Week-to-Week: The Apple TV+ Free Preview Weekend Guide We Were Baited Into Writing

Week-to-Week should have probably been renamed to Month-to-Month given how other commitments took priority late in 2024, but it’s still the newsletter for Episodic Medium, where I discuss developments in the media industries. Become a free subscriber to receive future newsletters and updates on the shows we cover weekly for paid subscribers who support our team of contributors on a monthly or yearly basis.

It’s been a few months since I’ve managed to write a newsletter, mostly because I was reviewing 3 shows for most of the fall and my actual job was requiring even more of my attention than usual. This means that there’s no shortage of TV stories that I’ve missed reflecting on, and there will no doubt be more as we head into the new year.

I owe you a few housekeeping things in the short term, including a fall schedule for the start of 2025 and a look back at our contributors’ favorite reviews of 2024, but those will need to wait until next week. In the meantime, though, I can’t help but note that Apple has decided to ring in the new year with a Free Preview weekend for their Apple TV+ service, which has led to a flood of recommendations from newsletters, BlueSky posters, and perhaps even those Real Life Acquaintances I’ve heard so much about. All you’ll need is an Apple ID and seemingly you’ll have access to the whole of Apple TV+’s film and television library from January 4-5.

As a note: Free Previews used to be very much a thing for premium cable channels back in the day (HBO still does them somewhat regularly), but with the caveat that they only covered linear broadcasts. In this sense, it was a brief taste of what it would be like to have HBO, with big Hollywood movies and premiere episodes of prestige TV shows accessible for a brief moment only to be pulled away if you don’t pony up the $15 a month to have it added to your cable package. For a streaming platform, the logics are similar: they hope you get a taste of a show or two and decide to sign up to see more. The difference is that with a full 48-ish hours of streaming available, you could watch a complete TV season or two—or three?—in that span, should you be so inclined.

I do wonder whether anyone subscribed to this newsletter is the target for such a Free Preview, though. Apple TV+ is a weird service in that it’s probably close to—maybe even past—Netflix and Disney+ in terms of the number of total users who have ever had access to it, thanks to the company’s free trials attached to all device purchases. But it also has an industry-high churn rate as a result, and I really wonder how many people out there are aware enough of the company’s programming to have their eyes on a show to watch but unwilling to pony up the $10 to sample it for a month and, say, work their way through Ted Lasso. The audience for a Free Preview strikes me as people without Apple devices with low awareness of the company’s offerings, with Apple hoping that word-of-mouth for returning shows like Severance and established hits like Slow Horses will proliferate among our social networks.

So for our free subscribers, here’s the nine Apple TV+ shows that we’ve covered here at Episodic Medium in our first three years, plus some additional options we didn’t
(but probably could have).

Ongoing Shows? That’s a Samplin’

These are all shows that are still running, meaning that you’d be watching with the expectation that you would eventually be willing to subscribe to the service to see the rest of the narrative.

Severance

Given the timing, it feels safe to say that the single most-watched show over the free preview weekend will be Severance, which may have aired three years ago but has remained in the pop culture consciousness. My reviews of season one have been going out to all subscribers on a weekly basis, and we’re just a few weeks away from the show’s return on January 17.

Silo

If you’re looking for a show to watch week-to-week, your best bet is probably Silo— if you seet aside the whole weekend, you could binge through the first season and work your way into the second, with the chance to follow along with Ben Rosenstock’s coverage of the second season over its last few episodes (Season 3 and 4 have officially been ordered).

Shrinking

It likely won’t be returning until later in the year, but a weekend is probably an ideal length of time to work through 22 half-hour-ish episodes, making Shrinking the ideal candidate for a weekend binge if you’re looking for a dramedy and want to catch up on my reviews of the first two seasons.

Bad Monkey

Of Apple’s ongoing shows we’ve covered, Bad Monkey would be the most leisurely binge watch, with just a single ten-episode season with some shorter episodes sprinkled in there. There’s officially a second season coming, but it’s also a fully contained story, and thus wouldn’t make you feel like you’d need to shell out $10 to see more beyond what Liam Mathews covered last year.

Mythic Quest

With three full seasons, this is honestly probably too ambitious a project for a single weekend, but it’s doable ahead of the show’s fourth season and its upcoming spinoff ahead of our coverage returning late in the month (with a new writer, since Lisa had to move on after covering season three).

For All Mankind

There’s no way you can get through the first four seasons of this show before it returns later this year, but you could argue that watching beyond season two is already a kind of dicey proposition, and seasons one and two are both tremendous TV that you’d enjoy with some free time even if my reviews of seasons three and four charted the show’s struggle to carry on.

Closed Loops

These shows have all concluded their runs (at least for now), meaning you could complete them in a weekend without feeling the urge to subscribe after.

Ted Lasso

Again: I don’t think you’re reading this newsletter with an awareness of Ted Lasso and yet have never bothered to sample Ted Lasso, but there’s never a bad time to sample the first season, check your mileage on the second, and then puzzle your way through the third alongside my reviews (although the runtimes get too long for a full binge in a weekend to be feasible for most).

The Afterparty and Schmigadoon!

You could argue that neither the stylistic experimentation of the former’s murder mystery or the periodized parodies of the latter’s musical were sustainable beyond their first seasons, but there was probably some gas left in the tank for both before Apple cut them off, and I was glad Lisa Weidenfeld got to work through the second seasons here at the newsletter.

Masters of the Air

I understand why Apple was willing to throw money at an Air Force followup to Band of Brothers and The Pacific, but the actual results ended up suggesting that the writers/producers never fully cracked the right angle into the story. The show still has its merits, though, and Josh Spiegel worked through them week-to-week.

Shows We Could Have Covered

Sometimes shows slip through the cracks, or debut at the wrong time, but that doesn’t mean they’re not worthwhile (since the days of covering so much that anything worthwhile gets coverage are long gone).

Slow Horses

With a multi-season renewal, it’s safe to say that Slow Horses is a bit part of Apple’s future, which means it’s probably an investment in future subscriptions if you try to work through as many of its 6-episode seasons as you can.

Pachinko

I’ll admit to being Part of the Problem when it comes to this great show, which returned for a second season that I have yet to find time for (like I said above, my fall was a bit hectic). I’m not sure if the show has a future, but some sampling during this weekend wouldn’t be a bad thing for its possible renewal.

Bad Sisters

I wondered if there was any audience for a second season of this show, given how close-ended the first seemed to be, and I have to admit the discourse around the second season was…extremely limited. But it does now have two seasons, and you could probably work through both in a weekend.

Monarch: Legacy of Monsters

I don’t know if this is ever going to be complex enough to justify coverage, but this extension of Legendary’s Monsterverse did a pretty good job of telling a coherent story across timelines while feeding the monster of its blockbuster auspices, and would be a really manageable binge across the weekend.

Platonic

I’m still pretty confused by the fact Apple decided to make more of this show, but I nearly covered the first season back in 2023 before they decided to burn it off at a quick pace. But it’s got Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne in very charming roles, and the quick burn fits the preview well.

I imagine that paid subscribers might have some favorites of their own—I’m actively baiting my boyfriend by leaving Servant off—so feel free to share in the comments. And I’ll be back next week with looks back and forward.