Outlander season 6: Should a split-season format be considered?

It feels like it’s been a long time since we had a thorough discussion about Outlander season 6 and how it could arrive on Starz. With that in mind, what better time than the present to dive in here a little bit more?

At the moment, we know that filming on the sixth season has yet to even begin — with that in mind, it’s hard to even think about a specific premiere date. We just can’t help ourselves when it comes to pondering over certain parts of it.

Let’s talk how Starz could air these upcoming episodes. There is a school of thought that the network should just wait until all episodes are complete and then air them without any hiatuses — ideally, this is probably the best. Midseason interruptions are hard, even if a split-season format is something that gets you some episodes a little bit earlier. (After all, you don’t have to wait for all of the episodes to be complete to start airing them!)

There is a reason why the network may consider airing the season in two batches of six episodes — just look at what they are doing with another show in Power Book II: Ghost. Because of the pandemic, new episodes weren’t able to finish filming earlier this year and with that, the network aired five episodes this fall, with five more coming in December. The merit to doing this is that they go ahead and get episodes out there. The disadvantage is that you leave people hanging with a pretty-big cliffhanger.

Starz may be concerned about too long a hiatus from Outlander season 5 to season 6. If filming doesn’t start until next year, we can’t imagine all of the episodes airing until next fall. Yet, you may be able to split up the season into two batches and start it in the summer. This may intrigue the network, and it may also intrigue some fans to get stories sooner rather than later. It would certainly drive subscriber revenue.

But is it the best thing for the momentum of the story? That’s something we don’t have an answer to at the moment, but we’ve made our preference clear — it’s okay to wait sometimes for a complete season rather than have it split into halves. The ball is just going to be in Starz’s metaphorical court on this one.

Do you think that Outlander season 6 should operate under a split-season format?

Be sure to share right now in the attached comments! Also, remember here to keep coming back to get some other news pertaining to the series.

(Photo: Starz.)