Everyone's been talking about Outlander. Everyone's also been watching Outlander, except us.

The series has been broadcast in several countries, but no-one thought that Scottish people might like a peep, given that it's set and filmed here. So Amazon have stepped forward, releasing the entire first series today on its Instant Video service. There's no longer any need to emigrate; you can now watch Outlander without having to become one.

The series has been compared, naturally, to Game of Thrones, which does it a disservice. Game of Thrones is really just 'one thousand and one ways to kill people' with such an immense and incestuous cast of characters that it's impossible to tell who's who though you can take a bet they're called Lannister. So I was watching Outlander with cynicism, not anticipation.

The good news is that Outlander is certainly not Game of Thrones. Indeed, it's hard to say what it is, if we were to try and apply one neat tag to it. It's not a fantasy, despite the time travel element. It's not a period drama, despite the costumes. It's not a swashbuckler despite the soldiers, and it's not a bodice-ripper, despite the sex. So let's just call it a sporran-jiggler and move on.

It's 1945, and Claire Randall and her husband, Frank, have been reunited after the war. She served as a nurse, but isn't the romantic ideal of a wartime angel. When we first see her she's at a field hospital, shouting instructions, her wet, red hands buried in a soldier's leg. This was honest, practical gore, not the murderous and dizzying extravaganzas of Game of Thrones.

Claire stops for a break and someone hands her a bottle of champagne. The war is over! But our girl doesn't shout 'hurrah!' and dance, as the others do. She stands silent in her dripping apron and takes a long, slow swig from the bottle. I liked her instantly. There was no sentimentality about her. She was dirty, sweaty and exhausted. Just gimme a damn drink, her expression said.

Home from the war, she and Frank travel up to Inverness for a second honeymoon. She's now bathed and fragrant, a loyal wife by her husband's side. Yet, trying to pretty herself in the mirror, she tugs at her bushy hair and exclaims, 'Jesus H Roosevelt Christ!' Under the genteel wife act is the woman we saw boozing on the battlefield.

Whilst it was refreshing to be offered a heroine who wasn't the usual delicate flower, Outlander did still offer up some cringing cliches. The opening scenes could have been lifted straight from Braveheart, with misty glens and darkening skies, and the theme tune is a reworked, horribly romantic, version of The Skye Boat Song. The twee Scottishness, the drumbeats and the bagpipes, were everywhere but I suppose people (people outside Scotland, at least) adore that type of thing.

Thankfully, the Braveheart nonsense dwindles as the story gets underway. We leave the romantic scenery and dreamy music for the sensible hats and coats of the 1940s. Claire and Frank arrive in dreich post-war Inverness, which seems to resemble East Proctor from An American Werewolf In London: the outsiders enter the quaint little town and are unnerved by the silent streets and the doorways daubed with wet lambs' blood. The supernatural hints continue, with the landlady warning them it's Hallowe'en and that ghosts will be wandering about.

Yet the couple soon forget their unease by heading to their room for plenty of sex, although one of the erotic scenes was rather dented by Frank's chat-up line: 'Why Mrs Randall, I do believe you've left your undergarments at home.'

The pace of the drama was slow, but this was to be welcomed when we consider how other shows bombard us in a desperate clutch at our attention. Instead, this first episode of Outlander was devoted to establishing a sense of place and character, the latter being helped considerably by Claire's narration throughout.

But nice and measured as it was, I often wanted it to nudge itself along. Get to the time travel and the lusty Scotsmen, I thought. Get to the sporran-jiggling!

Eventually, the scene we were waiting for arrived: Claire and Frank hide behind some standing stones to watch a secret Druid ceremony. Watching the worshippers cavort in the lamplight in their wispy gowns, it began to resemble a scene from an Enya video, or a New Age wellness DVD. But it's the 1940s so Claire won't have heard of either, so she's fascinated and returns to the scene the next morning but, touching the stones, has a strange falling sensation and faints. She comes to in the same place, but not in the same time.

She looks across the fields expecting to see the lights and buildings of Inverness but nothing's there. The countryside is empty, except for some Redcoat soldiers who come charging over the hill, shouting and shooting. When one of them tries to rape her, a burly Scotsman saves her, only to bash her over the head, knocking her unconscious and so making an escape and rescue easier.

As Claire is carried off across his horse she wonders if she's dreaming, but reasons 'He reeked of odours too foul to be part of any dream I was likely to conjure up.'

She has to slowly accept that she's slipped back in time to the 18th century, but she doesn't dissolve into tears at the realisation. She is no damsel in distress. Instead she tells her stinky Scottish rescuers that she'll 'bloody throttle' them, and shoves them aside when they try to reset a pal's broken bone. She's a nurse. She'll show these fools how it's done!

So, whilst the first half of the episode was slow and delicate, filled with love scenes and walks in the heather, the second half is full of sweat, swords and swearing, and we're keen to see how an intelligent, gutsy woman, one who's not afraid to swear and shove, will fare in this land of violent men.