It’s always been about passion. Passion fuels the fans as they fall hopelessly in love with the principles and principals of Outlander. And it drives the story, keeping its characters simmering, in a romance for the ages.

Outlander winds down with its eighth and final season next year, but no one could let it simply die, quietly slipping into endless syndication and eventual trivia questions. Universally beloved – except by those bestowing awards – the show had to go on.

Filling that need, Outlander: Blood of My Blood premieres with two of its 10 episodes. (It’s already renewed for a second season.) The prequel reveals the origin stories of Outlander’s main characters, Claire and Jamie (Caitriona Balfe and Sam Heughan), by focusing on their parents. Fittingly, both sets of parents were also ruled by passion.

“The passion is also transferable,” says Hermione Corfield, who plays Claire’s mother, Julia. “You’ve got the romantic passion – a lot of the characters are driven by their hearts and are willing to do anything to follow their hearts. But I think that also applies for their passion to their clan, or to their families, or to their cause. Everyone is passionate and passionate in different shades, depending on what their main plight is.”

Claire’s parents, like their daughter, are book-smart, brave and methodical, relying on facts but also trusting their intuition. Claire’s father, Henry Beauchamp (Jeremy Irvine), and mother leave her with her uncle, an archaeologist, for a holiday when she’s six years old.

This sort of casual detail reinforces the care with which the origin story is told. Claire grows into a logical, intellectually ravenous woman, whose sense of the explicable world is tested when she’s forced to believe in time travel as she flits between post-World War II England and 18th-century Scotland.

As several actors noted, viewers can come to the spin-off having never seen Outlander. For millions of loyal fans, however, the prequel will make perfect sense. The physical resemblances between parents and offspring are uncanny. It’s startling how much Corfield resembles Balfe. Like her daughter, Julia wears her untamable hair pushed off her face, held back with a scarf from which curls escape.

The casting is so spot-on that were anyone to glance at photos of Harriet Slater and Jamie Roy and imagine what their gorgeous child would look like, the result would be Heughan, the perfect morphing of these two.

Loading

“We actually went to a look-alike competition to get these roles,” Roy says, deadpan. “It wasn’t an audition. It’s just, you know, in a field with 100 guys, if you looked like Sam.”

Roy had auditioned for Outlander but wasn’t cast because he looks too much like Heughan. He breaks into a wide grin as he speaks with Slater, who has flaming red hair, like Heughan.

Their characters are star-crossed lovers, the Romeo and Juliet tragedy. Coming from clans that hate each other, the kids are destined to fall in love. But they would not allow their passion to be extinguished.

“She’s so complicated, which is what I love about her,” Slater says of her character, Ellen MacKenzie. “She is very strong-willed. She’s very smart. She is trapped in a situation. You know, she’s a woman in 1714 Scotland. There are so many things she can’t do or say. There are so many expectations put on her. She’s expected to perform her duty and marry for the sake of the clan, but she doesn’t want to do that. She’s never wanted to do that, and her father always protected her from that.

“But at the start of the show, we see her vulnerable because he [her father, the laird] has just passed away, and her brothers use that immediately to their own advantage,” Slater continues. “And start making plans for who they’re going to marry her off to, in order to secure lairdship or whatever. And that’s when she meets this guy and falls head over heels in love, and her whole world is turned upside-down because she never thought she’d feel this way.

“She’s fully torn between wanting to be with him but knowing that he’s from a rival clan, and that’s just not done, and she wants to protect the clan at the same time and protect her family. So, it’s a really tricky situation, but an exciting one to play.”

Loading

Longtime fans needn’t fret. The prequel delivers what they crave. It’s beautifully produced – some shots resemble Vermeer paintings – has haunting melodies, some dialogue in Gaelic and fierce fight scenes.

It’s designed to retain the saga’s global fan base and lure in new devotees by living within the layered universe Diana Gabaldon created with her bestsellers. Her work forms the foundation for Outlander: Blood of My Blood.

This phrase is invoked often in the first three episodes. People declare their allegiances, and never half-heartedly. Passion thrums through all.

Honour, loyalty, fealty. Before these words were diluted into meaningless corporate mission statements, they represented selfless principles for which a man would give his life. When that man is a well-muscled, square-jawed Scotsman wrapped in a kilt, standing in the mists of the Highlands, passion gets elevated to frenzy.

That passion is combustible with Jamie and Claire, consumed by the sort of love so singular that all else fades. It’s the sort of connection people spend their lives seeking.

Blood of My Blood takes viewers to familiar, yet slightly different times as the parents’ epic love stories unfold in 1714 and 1917. Of course, time travel must be a constant, and the characters reflect their eras.

The actors playing Claire’s parents had an advantage because they’re friends.

“We did a film called Fallen, which was part of a YA novel series,” Corfield says. “We shot it about10 years ago. We met on a job in Budapest and stayed friends all these years.”

Henry and Julia forge their bond intellectually, and when they can be together, it’s incendiary. With both couples, their initial attraction is explosive, sparking reactions so profound their atomic matter must have been shuffled.

Given Jamie’s parents were born when marriages were arranged and women were considered chattel, options were limited. Ellen MacKenzie was a prize her brothers could use to sweeten a deal. Naturally, she’s savvier than her brothers.

On a publicity tour, having shot the first five episodes of the second season, Roy considers what drives his character, Brian Fraser.

“First of all, he’s pragmatic,” Roy says. “He can be quick-cutting when he needs to be, but he’s honestly a man of very simple needs. He’s a bastard, born out of wedlock. So, he doesn’t have the same opportunities as a lot of men his age would have, and he won’t have those, unfortunately. But he’s very much made peace with that. He’s very stoic in that sense, but he’s extremely passionate.”

“They are all incredibly passionate people,” Slater, his onscreen wife, notes. “It’s not just necessarily romantically, although it is as well. There are so many other things that they are passionate about. Colum and Dougal [her brothers], they’re so passionate about power.”

Having already encountered fans at conventions, the actors realise a new level of celebrity could soon envelop them. They’ve talked about signing on to Outlander: Blood of My Blood for six years. However, nothing is definitive beyond the second season.

All hinges on whether fans feel the Outlander alchemy in the prequel.

Loading

“When we talk about the show, we say, ultimately, it’s the lens that people will go to, get what they want, whether it’s love, power, and respect – any of these things, but that’s all really driven by passion,” Roy says. “If they weren’t passionate about it, then they wouldn’t care. If you don’t care, then, well, there’d be no story, right?”

Outlander: Blood of my Blood premieres on Friday, August 8, on Stan, which is owned by Nine, the owner of this masthead.

Find out the next TV, streaming series and movies to add to your must-sees. Get The Watchlist delivered every Thursday.