‘Outlander’ Season 3 update: Jaime-Claire to reunite, new season to get a time jump

By Cris Valencia / Aug 19, 2016 10:41 AM EDT
(Photo : Getty Images / Laura Cavanaugh) NEW YORK, NEW YORK - APRIL 07: Caitriona Balfe and Sam Heughan attend 'Outlander' and Saks Fifth Avenue Photocall at Saks Fifth Avenue on April 7, 2016 in New York City.

"Outlander" Season 3 will reunite Jaime (Sam Heugan) and Claire (Caitriona Balfe) 20 years after the events of Season 2.

Jaime and Claire will find themselves on a sea voyage by then. The two will be heading for France to prevent Bonnie Prince Charlie from igniting the Jacobite Rising, Cinema Blend reported.

The third season will be based on Diana Gabaldon's "Outlander: Voyager," the third book of the "Outlander" series. In the book, Claire returns to the 1700s in a print shop in Edinburg.

For those who missed the previous seasons, Claire and Jaime parted ways shortly before the latter went to the Battle of Culloden. The former later learns that the latter survived the battle and the execution, and knew that there was a chance that both of them could still reunite and prevent the execution of Jacobite soldiers if she will return to the past.

Heugan thinks that the time jump in Season 3 poses a challenge to both Claire and Jaime.

"She will eventually return, but they're both older, so what is Jamie, who is the man he's become" [after 20 years]?" he told Variety.

As for Balfe, the actress said that she likes the complexity that the time jump brings to both characters. She said that both cannot be in love with the ghost of each other given the time that they have been apart.

"I think both of them have probably held each other up on a pedestal for 20 years, so in many ways, they're going to have to destroy that image first before they can fall in love with the person right in front of them, and that's going to be really interesting," she said.

"Outlander" is a British-American television drama based on Gabaldon's time travel novels of the same name. If follows the story of Claire Randall, a married World War II nurse in 1945 who finds herself back to 1700s where she encounters Highland warrior Jamie Fraser.

"Outlander" Season 3's production will start in the coming months, and will air sometime in 2017. 

Watch the "Outlander" Season 2 finale recap with Heugan below: