‘Outlander’ season 3: Let’s start looking at premiere dates

The “Outlander” drought, or Droughtlander, if you will, is long. The series ended its second season back in July, and since that time we’ve been left to do little other than wait and see precisely what the producers, the cast, and Starz as a network has in store for us when the series returns.

Given that it is Thanksgiving as well, this isn’t the time to get many more details on the story or new characters. Luckily, some information on that is already out there for people to check out. What we primarily want to touch on here is the rather-simple subject of precisely when we could see this show come back on the air in terms of a date.

The first thing to remember is that Starz is seemingly getting out of the Saturday-night game. They started this off with “Power” earlier this year, and it paid big dividends when this show managed to draw some of its finest ratings to date. There are some websites out there (typically the ones that claim to write about the “Outlander” premiere date every other day) who are already claiming that the show is coming back on April 1, and that feels like a big April Fools’ Day joke to us given that, as noted, the show’s moving away from airing on Saturdays. Maybe it’ll start later in the month, but that is merely speculation at this point, as well.

We want to actually provide you with some tangible evidence for this discussion, and with that, let’s bring you premiere-date possibilities in relation to another show on the Starz schedule in “Black Sails.” The fourth and final season of the pirate drama is premiering on Sunday, January 29, which is slightly later than the three seasons before it. Provided that it airs one episode a week and doesn’t pull double-duty anywhere, signs point to season 3 of “Outlander” no earlier than April 9. We don’t see it being paired up with “Black Sails” at any point, so this or a subsequent Sunday makes the most sense.

We don’t foresee the show wanting to start too much later than early / mid-April for a couple of different reasons, starting with the notion of Starz wanting to air “Power” once more in the summer, and we’re sure that they also want to avoid “Outlander” being up against “Game of Thrones” as much as possible. Remember that “Game of Thrones” is premiering in the summer next year, slightly later than usual.

Once something more on the subject of “Outlander” is solidified, rest assured that we’ll have some further information for you here! (Photo: Starz.)