Why the Absentia season 1 premiere date on Amazon suddenly makes sense

Absentia promo images

In the wake of the official US premiere date, do we have a little more context regarding all things Absentia? CarterMatt is starting to think so.

If you missed it, on Tuesday it was announced that the Absentia season 1 premiere date is going to be Friday, February 2 on Amazon.

So why the wait? Well, it’s making a little bit more sense now than it did, say, a couple of months ago when we were wondering when in the world the Stana Katic series was going to premiere.

If you recall, Sony has had an official home for Absentia in mind now for several months. They’ve known that Amazon would be releasing the series for American viewers and with that, there was of course a desire to figure out just what the right date would be. They wanted to give the series the best chance to succeed, while also realizing that this is a series filmed internationally with an international cast and crew, first and foremost for the AXN Family of Networks that air across several countries. These are the networks that got a chance to run Absentia before anyone.

It made some sense as to why Amazon and Absentia didn’t release the show in America in 2017 in retrospect. Given Amazon’s tendency to release full seasons at once, clearly there was a desire to let the first season finish in several other countries before premiering in America. Beyond that, there was also no desire to have the show come out during the holidays even after the first season finished in some territories. That makes sense. Absentia is a new property and trying to market it at this time can be difficult.

What about February?

We understand anyone who has questions about this particular time-frame as well, given that, in theory, Absentia could have premiered this month. Nonetheless, we do think that February was a better play just for the sake of giving Canadians a chance to check out the episodes first in a weekly format. By the time the show premieres in America, Canadians will have had a chance to at least watch some of the story play out; it’s hard enough that they have to wait week to week north of the border to get to the finale; it probably would have been even more painful for them to have to seen the premiere later than in the United States.

All in all, everything’s worked out in the way it should. Americans have a chance to see Absentia, and we have a feeling that the long wait is going to prove to be worth it.

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