Week-to-Week

Month-to-Month: Episodic Medium's Fall 2026 Schedule

The best time to subscribe and support independent TV criticism is back

Month-to-Month is our periodic update on the shows we're covering weekly here at Episodic Medium. For more information on how to take advantage of our once-yearly 20% discount and the reviews our contributors could deliver to your inbox in the months ahead, keep reading. And if you're new here and want future updates, join our mailing list.

Subscribe to Episodic Medium

Every year, Episodic Medium launches its fall schedule with a subscription drive. It’s because this is the fourth anniversary of when my newsletter truly became our newsletter, meaning our contributors. After progressively adding more contributors over the summer, that September marked the first time where it felt like we were offering a “full schedule” from a wide variety of voices.

A look back at the September lineup from our first Subscription Drive back in 2022.

It’s a moment where I ask for your support. It’s a moment where I remind you that our contributors’ amazing work wouldn’t exist without paid subscribers. And it’s also a moment I inherently struggle with, because it underlines how the reality of Episodic Medium is never going to reach its full potential in its current form.

Episodic Medium is not my day job, as you may know, and yet I’m also its only employee. That means I’m editing every review, setting things to publish, and (usually belatedly) updating pages and the website header. It means that I’m running support on subscriptions, and sending invites to the Loyal Viewer Discord, and promoting our content. And this is the time of year where I start to feel like I’m not doing enough in those roles, as I see subscribers who joined last year start melting away.

I’ve written a lot of existential versions of this opening, which is part of why it’s late, but I think it’s because I’m always caught up in this moment believing that I need to pitch you on your support transforming what we do. It’s a moment where Episodic Medium has to feel like a business, and I feel the pressure to do business things: increase the subscription rate to what our content is likely worth, reduce the discounted subscription to a smaller number, etc.

Maybe some of that is in Episodic Medium’s future, but ultimately I have forced myself to accept something: at its core, this is still my newsletter, and I started it to do something very simple. I started it to write about TV and connect with people who care about it, and the fact that subscribers have made it possible for us to do this on the scale remains a tremendous gift. And the truth is that trying to react to every lost subscription and maximize the business logics of the newsletter takes away from what made me start it in the first place, and I don’t want us to lose that ethos in the process of sustaining ourselves.

Case in point: last year, facing those business pressures after the uncertainties of moving from Substack to Ghost (which probably has slowed "growth" a little but makes my soul much lighter), I said that we’d never offer another 20%-off deal on our yearly subscriptions. But when it actually came time to do it, I completely forgot I said that, because I love the idea of getting someone in the door at a more affordable price and then discovering a community that enriches their connection to TV. How many of them stick around after? I could probably do the math, but I didn’t get into this to do math, and I don’t really want to start now.

And so until the end of September, our yearly subscription at the Regular Viewer level is only $40 when you join using the button below. This is essentially less than $0.15 per review, but more importantly it’s a few bucks a month to join a community and know that you’re supporting independent television criticism. I’m not going to pretend otherwise: our work is worth more than the $50 a year we normally charge for yearly subscriptions. But this is the level that allows me to pay our writers fairly, to (meagerly) compensate myself for the labor of running it, and to feel like the work we’re doing is a sustainable enterprise consistent with the goals I had when it started.

20% off a Yearly Subscription until 9/30

And if you want to extend your support, upgrading to the Loyal Viewer tier gets you access to the Episodic Medium Discord, where the community engages with programming beyond what we cover. This includes my missives from my viewing experience, insight into our programming decisions, and opportunities to react to new developments in the TV industry like this week’s Emmy awards which we’ll be discussing live in our “Live Events” channel. (I've learned in the past that I can't actually give discounts on this, because discounts only apply for new customers, but I hope that your ultimate goal of offering more support is ultimately met by the existing $100/$10 a month price point).

Become a Loyal Viewer

For all subscribers, we’ve got a schedule that actually includes some of those shows we saw last September, as well as our regular balance of new and returning programming.

New Coverage

Cupertino (CBS, October 8): The Good Fight was part of our September 2022 schedule, and the Kings have officially returned to the legal space with this look at the corruption of silicon valley. As it’s taking the place of Matlock alongside Elsbeth, Josh Spiegel subs it in for his weekly take on CBS procedurals, with the former show to return at midseason.

Vision Quest (Disney+, October 13): At this point, the ongoing Marvel TV experiment has kind of shifted from a vital part of their storytelling to a curated but ultimately inessential offshoot, but maybe that creates the space for more interesting programming like this trippy take building on the two strong series that preceded it. Caroline Siede continues her investigation of the Marvel series as Vision and a bearded Ultron take center stage.

Returning Coverage

Slow Horses (Apple TV, September 16): It’s another season for Slough House, and that means another season I’ve already reviewed in full months before it premieres because they put up the screeners really early, so the more I preview it the more I risk spoiling it.

Survivor (CBS, September 23): Jeff Probst is promising a new game for a new new era, and thus too we get a new era in our coverage: Ben Rosenstock and I are going to alternate weeks, getting different perspective and hopefully.

Abbott Elementary (ABC, October 7): While I don’t think there’s enough to say about the faster-than-expected return of NuScrubs, I’m a strong proponent that a long-running sitcom trying to keep itself fresh is one of TV’s most interesting creative challenges, and I’m curious how Caroline Siede feels about Abbott’s sixth go-round.

Elsbeth (CBS, October 8): As noted above, this is arriving back alongside Cupertino.

The Lowdown (FX, October 14): It didn’t get any Emmys love, but The Lowdown established itself as a critical favorite last fall, and who are we to argue with a show actually returning on a yearly schedule in this the year of our lord 2026? Noel Murray returns to the beat for a second season.

Dexter: Resurrection (Showtime, October 30): After a previous false start, the most recent revival to Dexter really did manage to resurrect the character both literally and figuratively, and the idea of returning to that universe for more doesn’t seem so absurd. Alex McLevy will be back to see what the show wants to do now that its reboot work is mostly done.

The Gilded Age (HBO, November 1): It may struggle to win any of its Emmy nominations, but Julian Fellowes' series has found itself a solid place in the channel's Sunday night lineup after originally launching as a Monday series. Donna Bowman returns to guide us through the fourth season.

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (Prime Video, November 11): Look, there’s a giant asterisk on this, because I really don’t know how to reasonably cover eight episodes over three weeks of a show that fans want to discuss but has been entirely removed from anything approaching the zeitgeist. I’m committed to covering this in some shape or form, but it won’t be every episode, and so we’ll come back to this once things are finalized.

Yellowjackets (Showtime, November 20): You can't argue that the Showtime drama is ending at its creative peak, but it's also ending at a point where its mythology is still driving conversation, and that's what we'll confront with Ben Rosenstock as the series reaches its conclusion.

Bad Monkey (Apple TV, December 2): We’ve not committed to covering the entirety of Bill Lawrence’s output, but this Apple TV detective show had a specific point-of-view and a closed-ended story, which makes a return an unknown quantity. Liam Mathews returns to take us back to Florida (by way of a new California filming location).

Only Murders in London (Hulu, December 8): It’s a year of title changes for shows that aren’t technically changing their storyline, as well as a seasonal shift as one of the most reliable yearly fall shows shifts its focus to winter. I might be returning to this beat, but it’ll depend on what things look like early in 2027, so we’ll come back to this one closer to.

Ongoing Coverage

Calendars

I have no way of knowing if this is the lineup of shows that convinces you to give us your support. I have no idea how your circumstances are changing and evolving to make that support challenging. It’s also possible that you have subscribed in the past and ultimately didn’t feel like it was worth the money. But this is who we are, and what we do, and I appreciate you joining us on that journey in whatever form makes sense for you.

Episodic Observations

As always, the caveat: binge releases are simply not sustainable for episodic criticism except in the case of widely viewed series that drive considerable conversation. This means few Netflix series and no binge releases from other streamers, even when I really enjoy binging through the screeners (looking at you, season two of Adults).
In retrospect, we should have been covering Furious, which was the best show of the summer. But like many others, I really had thought that was a limited series, and that’s another category of program that we tend to avoid based on its lack of ongoing engagement and the fact they seem to be a dime a dozen these days. We’ll cover Furious when it returns for season two.
Like I said, our plans for December and onward are as always a bit shakier, but the biggest question mark is obviously the massive blockbuster TV show that we can’t pretend doesn’t exist even if we want to. What I will say is that obviously I have no intentions of covering HBO’s television adaptation of Harry Potter in a way that normalizes its fundamental endorsement of bigotry, but I have a lot of conflicted feelings about the idea of real criticism of the show and its conception disappearing once it begins airing. I’m working through what I think best uses the independent platform we have to shape the conversation around the show, so stay tuned as we get closer to December.