New Candy Shorts, day by day

How a series lands in the Daily Drop

Here is the whole method. Every morning our check reads Candy's catalog. If it sees a series it has never seen before, that series is filed in the Drop as out the day before. No rumors, no guessing, no waiting for a press release that Candy never sends.

That makes the date a statement about our check, not about Candy. A series could have sat on Candy's side for a few hours before we noticed, and we say so rather than pretending to a precision we do not have.

Older drops work a little differently. They come from our earlier counts and cover the days since the count before, so those pages show a date range of what appeared in between. The first count, in early October, is the starting catalog and not a drop.

Some days bring a whole batch and some bring nothing. Days with no new series get no page, because an empty front page is a sad sight. So far the paper holds 9 drops covering 68 series.

Why the first days matter

New arrivals are the best moment to sample, because the opener of an open series is a freebie and the follow-up only asks you to sign up. Across the open catalog that is 385 free episodes, and the new ones are always among them.

Before you spend a single token, open the scoop. The receipts tell you how many episodes the series has, how many are free, how long it runs and what finishing it costs. A series with five episodes is a different commitment from one that stretches on for ages.

Then watch the free part and ask yourself one question: do I want to know what happens next? Most series end their second episode on a cliffhanger built to make you say yes. Say yes on purpose, not on reflex, and the tokens stay yours.