With Season 7 Split Release, We Get 3 Years of New Outlander Episodes
Fans are furious that the upcoming season of Outlander will be released in two parts, but there may be a silver lining to the long mid-season hiatus.
Outlander fans have become accustomed to long breaks between seasons of the beloved time-travel series — after all, the wait between Seasons 5 and 6 was two long years!
And now, STARZ has managed to create a new wave of fan outrage by announcing that there will be another hiatus right in the middle of Season 7, which is set to contain 16 episodes in total.
The first eight episodes will air on Fridays beginning June 16, 2023, and the second part will be released sometime in 2024.
Although this schedule is clearly frustrating fans, it seems to have several advantages. Most importantly, splitting Season 7 means that dedicated viewers can enjoy three straight years of new Outlander content, or even four — if we count the prequel series.
The logic is simple. The new season was split because filming wrapped in February, and post-production takes a lot of time and effort for a period drama. If all the episodes were to air at once, Season 7's premiere would be much later than this summer.
What's more, the mid-season hiatus allows the production team to wrap up work on the second part of the season while beginning to film the final Season 8, which was announced earlier this year.
It usually takes about a year and several months for the Outlander crew to produce one season, so if they start early and everything goes smoothly, Season 8 could premiere in 2025, giving fans three years of new episodes.
And that's not all!
Fans won't have to leave 1700s Scotland when the show ends. STARZ has picked up a 10-episode first season of an Outlander prequel series called Blood of My Blood, which will focus on Jamie Fraser's parents and their story.
The spin-off is already in development and will most likely premiere after the parent show is finished — a release date of 2026 seems plausible and would allow ample time for the production phase.
So with a little bit of luck, fans could end up with as many as four years full of new Outlander content. Isn't that a nice reward for the announced Season 7 split?