In a perhaps inevitable movement, a Foreign spin-off is in preparation at Starz. But don’t expect to see Sam Heughan or Caitríona Balfe in the prequel series, because, well, it’s a prequel.

“All I can tell you is that I’m not there, because Jamie is not there!” Heughan said Squire during a shooting break Foreign Season 7. “I believe this is a prequel focusing on Jamie’s parents when they were younger, so I guess you might see a younger version of him at some point. But I think I’m maybe- “to be a little too old to play young Jamie now! Maybe I could play his father, or a flash forward? It’s time travel, after all.”

Heughan also opened up about filming Season 7, admitting, “It’s ok.” He says it won’t be over until 2023, but fans have suffered longer from the Droughtlanders.

“It feels like we started yesterday, but we’re already on our sixth episode,” Heughan shared. “This season is going to take a while, it’s an outstanding 18-episode mega season, so we probably won’t be done until March or February next year. It’s a big one this year because last year we had to reduce it by six episodes because of the Covid and my co-star [Caitríona Balfe] was pregnant, so we moved her.

While he and Balfe share co-star and producer duties on the Starz period drama, there’s one thing Heughan knows Balfe doesn’t: how it all ends.

Diana Gabaldon [the writer-creator] actually revealed to me how this was all going to end,” Heughan revealed. “She emailed me the last pages of what will be the last book very early on, I think in the first few weeks of filming and no one else has seen that I think, other than another executive producer. Not even Caitríona saw it and I was sworn to secrecy.

In February, Variety reported Foreign Executive producer and showrunner Matthew B. Roberts will write and executive produce the prequel, which will center Jamie Fraser’s parents Ellen MacKenzie and Brian Fraser. Author Diana Gabaldon also teased a prequel novel about the couple on Facebook earlier that month.

There have also been past whispers about another spin-off series based on Gabaldon. Lord John novels, but it looks like the prequel is the only spinoff currently in the works.

ForeignSeasons 1-6, Streaming Now, Starz, Seasons 1-5, Streaming Now, Netflix