The hit children's series Bluey is coming back for more episodes, but the exact details of Season 4 remain shrouded in mystery.
Available to stream stateside on Disney+, Bluey follows a family of Blue Heelers as they teach valuable lessons to their younger viewers, while also entertaining parents sharing in the experience.
Since its debut on Australian television in 2018, the beloved show has been universally praised for its realistic take on modern families and the relationship between parents and children. Bluey also continues filling up the trophy cabinet with major award wins like an International Emmy Kids Award for Most Outstanding Children's Program in 2019.
While the first three seasons of the show have been a resounding success, its future is unclear with no official announcement surrounding a fourth season.
When Will Bluey Season 4 Release?
BBC and the Australian Broadcasting Company have yet to officially detail any info on Bluey Season 4, but there have been a few indications that the series is, in fact, not done releasing new episodes.
After rumors of the show's cancellation began to spring up in May 2022, the official Bluey X (formerly Twitter) account posted sharing the show was not done.
In its statement, the series' creators revealed "We absolutely love the show and there are no plans to end it," all but confirming a Season 4 was on the way:
"Some of you have spotted some online speculation on the future of 'Bluey.' We absolutely love the show and there are no plans to end it. The community of fans around the world continue to blow us away and if we ever had an update on Bluey’s future you’d hear it from us first."
Despite word more was coming from the hit children's series, Bluey producer Daley Pearson told The Courier-Mail the team was taking a break following work on the third season:
“We are just going to get our heads on a bit, it’s been four or five years and we’ve made 154 episodes, it is kind of unprecedented to do that back-to-back,” he said. “It was very intense … we are just coming to the end of season three and trying to think about what’s the best way to make it better.”
He continued, remarking they would not continue Bluey "if it wasn’t as good as the one that came before," so they are taking the hiatus to make sure that effort continues:
"We have all secretly agreed with each other that we wouldn’t keep making 'Bluey' if it wasn’t as good as the one that came before, so we want to make sure we keep doing that. Part of it is just not pushing to come back. We are resting; the more we ask ourselves [when work will begin on season four], the longer it will be, which is why I hesitate talking about it too much.”
That break started after Season 3 finished production back in April 2022, meaning work could be getting started on the potential Season 4 very shortly after more than a year and a half since the team last worked on the show.
Following Season 3's completion, it took roughly 10 months before the show aired on TV. That means that if work on the series gets underway in the new year, fans should expect Season 4 to debut sometime in late 2024 or early 2025.
Before then, there are still a handful of Season 3 episodes left to air for Bluey fans around the world. While the other two past seasons were split in half, Season 3 was split into four parts, with the fourth and final batch of shorts still having been unreleased.
Production on this last set of Season 3 episodes is done and is expected to release sometime in early 2024.
Who Will Return in Bluey Season 4?
No casting information for Bluey Season 4 has been made public, as of yet, but there are a few series mainstays that will surely pop up for this latest batch of animated adventures.
Of course, no Bluey episode is complete without the central Heeler family. Bluey, his younger sister Bingo, his mother Chilli, and his father Bingo will obviously all be big parts of Season 4, just like they have been for all 156 shorts thus far.
There is also a plethora of recurring characters that usually round out the Bluey cast. Other members of the extended Heeler family, neighbors, and children young Bluey befriends all play major roles in the hit animated show, so fans should expect some new and returning faces on that front as well.
Other characters fans could see return include:
- Muffin Heeler
- Socks Heeler
- Chloe
- Lucky
- Honey
- Mackenzie
- Coco
- Rusty
- Indy
- Winton
- Judo
- The Terriers
What Will Happen in Bluey Season 4?
Of course, there is no telling where Bluey Season 4 will go with Season 4, but one should expect it to continue doing what it has thrived at since its debut in 2018.
While the series does not have an overarching serialized narrative, it instead tackles its stories in small episode-by-episode chunks, teaching a different lesson with each installment.
The official Bluey synopsis describes the plot of the show as (via the official Bluey website):
"'Bluey' follows the adventures of a lovable & inexhaustible six-year-old puppy, who along with her sister Bingo, parents and friends is learning all about the world."
But over its three seasons, it has turned into so much more. The show deals with emotionally pertinent and societally resonant issues that plague not just kids but adults too.
The show has health with subjects like infertility, normalizing death, and so much more.
So, moving forward with Season 4, fans can likely expect the same sort of impactful and important topics to be broken down in these bite-sized animated anthology stories.
Where To Watch Bluey Season 4?
For Bluey fans living in the United States, Season 4 will likely appear where Seasons 1-3 have.
International broadcast rights to the series were purchased by The Walt Disney Company in June 2019, making it the official home of Bluey outside Australia and New Zealand.
This has meant that new episodes of the animated series come to Disney Junior for its linear TV release and then Disney+ for streaming.
Given this deal is still in place, it can be assumed Season 4 will follow the same sort of release plan.
For fans of the series in Australia and New Zealand, the show airs on ABC Kids and TVNZ in each respective territory, before coming to Disney Junior months later
Bluey Seasons 1-3 can now be streamed on Disney+.
