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

Here's what your pledge of support gets you access to in the months ahead

Month-to-Month is our regular check-in on our episodic review coverage in the months ahead.

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There’s no easy answer on what shows to cover in a context of a reader-supported newsletter like Episodic Medium. The format of episodic criticism was once used to champion little-watched shows, but when the margins are tight, it’s hard not to think of each additional show we cover through the potential subscribers it could appeal to and the conversations it could create that might entice fence sitters to shift from free to paid.

It’s especially hard because the people we hear from most are the people who are already subscribed, and what appeals to them may not necessarily result in any return on investment if the people who’d be reading have already been convinced to spend their $5 a month. This isn’t to say that I ignore those calls, but when I’m looking at the big picture, I have to consider whether adding a show to our already stacked coverage lineup in a given month is going to result in a meaningful change of the ratio of money going out to contributors and money coming in from subscriptions.

This is all a preamble to say that I ignored some pretty persuasive calls to cover the fourth season of Apple TV+ drama Slow Horses, and feel like those folks deserve an explanation. First and foremost, I put the call for a potential reviewer out to our contributors and we had only one bite, and it was someone who was a full season behind (and who actually is moving to a new role where they won’t be able to continue contributing to the site). The other issue, though, is that I don’t necessarily know if the conversation around the show has a lot of growth potential given that it is in its fourth season—they may be short seasons, but there’s a big difference between picking up a show in season two and season four, mentally. There’s also a greater likelihood that the people who would be willing to pay to find a community to discuss the show with have already found one, even if it might not live up to the standard of our own.

And yet, having said that, a lot of times the shows we do cover are ones where there are plenty of places to talk about them online, which seems like a contradiction. However, there’s no question that some of our most dynamic conversations and well-read reviews are of franchise shows with built-in fanbases, where even new series are part of a larger, ongoing conversation. I understand that there might be some frustration that we lean on the mainstream franchises as opposed to shows that deserve attention but lack the same established audience. But it’s honestly hard to justify the cost of reviewing something like Somebody Somewhere—which returns for its third and final season in October—on a weekly basis as opposed to using a weekly newsletter to highlight its strengths as it concludes its run. And other times, it’s a matter of timing: FX’s English Teacher is compelling (I wrote about it during Press Tour), but it comes during a busy period where the calendar is already pretty full, and it feels safer to wait and see if it has momentum for a season two.

This might all seem loosey-goosey, and it definitely is. But overall, what I’ve learned programming the newsletter for over two years now is that there are two ultimate goals when it comes to what we cover (beyond our general rule that binge releases will not be covered with exceptions for established series as warranted). The first is being part of larger conversations happening online about television—this is where the buzzier shows fit in, allowing our reviews to sit in dialogue with those being written by larger outlets. I know that our dedicated comment community is better than any other option out there for people who want to have a mature, dynamic conversation about the TV they’re watching, and reviews that start those conversations will always be our bread and butter.

The second principle, though, is a priority on trying to start conversations that will continue on for multiple seasons. This doesn’t mean we’re done writing about limited series, but it’s much harder to justify the cost given how quickly the discourse around them seems to dissipate in our current moment of Peak TV. Our coverage of Masters of the Air, The Regime, Feud, and The Sympathizer garnered some of our lowest readership (despite some great work by our contributors, to be clear), and looking at series like the Cate Blanchett/Alfonso Cuaron project Disclaimer it feels like the same will be true there even with the talent involved. I’m not closing off Limited Series coverage forever, but I’m definitely prioritizing weekly reviews that feel like they’re building a community and conversation that will continue for years to come, with limited series more likely to be covered in weekly newsletters.

Even with these disclaimers (*rimshot*), though, the value you get for your money is clear: we’re covering 6-7 shows a week this fall, which means your $5 a month is supporting me and nine contributors writing about a large swath of television. Here’s everything new, returning, and continuing that we’re covering over the next three months, at least until we get some additional premiere dates and a sense of how our subscription drive positions us for the rest of the year.

New Coverage

Agatha All Along

Wandavision was the start of the MCU’s foray into television on Disney+, and now nearly four years later its first of two spinoffs—a Vision series is heading into production—is arriving on Disney+. Kathryn Hahn’s Agatha was a breakout character when that show concluded its run, but the idea of delving deeper into her story has not really been supported by the MCU’s trajectory since then, making this an interesting side quest at a weird moment for the company’s TV output. Caroline Siede will continue her ongoing MCU coverage for Episodic Medium with weekly reviews starting September 18.

The Penguin

The idea of an Academy Award-nominated actor leading a spinoff of a hit superhero franchise in a weekly television show would have been pretty weird 20 years ago, but this technically already describes Hawkeye, so The Penguin isn’t breaking entirely new ground. [Footnote on Secret Invasion but we don’t talk about that] However, this marker of Warner Bros. Discovery’s investment in franchise extensions is also a test of their new policy of applying HBO branding to series originally planned as “Max Originals,” making it an especially important show industrially beyond its ties to 2022’s The Batman. Josh Spiegel, who’s been on the Star Wars beat for us, continues his investigation of TV’s franchising moment with weekly reviews of the Oswald Cobblepot series starting September 19.

St. Denis Medical

I don’t know that there’s a whole lot to sustain weekly conversation around your average broadcast series in this day and age, but I’ve felt good about platforming coverage of a show like Abbott Elementary where we can engage with the weekly rhythms and episodic/serialized balance of long-running shows. And so it feels like it’s time to take the plunge and consider a new arrival, and “hospital mockumentary” is such a mashup of past single-camera success stories that it seems like a great candidate (plus Alison Tolman is and will always remain a critic’s favorite). A contributor to be named later will take on Justin Spitzer and Eric Ledgin’s—the latter of whom has never seen Scrubs, or so he claimed at Press Tour—sitcom when it debuts November 12.¹

Silo

“New” is maybe not the right word, since Ben Rosenstock got us started with some retrospective coverage of season one, but our weekly reviews of Silo will commence when the show returns for season two on November 15.

Undated Shows

Without knowing when exactly certain shows are premiering, it’s hard to assign them out. Right now, HBO has yet to date its 2024 comedy The Franchise (which details the behind-the-scenes of the same superhero films they’re now leveraging heavily) or prequel series Dune: Prophecy, but I’m certainly interested in seeing coverage of either or both. We’ll also be covering Skeleton Crew in December, but I want to get a clearer picture of January before committing to a final coverage schedule over the holidays, so I’m sticking to November for now.

Returning Coverage

Survivor (September 18, Myles McNutt)

As we march toward the inevitable “O.G. vs. New Era” All-Star Season at 50, Survivor returns for Season 47.

Heartstopper (October 4, Myles McNutt)

After a second season of careful development of its queer community, Netflix’s teen drama digs into one of the darker stretches of the comic it’s adapting after laying the groundwork back in season one.

Abbott Elementary (October 9, LaToya Ferguson)

After a strike-shortened third season lost the plot a bit according to this particular editor, Abbott enters season four having—spoiler alert—committed to exploring the aftermath of landing on “will they.”

Shrinking (October 16, Myles McNutt)

A welcome surprise early last year, the Bill Lawrence dramedy returns to resolve a somewhat abrupt—and alarmingly literal—cliffhanger that seemed to threaten the season’s progress to that point. 

What We Do In The Shadows (October 21, Noel Murray)

Vampires might live forever, but in this day and age TV shows don’t, which is why we’ll be back with the final reviews of the FX comedy as it concludes its six season run.

Continuing Coverage

• Industry (Sundays, William Goodman)

• Only Murders in the Building (Tuesdays, Myles McNutt)

• Bad Monkey (Wednesdays, Liam Mathews)

• The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (Thursdays, Zack Handlen)

Calendars

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In a perfect world, we’d be able to cover everything here at Episodic Medium, and I’m hopeful that occasional discussion posts and the Substack Chat—where subscribers are already talking Slow Horses season four—will give paid subscribers opportunities to bring the strength of our community to bear on other series. This isn’t a perfect schedule, but it’s the right balance that I’ve been able to strike, and I’m hopeful that our pledge drive will continue to build a foundation on which to expand further in the months and years ahead.

Episodic Observations

• If anyone out there is hankering for coverage of Bad Sisters season two, sorry, but almost none of you commented on my newsletter about it from last January, so no reviews for you. (I intend to watch the screeners and will write a newsletter, mainly because making a second season of that show remains a confusing choice given how it resolved).

• Regarding binge releases, I do think that we’ll continue to make exceptions for a certain scale of binge release, as we saw with The Bear. Right now, Stranger Things is probably the only other show I can think of off the top of my head that would operate on the same playing field, but open to suggestion.

• Some real wonkery with release patterns this fall: Amazon is splitting its Yakuza adaptation into two three-episode blocks, while Hulu is launching four episodes of the Natasha Rothwell comedy How to Die Alone before shifting to weekly for the other four. I don’t like either of those models, and hope that whatever research data they’re getting will get us somewhere more solid in the future.

• If you’re wondering what early 2025 holds as you’re weighing a yearly subscription, it sure seems like Zack Handlen will be busy, with The Last of Us, Rick and Morty, and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds seemingly all being plotted for early 2025. They’ll arrive alongside Severance (and Mythic Quest and For All Mankind) on Apple TV+, and Ben Rosenstock should also be busy, given that The White Lotus and Yellowjackets feel like they’re both headed for a spring release.

• Speaking of The White Lotus, perhaps the biggest mystery this fall is HBO’s intentions for its Sunday night slots after Industry concludes. Somebody Somewhere is scheduled for a 10:30pm debut on October 27, which presumes that there will be another comedy airing before it, but The Franchise remains undated and there’s nothing on the drama side. I had presumed they might put The Penguin and Dune in that slot when they became HBO-branded, but the former stuck to Thursdays, so…are they just not going to air a Sunday drama and blame the strikes?

• As for our ongoing Classic coverage, I’m committed to finishing out The O.C. and continuing Lost, but it’s going to depend on our respective schedules and budgets. Current first slot would be the holiday corridor into January.

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1. An additional scheduling insight: it really helps when “compelling reason to cover something” overlaps with “multiple other shows are ending at exactly the same time,” in terms of trying to balance out the coverage lineup.