‘Outlander’ spoilers: Clearing out the episode-count confusion

When you look at most cable series, there are a few things that they have in common: A great creative presence, solid production values, and a season that for the most part is very short. This is especially true when you are talking about a cable show in its first season. “The Walking Dead” originally only had six episodes, “Breaking Bad” seven, and shows like “Game of Thrones” and “Bates Motel” are firmly happy with ten.

So when the news came out about “Outlander” and sixteen episodes, this became somewhat confusing. Starz does not typically commit so much to a show in its early going, and they are only airing eight episodes this summer. This could lead to the next eight being referred to as season 2, which is something that we’re still trying to stop ourselves from doing.

Here is the best way to look at this right now. The remaining episodes beyond this summer are, still for the time being, thought of as season 1. The final eight will probably air at some point early next year; personally, we’d hope for January and February, since there’s not much else to do during the colder months.

Following that, we will eventually get a second season of 13 episodes. These episode could debut a little later in the year, but since it is a shorter order, there may not be the need to divide them up in such a way. (We certainly hope that Starz doesn’t do this for the sake of our sanity.)