Outlander is everything you want Game of Thrones to be

There is neither grace nor glory in telling people who love one thing to watch another instead. I know this because few things get my back up more. So here's my (very sincere) recommendation: If you unreservedly love Game of Thrones and that gorgeous finale left you satisfied, now is the time to click away and avail yourself of the rest of these magnificent internets. You won't find much to your liking here.

But if Game of Thrones frustrates you — despite the cinematic and musical brilliance of its last two episodes — check all that apply:

• It seems wrong to you that a group of 6-year-olds are stealthier assassins than the Faceless Men (they didn't spill a single orange!).
• Because the series is occasionally capable of greatness (and has the advantages of great ratings, a huge budget, and a whole other TV show dedicated to discussing it), you see no reason to skim charitably over its giant plot holes.
• You've spent many an evening perusing GoT fan threads where viewers try to make sense of nonsensical events onscreen and find yourself wishing (for their sakes) that the series deserved the beautiful, careful scrutiny they bring to it.
• You're baffled by the show's commitment to repeating low-information scenes we've already seen that never pay off (Arya gets beaten by sticks; Tommen natters on about the twin pillars) while needlessly withholding so much we haven't (WTF was Margaery up to? Why not swap one of those repeats for a scene in which she and Tommen obey the High Sparrow's "order" to procreate so we could see what they say to each other when granted actual privacy? Why not have a scene where the High Sparrow confers with Lancel so we know how they're strategizing?)
• You found the Children of the Forest crisis in "The Door" hokey and contrived.
• You wonder sometimes whether some writers have built their own miniature Wall at HBO that they hide behind so they can keep chanting "it's magic!" to keep their White Walkers — fans thirsty for explanations — at bay
• Your eyes rolled when it turned out Arya's survival had less to do with her Faceless Men apprenticeship than with her (previously unmentioned) infection-proof self-suturing gut.
• Look: You're thrilled to see Arya finally whip off a face and cut a throat, but that had nothing to do with being beaten by sticks or going blind, plus did she steal some faces or does she not need to... you know what? Forget it. None of that made a lick of sense.
• You watch for characters, not action sequences. When characters go temporarily stupid or make a muddled hash of their storylines (heya again, Arya in Braavos; pip pip, Dim Sansa) just so an action sequence can pack more adrenaline, you resent it. The character should ideally drive the action, but even if it doesn't, the action really shouldn't reverse-engineer the character.
• You wonder whether Arya could actually make a crust that golden and flaky and if so, how. No really, did Hot Pie teach her or something?
• You side-eye the practice of inserting rapes where there weren't any in the source text and then forgetting or not realizing they happened (hello, Daenarys; well met, Cersei).
• You note that season six is striving manfully to explore female empowerment.

If you checked three or more of these, may I make a suggestion?

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Watch Outlander.

Not sure if it's for you? Here's a questionnaire. Check all that apply (I'm trying to keep spoilers out, so I kept it vague):

• You're into gorgeous cinematography, great music, and terrific actors.
• You're a fan of Tobias Menzies.
• You like opening credits that offer a thematic preview of the episode to come.
• You like watching characters deal with the quotidian (as well as the epic) challenges of living in environments that lack modern comforts — whether that means breast-pumping while tracking someone through the Scottish woods or treating trenchfoot or using dogs to identify patients who will die soon.
• You're here for tricky medicinal herbs and their tricky medicinal uses.
• You're interested in slow-burning, difficult, and psychologically incisive treatments of everything from extreme physical and sexual trauma to grief.
• Villainy intrigues you and you're not put off by its depiction, even if it includes scenes that have been rated the most disturbing to ever air on television.
• You're into military history and failed historical uprisings.
• You like intelligent, improbable, and agonizingly intricate approaches to time-travel's central problem: Whether the past can be changed, and what that will mean for the future.
• You recognize that family resemblances sometimes creep into the uncanny valley and set up camp there, and that great stories can come from it.
• You find it satisfying to watch characters retell an event that you saw happen onscreen, whether it's rape or time travel or just that conversation they had one time with someone they hate. Offering two angles on the same incident, the camera's and the raconteur's, lets the show acquire new dimensions: Maybe it shows the insufficiency of language, maybe it develops the speaker or listener (or refines the link between the two). Maybe it just shows how much two perspectives on the same event can differ. The problems people face when crafting a shared history is, in your opinion, riveting stuff.
• You find narratives where both the villains and the heroes are smart at the exact same time makes for pretty satisfying TV.
• While you like a Scottish brogue, you love exceptionally ornate and and meaningful costumes.
• You relish off-kilter fictional reinterpretations of major historical figures.
• You never suspected that a fantasy show routinely dismissed as "romance" would a) feature bad wedding sex between the principals or b) build that into a small but wrenchingly real, insightful, and believable story arc about bodies and minds and how they work (or don't) together.
• You like to watch elaborate world-building happen slowly, counting on the fact that the books are (thank god) already written.
• You appreciate TV writing that's competent, thoughtful, and detail-oriented, with consistent characters and dialogue that ranges from good to exceptional.
• You'd prefer that a show that includes a number of rapes not forget that a character experienced it or use him or her for narrative expediency (I worried it had until I watched "Vengeance is Mine," episode 11 this season)
• You are not convinced that watching a show with a female protagonist who occasionally has and enjoys sex will give you the cooties.
• You like dramas that feature a female protagonist and therefore never win awards.

If you checked more than three, then you're in luck: Outlander is only in its second season (easy to catch up!), and Starz is airing all of season two this coming week in preparation for the July 9 finale.

Do it. You won't be sorry.