Should Outlander season 4 opt for an extended premiere?
One of the things that actually did surprise us about season 3 is that both the premiere and the finale were, by and large, within the standard parameters for run time. Maybe we just got spoiled by the lengthy “Dragonfly in Amber” at the end of season 2, or maybe there are some within the show who subscribe to the belief that less is more. Sometimes, it is. There are many shows out there, after all, who do extend their run time well beyond an hour and they really shouldn’t. If you milk a story too much, it just ends up feeling tiresome and you lose some of your momentum. Also, not everyone (hello, The Walking Dead) has almost an hour and a half to give to a show every night.
For the Outlander season 4 premiere, however, there is a pretty darn good case to be made for doing an extended episode, starting with the new setting that you need to introduce. This is arguably the most-ambitious premiere for the show since the pilot, at least in terms of the notion that you’re having to establish a completely new world that is separate from anything either Jamie or Claire has ever known. While the season 3 premiere was lofty in its own right courtesy of the two dueling timelines, at the same time you at least had Claire with Frank and Jamie battling Black Jack — there were some familiar characters featured there and it was clearly established in “Dragonfly in Amber.”
Meanwhile, with Outlander season 4 there aren’t too many familiar faces beyond just the people aboard the ship, and you are also in America in a very different time period than when Claire was there previously. There’s a chance to really explore some interesting themes including freedom and revolution. Jamie, for the first time in really his entire adult life, has a chance to be more than a thousand miles away from the British throne. (Granted, we haven’t gotten to the American Revolution just yet, but at least there’s a little bit more breathing room here for him.) For Claire, this is an opportunity to lend her voice and her skills to a new group of people trying to find their way in the world. There is a sense of newness there, and a common ground that can be explored between her (a relative stranger in this era) and the new social system being developed there. In giving the premiere a longer run time, you’re allowing yourself more opportunities to dive into some of these themes and meet some new people.
Basically, this would just be a great way to establish a foundation for the fourth season — and a little extra Outlander is never a bad thing.
If there is one drawback … it’s probably just for the people behind the scenes given how much work goes into making a single minute of the show, let alone a full episode. If an extended premiere happens, we’ll consider it a gift for that very reason.
Related – Want more Outlander season 4 filming scoop?
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