanks to my friend Kate’s TV service. (Mine doesn’t include Starz, which most of the time is fine with me. I can’t condone whimsical misspelling.) Here, in no particular order, are some thoughts:

1) It spent much more time than I expected working through the events that happened in Claire’s life before she travels back in time. The miniseries provides flashbacks to Claire’s years of service as a war nurse in World War II (“Why are they making it look like World War I?” Kate asked. “I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe they got a deal on some leftover props from Downton Abbey.”) and  flashbacks to Claire’s childhood, which she spent with her eccentric archaeologist uncle. The first episode also spent a very leisurely 45 minutes or so on the trip Claire takes with her 20^th-century husband, Frank. Kate and I spent a half hour or so dissecting this choice after the episode was over. From reading the books, we both know that once the series’ main plot gets going, we aren’t going to care much about Frank Randall or World War II or the check-in clerk at the inn in Inverness who hears Frank and Claire having sex. But we also know that when the time comes for Claire to choose to stay with Jamie in the 18^th century rather than going back to Frank, it will be important that the viewers understand what a difficult choice this is. Frank needs to be portrayed as smart and loving and sexy so Claire will have something at stake for the rest of the miniseries. Which brings me to my next point:

2) Frank is not portrayed in a very appealing way. He’s competent, sure. He likes to tool around the countryside in a little convertible, and who doesn’t like little convertibles? At one point, Claire’s voiceover expresses some anxiety about whether their relationship will be the same now that they’ve reunited after the war – and I don’t think this anxiety was present in the books. I would have rather seen Claire in love with Frank with no doubts at the moment that she goes through the stones.

3) Other characters are really good, namely Jamie Fraser and his entourage of scruffy Scottish ruffians. I’m optimistic that once the miniseries leaves the 20^th century behind, it will be as engrossing as the books usually are.

4) I don’t actually know what “cinematography” is, but I’m thinking that the cinematography was a little melodramatic for my taste. I’m talking about some very dramatic music that I think was supposed to sound like the wind whistling through the trees, and also about several sequences that simply presented images without developing the plot. I’m not even saying that these sequences are badly done – only that I wanted to see the plot get moving more quickly. If the entire miniseries is like this, I’ll be annoyed. If not, I can deal.

5) There is something ‘off’ about Claire’s character. Kate said the same thing, but we couldn’t really put our fingers on the problem. My instinct is to say that she is too “buttoned up” – in other words, she looks and acts like a demure, innocent young woman but speaks more like the experienced professional nurse that she is (although there is one scene in which she demands cunnilingus in a ruined castle, so you should disregard this theory). But there is something missing from her character: her Claireness. That’s it – her Claireness is missing. Doesn’t “Claireness” sound like it ought to be a suburb of Inverness?

I would love to know what others thought!