Stana Katic’s Absentia finds US home at Amazon; will premiere in 2018

The drama surrounding the Stana Katic series Absentia and the mystery of its US home is finally over. Today, Amazon confirmed that they have picked up the ten-episode first season, and that it will premiere at some point in 2018.

Given the way in which it was announced today we’re not sure why we had to wait so long in order to find this out, but we’re certainly rather happy that the news is finally out there.

We’ll be the first to admit that Amazon as a home comes as a shock for many reasons. For starters, Absentia is a story that tends to play well airing new episodes every week — it gives you time to linger on the mystery a little while! Amazon is known, (like Netflix) to be a place where all of the episodes are released at once. Amazon also hasn’t always been that keen, (at least in America) to pick up shows that are from outside their own studio. It’s one of the reasons that they didn’t want to revive Hannibal. (It’s a little bit of a different situation, but Amazon makes a rather big deal of their own internal development process for shows these days.)

For Amazon, the move is brilliant since the streamer is extending a branch to a number of possible subscribers who may not have the service already — it’s comparable to when Netflix opted to pick up Longmire and acquired many viewers who they didn’t already have. This also should work well for the show since their episodes can air unedited — that’s important since many of them are longer than the standard 42-44 run time for most network shows. This marks the second big move of Amazon this week, as they previously opted to announce a Lord of the Rings TV series that already has a multiple-season order:

In addition to airing in America, Amazon will also stream the series in the United Kingdom, Australia, Austria, Germany, India, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Singapore, South Korea, and Turkey. That fills in a lot of cracks when it comes to international homes for the Sony-produced series:

In a statement, Amazon Prime Video’s VP of Worldwide TV Content Acquisition Brad Beale had the following to say:

“Absentia is an exciting new thriller which combines family and love with suspense and vindication … Prime members worldwide are going to love this well written show with remarkable performances by a terrific ensemble cast led by Stana Katic in her newest lead role.”

Where do we go from here?

CarterMatt has a lot more stories about Absentia for starters! We have been covering Absentia heavily ever since the show was first mentioned and we will continue to bring you more coverage at the link here.

What do you think about Stana Katic’s Absentia landing at Amazon? Be sure to share in the comments below now!

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