Catch Up or Fall Behind: An Essential Rewatch Guide for New TV Shows
Before new drops, hit replay on these gems!
The best storyworlds are so rich that they can be endlessly mined for new material, and that might be why they have engaged fans who love to see reboots and revivals. And in the world of streaming, it seems that nothing is ever gone or canceled forever, and there are endless opportunities for established IP in any medium. Just this week, King of the Hill returned after 15 years with a new season, and the TV series Alien: Earth ahem–landed–on FX, a prequel to the blockbuster Alien franchise. As we look ahead to renewed seasons, spinoffs and prequels, and more content in the near future, it’s the perfect time to carve out a rewatch plan! Here are some shows and movies coming soon that you can prepare for right now!
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
A reboot of the acclaimed series from the late 90s/early aughts is in the works at Hulu, with Sarah Michelle Gellar reprising her role as Buffy Summers–and executive producing. While there’s no exact date yet, fans are extremely excited to see a beloved character on screen again. But this series will have a new slayer, played by Ryan Kiera Armstrong. In this sweet Instagram video, you can see Sarah breaking the news to Ryan that she is this generation’s new slayer.
The rewatch plan: Has it been a while since you watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the series)? Get into it! There are seven seasons, so while that’s a commitment, you might have the time since the reboot hasn’t confirmed a release date yet. While you watch, you can go deeper by listening to some podcasts about the series. “The Rewatcher,” a podcast by the hosts of the popular “Morbid” podcast, Ash and Alaina, is a fan fave. “Buffering: A Rewatch Adventure” is a critically acclaimed podcast hosted by Jenny Owen Youngs and Kristin Russo. But there are many out there to choose from! Love deep dives? At rmrk*st Magazine, you can find a full content slate dedicated to Buffy right here. In addition, you can go ahead and watch the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie, a dark comedy hit that inspired the series.
Elle
In the summer of 2026, fans of Legally Blonde will be in for a treat: a prequel TV series is in the works, with newcomer Lexi Minetree cast as a young Elle. When we meet Reese Witherspoon’s Elle Woods in Legally Blonde, she’s a college senior who finds herself in law school after following her ex-boyfriend to Harvard. Fans love Elle for her tenacity, her spirit, and her intelligence. But it begs the question: who was Elle Woods in high school? The new series will answer that exact question.
The rewatch plan: Legally Blonde is an endlessly rewatchable film, so go ahead and rewatch it to your heart’s content! There’s also, of course, Legally Blonde 2. But if you’re looking to go deeper, check out the film history podcast “Unspooled,” hosted by Paul Scheer and Amy Nicholson. Their episode covering the movie is filled with great insights. You can also check out the Legally Blonde episode of “The Rewatchables,” hosted by cultural commentators Bill Simmons, Juliet Litman, and Amanda Dobbins.
Another great way to prepare is to listen to the Broadway Original Cast Recording of Legally Blonde: The Musical. In 2007, MTV aired a pro-shot of the film that is readily available on the internet. The show was a smash hit, running just over a year on Broadway and is still performed all over the country. In 2008, MTV produced a reality show, Legally Blonde: The Musical: The Search for Elle Woods, a competition series–clips of which are easy to find online– that had hopefuls competing for the chance to replace actress Laura Bell Bundy in the role of Elle on Broadway. Several runners up and the winner got the chance to play Elle in the Broadway and touring productions.
Stranger Things
This November, fans of Stranger Things will get the first episodes of the fifth and final season of the show. The new season will drop in three different parts over the 2025 holidays, the series finale available on New Year’s Eve. Already, the Season 5 trailer has gotten the fandom pretty excited! It’s been three years since the last installment on Netflix, leaving fans in a lurch and waiting so long to see the conclusion. In the meantime, the cast has fully grown up and it’s hard to believe that they are the same kids we know from Season 1.
The rewatch plan: With only 8 or 9 episodes per season, it’s relatively easy to put together a rewatch plan between now and Thanksgiving. And you’ll need it, because it’s almost impossible to remember what happened in 4 (largely spaced apart) seasons where A LOT has happened. And if you’ve never seen the series before, now is a fantastic time to catch up and get ready for the series conclusion. November 6 is Will Byers Day (the day in the show where Will goes missing, setting the events of the series in motion), so don’t forget to string up your holiday lights a bit early to celebrate.
When you’re not rewatching, here’s an album to add to your playlist rotation: Ingrid Michaelson’s Stranger Songs. Michaelson is a huge fan of the show, and collaborated with other artists to create a tracklist that spoke to the themes in the series. What began as a creative project became a very personal one, for instance processing her own loss of her mother through the character of Eleven’s loss of her mother.
And if you’re into theater, Stranger Things: The First Shadow on Broadway is a must-see. The plot of the play is a prequel, and takes place in Hawkins, Indiana in 1959–the exact time and place where strange activity begins to happen. It follows the arrival of the Creel family to Hawkins, with young Henry struggling with psychotic breaks as a young teen. His classmates are Jim Hopper, Joyce Maldonado (later Byers), Bob Newby and Bob’s adopted sister Patty, who is the only person who befriends him despite his strange ways. The play, which features incredible special effects, provides an insightful look back on the origins of the Upside Down and a secret military experiment gone wrong. If you're not able to see the play, it is worth reading up on as one of the cast members will be joining the TV series to play the same role, hinting at a throughline that might be important to know for Season 5.
Scrubs
Hard to believe, but after all this time, a Scrubs reboot is in the works with the original three stars–Zach Braff, Donald Faison, and Sarah Chalke–revising their roles in the hospital comedy. It is a true revival of the show which will air on ABC, and marks the first season back since it was canceled in 2010. Fifteen years later, a lot has changed in the world of medicine, and the characters are older as well, which means we’ll get fresh storytelling in a world we already love with characters we have adored for decades.
The rewatch plan: The new show will premiere in the 2025-2026 season, so there isn’t much time to binge all nine seasons of the original series. Although, the episodes are short so if you really dedicate yourself, you might be able to make it! If you’re short on time, you can refresh with the top 10 episodes (according to some). There was also a webseries companion called Scrubs: Interns that you can easily find on ABC’s YouTube channel. It’s an additional fun way to immerse yourself in the Scrubs universe.
If you need a rewatch companion or would rather just listen to recaps, the must-listen for the series is “Fake Doctors, Real Friends,” a Scrubs rewatch podcast hosted by Zach Braff and Donald Faison. Like many other celebrity rewatch podcasts, the show became a quarantine hit back in 2020 when folks had a lot more alone time on their hands and nostalgia was a favorite pastime. But it’s more than satisfying to know that two actors who play best friends on TV are besties in real life too–and it makes for a magical listening experience.
The Paper
This fall, a new series is a mockumentary from Greg Daniels about a small town business drops on Peacock. Sound familiar? It should! The Paper is a spinoff of The Office. Set at a Midwest newspaper office for a historic yet declining local newspaper, The Paper shares DNA with the beloved long-running sitcom as it exists in the sam world. The character of Oscar Martinez, played by Office alum Oscar Nuñez, will appear as a recurring character, and the cast features an extensive dramatic and comedic ensemble including Alex Edelman, Domhnall Gleeson, Ramona Young, Tim Key, Melvin Gregg, Chelsea Frei and more. We’re predicting this series will have tons of fun Easter eggs for Office fans, so we recommend brushing up.
The rewatch plan: It might be tough to rewatch all episodes from nine seasons in about a month’s time, but there are other alternatives if you can’t hunker down and lose yourself in The Office. You might want to stick to the top 30 episodes, or if you just want an overview, you can choose to just watch the Superfan episodes, a slate of extended cut episodes that contain extra scenes and can be found streaming on Peacock as a separate series entry.
You can also brush up on the show and its creators, who are at the helm of The Paper, by listening to the “Office Ladies” podcast hosted by Jenna Fisher and Angela Kinsey. They not only recap every episode with behind-the-scenes stories and secrets, but they have interviewed tons of cast and creatives on the show (their Greg Daniels episode can be found here.) A quick search on your favorite podcast platform yields at least 10 more podcasts to choose from on the show. You can also pick up the “Office Ladies”-adjacent book, The Office BFFs by Fisher and Kinsey, or if you want more oral histories, there is The Office: The Untold Story of the Greatest Sitcom of the 2000s: An Oral History by Andy Greene or Welcome to Dunder Mifflin: The Ultimate Oral History of The Office by Brian Baumgartner, Ben Silverman and a foreword by Greg Daniels. There’s a lot of material to immerse yourself in before checking out the spinoff!
