When could Outlander make it to a 100th episode?
When it comes to producing television, there are fewer milestones more worthy of praise than hitting the 100th. While of course making it to 200 or even 300 is tremendous in its own right, getting to that 100 mark really signifies success in a way that few others do. You know at this point that you have cemented a mark in television history and that viewers are likely going to be talking about you for many decades to come. For many network shows, that also means that you are perfectly set up for syndication. Obviously, that’s a little bit different for a series like Outlander given that its content is far too adult to make it onto network TV or basic cable.
For a cable series to make it to 100 episodes is significantly more rare than for its network-TV counterparts. A show like NCIS, for example, can easily make it past 100 episodes within its fifth season. However, a series like The Walking Dead didn’t make it to the 100th episode until the season 8 premiere. Game of Thrones is ending well before it gets to a 100th episode and it’s entering its own season 8.
If Outlander is to make it to this point and have the wonderful celebration that a 100th episode signifies, it’s going to have to stick around on the air for a while. The season 4 finale (likely airing in 2019 based on the premiere schedule in November) is going to be the 55th episode of the series — basically, it will have just made it past the halfway point! If you think about the recent two-season renewal for seasons 5 and 6 (each one for twelve episodes), that will take the series all the way up to episode #79.
If Starz does eventually choose to hand down Outlander seasons 7 and 8 (fingers crossed) and they remain at the same episode count, we anticipate the 100th episode coming close to the end of season 8. If they end up shortening the episode count again in the future, maybe it happens instead early on in season 9. As you can imagine, we’ve got a long way to go as viewers before getting anywhere close to this point. We do still think it is feasible, provided of course that the show remains commercially successful and it is something that the cast, crew, and producers want to keep doing. we do hope that they do, mostly because there’s plenty of this beautiful story to be told. Getting that 100th episode is a nice testament to all of the work the parties involved do, but at the same time, we do think the show’s success and devoted following also fills that role.
Still … Starz better do something awesome for the show if it gets to this point.
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Do you want to see Starz do something special for an Outlander 100th episode, provided that the show makes it there? Be sure to share right now in the comments!
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