The fifth season will feature trips to Lebanon, Madagascar, and South Korea.
The fifth season of Anthony Bourdain's popular CNN travelogue Parts Unknown has its premiere date: According to a network representative, Parts will return for
eight new episodes on Sunday, April 26, with the premiere episode dedicated to
South Korea. Other episodes this season will highlight Bourdain's travels to
New Jersey, Miami, Madagascar, and Lebanon. (Bourdain has famously visited the latter destination twice while filming No Reservations: First in 2006 as
war was breaking out in Beirut, then again in 2010.)
Last fall's "cycle" of Parts Unknown
averaged 715,000 total viewers in its Sunday-evening timeslot; most crucially to the network, it ranked #1 in the coveted 25-to-54-year-old demographic for all cable news networks in that time period. (Before the fourth season even aired, Fast Company
christened Bourdain the "Future of Cable News," arguing the show's ongoing success "could lead an industry-wide shift toward a more documentary-focused cable-news landscape.")
Parts' fifth and sixth seasons were
announced back in early 2014, promising four eight-episode cycles running throughout 2015 and 2016. Stay tuned for more installments of
Quotable Bourdain as season five rolls out.