‘Outlander’ EP Maril Davis Isn’t Happy the Starz Show is Ending, Confirms WGA Strike Has Impacted Season 8 Production

The first episode of Outlander Season 7 neatly wraps up the drama that dominated Season 6 while also setting the stage for what feels like the show’s endgame. Jamie (Sam Heughan) and Claire (Caitriona Balfe) are bracing themselves for the oncoming Revolutionary War, Brianna (Sophie Skelton) and Roger (Richard Rankin) are expecting Baby #2, and key villains have been swept off screen for good. If it feels like Outlander is winding down, that’s because it is. Starz has already confirmed that Outlander Season 8 will be the hit show’s final season. And long-time Outlander executive producer Maril Davis isn’t happy about it.

“I don’t [think it’s time to end the show],” Davis told Decider recently. “I mean, if it was just up to Maril Davis, I would love to see this through to the end of the book series.”

Davis explained that a key problem for them is that Outlander author Diana Gabaldon is still working on Book 10 and the show is close to lapping the story unfolding on the page.

“It would entail us now going on pause, waiting for her to write that book. Is that three years? Is it four years? I don’t know,” Davis said. “I think sometime it has to end. Is this a good time? I’m sure.”

“You know, people want to stretch their wings and do other things. So I’m only going to speak for myself. I would have loved to have continued, but once again, I don’t know. Maybe we’ll do a different iteration in the future. You know, maybe we’ll come back and tell the end of the story. I mean, we’ll have to end it in some way. But you know, story will obviously still continue in the books.”

Outlander stars and EPs Sam Heughan and Caitriona Balfe revealed that they could feel that Season 7 was the beginning of the end on set.

“I mean, it was tangible on the last day of this season. We all suddenly realized, I think on set, we’re like, ‘This is the penultimate time. We’ll only to come back and do this one more time,'” Heughan said. “It’s going to be hard, isn’t it? It’s going to be very sad to say goodbye not only to the characters and the world, but I guess to the crew and our other friends.”

“Yeah. But you know, I do think it’ll be a decade,” Balfe said. “In fact, by the time we finished the next season, it’ll be more than a decade. It’s been such a privilege and such an honor to spend that much time playing these characters, but I think it’s also time for us to try new challenges and to have new experiences.”

While Balfe seemed to be the most at peace with Outlander‘s end, she didn’t shoot down Davis’s idea to come back to the characters later down the line after Gabaldon finishes her books. “I think you never say never. The door’s always open so we’ll see,” she said.

Before we get ahead of ourselves, Starz still has to make Outlander Season 8. Maril Davis confirmed to Decider that the WGA strike has affected pre-production on both Outlander‘s final season and the planned prequel series, Blood of My Blood. She revealed that it’s unclear when they’ll be able to make either season of television.

“Everything’s up in the air. I’m a huge supporter of the Writers Guild. But I don’t — like everyone else — know what’s going to happen. It just depends on how far long this goes and how far we push,” Davis said.