Bluey: How to Watch the Latest ‘Surprise’ Episode

There has never been any shortage of love for Australia’s favourite animated children’s series Bluey, but the blue heeler family has seen a lot of talk recently (and not just about the Bluey garden gnomes). The series’ latest run of episodes, including the mega-sized story ‘The Sign’, has been immensely well-received, but they have also raised plenty of questions.

We’re here to try and clear up some of the information on Bluey what’s happening with the ABC series’ future.

Bluey FAQ: What’s happening with our favourite blue heeler family?

Where to watch new Bluey episodes?

Bluey’s third season has been split up into four unofficial parts. The first run of 26 episodes began in September 2021 and concluded in December 21. The subsequent 11 episodes aired throughout June 2022, with an additional 10 episodes releasing between April and June 2023.

Since then, there hasn’t been any new episodes of Bluey, until Ludo Studio (the company behind the hit series) announced a couple of special episodes for 2024.

The first of these, titled ‘Ghostbasket’ was released on April 7 with the second special, ‘The Sign’, released on April 14. Both episodes deal with the potential sale of the iconic Bluey house and with the family preparing for Rad and Frisky’s wedding.

Over the most recent weekend, the folks behind Bluey decided to surprise drop another episode, this time it was aptly called ‘Surprise!’. The surprise episode follows Bluey and Bingo wanting to play two different games with their Dad, so he plays both. Following the events of ‘The Sign’, folks were pretty worried this could be the beginning of the end for Bluey, but it seems things are back to normal in ‘Surprise’, with the episode returning to the 7-minute format.

All episodes of Bluey (including the new ones) can be streamed for free on ABC iView. Elsewhere around the world Bluey is available on Disney+.

What’s the deal with Bluey ‘The Sign’ ?

‘The Sign’ marks a very special episode for Australia’s blue heeler family as it has a jumbo-sized runtime not seen before in the series. Rather than the typical 7 minute episodes, ‘The Sign’ runs for a full 28 minutes, almost making up for the lack of new episodes in recent months.

The episode description is simply: “The Heeler home is up for sale and Bluey’s not happy about it,” but the episode has been widely praised as one of the show’s best. The themes in the show, including that of a family wedding and the uncertainty of moving from a beloved childhood home, are widely appealing and have struck a chord with many parents and children alike.

This extended runtime may be a first for Bluey, but it may not be a last with creator Joe Brumm telling Deadline he would “not rule out” longer episodes in the future.

“I’m loving going longer on ‘The Sign’, and I’d love to try to go longer — I definitely would not rule that out. That’s why I’m very interested to see how The Sign goes down with the audience. Obviously it’s four times as long as a normal episode. Will the audience accept a stint with a longer story?” he said.

Is Bluey ending?

With the Heeler family facing a new beginning after moving house and the series’ latest episode having the hallmark signs of a marathon-length finale, it’s caused concern amongst fans that this might be the swan song for Bluey.

But with the series at the absolute height of popularity right now, fans should rest assured that there will be more Bluey to come.

The large gap in between episodes recently is due to a production break that the team decided to take in the wake of producing 154 episodes of the hit series in the relatively short time span of five years.

“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,” Ludo Studio co-founder, Daley Peason, told the Courier Mail in 2023.

Producer Sam Moor also confirmed this is not the end of Bluey, telling BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “no it is not the end for Bluey. I’m sure we have many more surprises in store for you.”

This seems to be a subtle clue from the producer at the subsequent ‘Surprise’ Bluey episode that dropped this past weekend.

The recent release pattern of Bluey seems to suggest there are more episodes to come, we just don’t know exactly when! Here’s hoping we don’t have to wait long.

Regardless of where Bluey goes next it appears the team is looking forward to trying more out-of-the-box approaches like longer episodes. Pearson even told BBC Radio that it was a dream of theirs to do a feature-length film based on Bluey.

This article has been updated with additional information.

Lead Image Credit: Ludo Studio/ABC