While streaming new shows, you might have found yourself craving that "Next Episode" countdown timer, only to be frustrated to learn you'll have to wait until next week to watch the new chapter.

Well, you're not alone.

A new study into streaming habits from streaming studiers Samba TV quoted by The Wrap shows 45% of respondents surveyed say they finished shows released in 2023 "in bulk" compared to a 35% completion rate of the series that dropped weekly.

Thirty-nine percent finished the programs if they released blocks of episodes instead of the whole enchilada.

“That's millions of viewers who are starting but not completing a series," Samba TV’s vice president of measurement products, Cole Strain, said at The Grill, The Wrap's annual business conference.

What's more, approximately 70% of millennial respondents surveyed by Samba TV said they'd be more likely to keep a streaming service that dropped entire shows at a time, like Netflix does, instead of a week-by-week distribution, the way Paramount+ and Disney+ usually release content.

By way of example, the company notes 61% of respondents completed the bulk-dropped Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story on Netflix; 50% say they finished season 3 of The Mandalorian, which dropped episodes weekly on Disney+.

Just 52% got through all of Ted Lasso's weekly releases on Apple TV+, and 48% finished another weekly streamer, fellow Emmy winner Succession, over on Max.

For the record, Samba TV says 72% of the U.S. adults it surveyed identified themselves as binge-watchers, and 47% say it took them an average o

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New Girl actress Zooey Deschanel and Property Brothers star Jonathan Scott are opening up for the first time since they got engaged in August.

The couple told People about their love story, their blended family and the home they’ve built together.

"We've just been basking in engaged bliss," Deschanel said.

The couple’s engagement was one out of a fairytale, with Scott asking Deschanel to marry him at Scotland’s Edinburgh Castle.

Scott told the magazine he had been planning the surprise for months. On the day of the proposal, he ensured that he and Deschanel were the last people at the historic site.

The proposal included a bagpipe band and a guitarist who performed Neil Young's "Harvest Moon," their favorite song.

The special moment also included Deschanel’s kids, Elsie, 8, and Charlie, 6, whom she shares with ex-husband Jacob Pechenik. "I was like, 'I think something’s happening,'" Deschanel recalled about the moment, which involved her kids holding a sign that read, "Zooey, will you marry me?"

"When Elsie turned around and read the sign, she immediately goes, 'Did you just get married?' And we’re like, 'Well, no not yet. But we got engaged!'" Scott said. "The kids didn't know until the moment it happened."

Deschanel, who has been open about co-parenting Elsie and Charlie, said, "Our family is very deeply rooted and very blended."

She also referred to Scott as Charlie and Elsie's "bonus daddy."

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Saturday Night Live will return October 14, with one of its most famous alums in recent history, Pete Davidson, as host and Ice Spice as the musical guest.

On Wednesday, the show's official Instagram announced the Bupkis star and the "Munch (Feelin' U)" artist will officially kick off SNL's 49th season.

With the late night shows back following the resolution of the monthslong WGA strike, some wondered what would become of Saturday Night Live since SAG-AFTRA is still on strike.

The organization issued a memo to its members Wednesday to make clear that as far as it's concerned, the show can go on.

"SAG-AFTRA members appearing on Saturday Night Live either as hosts, guests, or cast members are working under the Network Code agreement, which is not a contract we are striking," the union noted.

"They are not in violation of SAG-AFTRA strike rules, and we support them in fulfilling their contractual obligations."

The group adds, "The program is a SAG-AFTRA non-dramatic production under a separate agreement that is not subject to the union’s strike order."

Further, the message clarifies, "The majority of our members who are regular cast on Saturday Night Live had contractual obligations to the show prior to the strike. ... By not showing up to work, our performers can be held in breach of contract and the Union is prohibited from advising them not to work."

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Disney has revealed the second-season trailer to Behind The Attraction, its exclusive peek at Walt Disney's magical theme parks.

Co-produced by Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Dany Garcia's Seven Bucks Productions and Brian Volk-Weiss' The Nacelle Company, the show "takes viewers on a ride behind Disney Parks’ most iconic and beloved attractions, featuring the Imagineers that designed them and the Cast Members who operate them."

While season 1 took a deep dive into Jungle Cruise, Haunted Mansion, It’s A Small World and Space Mountain, season 2 showcases Pirates of the Caribbean, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Indiana Jones Adventure, EPCOT, the parks' fireworks-filled Nighttime Spectaculars and, of course, the food.

After all, don't you want to know who came up with the idea for those giant turkey legs and 12-inch churros?

The series drops November 1 on Disney+.

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Patrick Stewart says it gives him "nothing but pleasure" that Tom Hardy has had such a successful career. However, when Stewart filmed 2002's Star Trek: Nemesis with the actor, he thought it would be the end of the eventual Mad Max: Fury Road star's career.

According to Insider, in Stewart's brand-new memoir Making It So, the actor looked back at making the "particularly weak" film opposite then newbie actor Hardy, who played an evil clone of Stewart's Jean-Luc Picard.

Stewart recalls, "the actor who portrayed the movie's villain, Shinzon, was an odd, solitary young man from London. His name was Tom Hardy."

"Tom wouldn’t engage with any of us on a social level. Never said, 'Good morning,' never said, 'Goodnight,' and spent the hours he wasn't needed on set in his trailer with his girlfriend," Stewart explains.

The Picard star adds, "He was by no means hostile — it was just challenging to establish any rapport with him."

When his role wrapped, Hardy left without any niceties, and Stewart recalls telling Trek co-stars Brent Spiner and Jonathan Frakes, "And there goes someone I think we shall never hear of again."

Hardy, of course, became a superstar, landing roles in Inception, The Dark Knight Rises and the hit Venom movies. He'll be seen next onscreen in The Bikeriders.

Stewart says, "It gives me nothing but pleasure that Tom has proven me so wrong."

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RuPaul, the Emmy-winning host of RuPaul's Drag Race, announced that his forthcoming memoir, The House of Hidden Meanings, is finally finished. 

In a video on Instagram, a makeup free, hat-and-hoodie-wearing Ru showed a copy of the book, set for release March 5, 2024. He says it took a tough two-and-a-half years to write.

"I’m so excited and so anxious at the same time because I reveal so much of myself," Ru expressed. "This world today, it feels so hostile, and it's such a scary place to be vulnerable in."

"But I did it. So get ready," he said, capping the video with a defiant laugh. 

In the caption of the post, Ru said the making of the book left him "gooped, gagged and stripped raw." He added, "I've learned that vulnerability is strength, but so far, all I feel is nervous as hell, yet super excited to share it with y'all. When all is said and done, it's just me, Ru."

Publisher HarperCollins said the memoir is RuPaul's "most revealing and personal work to date -- a brutally honest, surprisingly poignant, and deeply intimate memoir of growing up Black, poor, and queer in a broken home to discovering the power of performance, found family, and self-acceptance."

The publisher also called it "A profound introspection of his life, relationships, and identity," and "a self-portrait of the legendary icon on the road to global fame and changing the way the world thinks about drag."

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Following the resolution of the writers strike, The Drew Barrymore Show will return to the air Monday, October 16.

The show's official Instagram page made the "This just in" announcement with a shot of Drew Barrymore having fun with her studio audience.

As reported, once the strike ended on September 27, Barrymore's show, like others, got the gears spinning again; producers for the syndicated show eyed an October start.

The popular show recently made headlines for all the wrong reasons when Barrymore stated she intended to ramp production before the strike ended, expressing, "We launched live in a global pandemic. Our show was built for sensitive times and has only functioned through what the real world is going through in real time. I want to be there to provide what writers do so well, which is a way to bring us together or help us make sense of the human experience."

The decision drew flak from striking writers and their supporters, and Barrymore did an about-face. "I have listened to everyone, and I am making the decision to pause the show's premiere until the strike is over," Barrymore wrote on Instagram two weeks ago, adding, "I have no words to express my deepest apologies to anyone I have hurt and, of course, to our incredible team who works on the show and has made it what it is today."

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World FTD Awareness Week ended on October 1, and to mark the occasion, Emma Heming Willis saluted two women who helped her come to grips with her husband Bruce Willis' Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) diagnosis.

On her Make Time to Connect podcast, Emma's final cast of FTD Awareness Week welcomed Maria Kent Beers and Rachael Martinez, who started the Remember Me podcast Heming Willis found while desperate for more information on her Die Hard star husband's condition.

Rachel lost her father to the disease; Beers, her mother.

"I didn't know where to go, what to look up, I’m looking things up and it's freaking me out," Heming Willis said. "There wasn't a lot [of information about FTD] but you guys popped up. I started listening and I felt like, 'Oh my gosh I'm so grateful to hear other people’s stories.'"

Later, she expressed, "There's nothing that levels the playing field like FTD. And I have made some of the greatest connections with other care partners, people like you who just get it. There doesn't have to be so much explanation."

She added, "You guys have been so helpful to me. I want to say thank you. I'm surprised I'm not crying because that’s where I go to when I think of people who have been that lifeline for me."

Heming Willis and her family revealed in March 2022 that Willis was retiring from acting because he was diagnosed with aphasia, a brain condition that affects memory and speech.

In February of this year, they updated fans that Bruce's condition worsened to Frontotemporal dementia, a "cruel disease" for which there is no cure.

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Kathy Griffin appeared on Tuesday night's Jimmy Kimmel Live, and right out of the gate, she was ready to rumble -- all to protect her "queen," Taylor Swift.

The Emmy-winning comic began by explaining her voice, which is now pitched higher due to her 2021 battle with lung cancer. She had to have a lung removed, leaving her with an axe to grind against everyone in the "two-lung community," she joked.

Still, Griffin insisted, she is funnier with the new voice, and more importantly, cancer-free.

Griffin quickly took aim at sports, calling them "the gateway drug to all things bad," especially now that the world of sports and the world of Taylor Swift have collided in "Traylor" -- the entanglement between Taylor and Kansas City Chiefs star Travis Kelce.

Griffin warned sports fans not to go after Taylor if the Chiefs lose a game. "You sports people don't stand a chance against the Swifties," she declared. 

"If there's any threat to her or perceived threat, they will dox your kid's teacher's family. They will find out where they live. And they shoot to kill. Because she is our queen," she riffed.

Kimmel agreed, explaining he lives with a Swiftie: his daughter. 

Griffin also had a lot to say about a recent video that showed Britney Spears dancing around with a pair of knives, which resulted in the local sheriff's department performing a wellness check.

In fact, Kathy had posted to Instagram a bikini video of her own, imitating Brit's moves -- but with a knife and spatula.

"I fear the #FreeBritney people, I do, but sometimes, a person can be too free," the comic said, adding, "All I'm saying is, I love you gays and I love you #FreeBritney people, but you didn't have a plan."

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The premiere episode of ABC's The Golden Bachelor marked a three-year high for the franchise, drawing 7.7 million viewers after three days of streaming on Hulu -- a gain of 3.34 million viewers, or almost 77% over its 4.36 million viewers for the show's initial airing on September 28.

The episode also more than tripled its adults 18-49 rating, rising from 0.62 for the initial broadcast to 1.9 after three days. Additionally, ABC says the premiere recorded the equivalent of 1.76 million complete showings on Hulu -- the highest three-day total ever for a series premiere of an ABC show on the streamer.

Hulu, like Netflix and Disney+, calculates “views” as total viewing time divided by running time, per the Writers Guild of America’s new contract to help determine a success-based residual for original streaming series, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

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The legendary improv group The Groundlings will host an improv musical fundraising event on October 26, featuring famous alumni Ana Gasteyer, Kristen Bell, Kristen Wiig and Will Forte. The event, held at the Performing Arts Center at Vista Del Mar, will benefit the Motion Picture & Television Fund to support below-the-line workers impacted by the strikes, according to Variety. The improvisors will attempt to put on a full production of One Night Only, the Broadway musical created and directed by Groundlings Main Company member Andrew Leeds, with just 24 hours to rehearse. The Groundlings Theatre has served as the springboard for Melissa McCarthy, Jennifer Coolidge, Will Ferrell and Lisa Kudrow among many others...

Reptile, the Netflix crime thriller starring Benicio del Toro, Alicia Silverstone and Justin Timberlake, debuted at No. 1 on the streamer's English films Top 10 during the September 25-October 1 viewing window with 17.7 million total views. The film landed just behind the Spanish dystopian thriller, Nowhere, which drew 23.4 million views. On the TV side, Sex Education season 4 continued to lead the list with 13.4 million views, while season 1 took ninth place with 1.9 million views...

A second trailer for Priscilla, the Sofia Coppola's biopic adapted from Priscilla Presley and Sandra Harmon’s 1985 book, Elvis and Me was released on Tuesday, October 3. The movie, starring Cailee Spaeny as the eponymous Priscilla, follows the life of the woman who was married to the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll. Euphoria star Jacob Elordi takes on the role of Elvis Presley. Priscilla opens nationwide November 3... 

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Jason Mraz followed up his second place finish on last week's Dancing with the Stars with a rumba that left him tied for first place on the leader board on the Tuesday, October 3 episode, that ended with the shocking elimination of Jamie Lynn Spears.

Jason and his partner, Daniella Karagach's sultry rumba to "Quizás, Quizás, Quizás" by Andrea Bocelli featuring Jennifer Lopez, earned a score of 24 out of a possible 30, tying him for first place with Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness star Xochitl Gomez and her pro partner Val Chmerkovskiy.

"Last week felt like being shot out of a cannon," Jason recalled during rehearsal, adding that he was "elated" by the results. However, Tuesday's performance provided a new challenge, according to Daniella, pointing out that the rumba was a slower dance, which left "a lot of room for error."

"Week one, we set a high bar, and now we set this expectation that I'm great and I don't know if I am," the singer shared.

However, the judges thought so, including Derek Hough, who couldn't cram enough superlatives into his review, but ended it by declaring that Jason "nailed" the difficult dance.

Fellow judge Bruno Tonioli complimented Mraz for having "the right motion," while Carri Ann Inaba noted that aside from a "tiny little misstep" the performance was "exceptional."

In a shocking elimination, Jamie Lynn Spears and her partner Alan Bersten were voted off, despite earning a respectable 15 out of 30 points from the judges, who couldn't hide their shock over the elimination.

Elsewhere, former Bachelorette Charity Lawson's dance partner, Artem Chigvintsev, was scratched from Tuesday's roster after testing positive for COVID-19. Ezra Sosa filled in and the couple danced to a third place finish, with 21 points.

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On Tuesday at 9 p.m. ET, the anticipated conclusion of Star Wars: Ahsoka drops on Disney+.

The penultimate episode saw Rosario Dawson's titular former Jedi hero and Padawan Sabine Wren (Natasha Liu Bordizzo) finally reunited with their long-lost friend, Ezra Bridger (Eman Esfandi) on the far-flung planet Peridea.

But finding Ezra a way home means Sabine opened the door for the return of the dreaded Grand Admiral Thrawn (Lars Mikkelsen), who has been stranded there with Ezra since the finale of their animated original adventures in Star Wars: Rebels.

In the closing moments of the seventh episode, Thrawn revealed his strategy was to keep the heroes busy fighting some of his forces on the ground while he finishes packing his dilapidated Star Destroyer with a massive army of troops and gear, and taking the only ride off the planet, via a massive hyperspace ring furnished by arms queenpin Morgan Elsbeth (Diana Lee Inosanto).

With the threat of the heroes being stranded and Thrawn in striking distance of escaping, there's also the matter of fallen Jedi Baylan Skoll (the late Ray Stevenson) and his apprentice Shin Hati (Ivanna Sakhno).

The two evil allies seem to have a parting of ways: Skoll leaves his apprentice to try killing the heroes and take her place among a resurgent Empire while setting off on a mysterious different path of his own.

If the finale gets you too excited, you can always chill out with a brand-new livestream of Sabine's Loth-cat snoozing to some Lo-Fi beats.

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The U.K.-based auction house Propstore is putting another slew of Hollywood treasure up on the block in an event running November 9 - 12, and the items — and their prices — are likely to make any movie fan's jaw drop.

Among the 1,800 items up for grabs is a light-up, screen-used head of the protocol droid C-3PO from 1977's Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope. The item comes from the personal collection of the actor who played him in every movie in the saga, Anthony Daniels. It's estimated to fetch anywhere from $575,000 - $1,150,000, but as in nearly every auction, it's likely this and other items will go for more when the hammer drops.

In fact, Prop Store estimates the haul in this collection could fetch more than $14 million.

Other items include Harrison Ford's bullwhip from 1984's Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, estimated to go for anywhere from $115,000-$230,000 — the same estimate goes for Leonardo DiCaprio's costume as Jack Dawson in 1997's Titanic.

Other big-ticket items include Ursula Andress' Honey Rider bathrobe from 1962's first official James Bond movie Dr. No ($80,500 - $161,000); Chris Evans' shield from 2011's Captain America: The First Avenger ($57,500 - $115,000), and Jennifer Lawrence's Katniss Everdeen bow and quiver from 2013's The Hunger Games: Catching Fire ($23,000 - $46,000).

Check out the full listing at Prop Store's website. Who knows, there's a huge Powerball drawing between now and then, so might as well window-shop now.

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BET's streaming network BET+ is giving fans a lot for the holidays.

On Tuesday, the streaming network revealed 12 projects, including holiday films, a festive installment of The Ms. Pat Show directed by legend Debbie Allen and TV specials timed for the season.

The slate runs from November 2 to December 21 on BET+.

Among the other projects, Vivica A. Fox appears in the suspense thriller Sworn Justice: Taken Before Christmas. Robin Givens wrote, executive produced and stars in the romantic comedy Christmas Rescue, and she also directed the faith-based drama Favorite Son Christmas.

Tichina Arnold and Jackée Harry will star in So Fly Christmas. Singer and actress Macy Gray will topline Never Alone for Christmas, and Christmas Angel will star Tamar Braxton, Skyh Black and actor/recording artist Romeo Miller.

Here's the full schedule:

November 2

A Wesley Christmas Wedding

Heart for the Holidays

November 9

Christmas Angel

November 16

Sworn Justice: Taken Before Christmas

November 23

The Ms. Pat Show Holiday Episode "Father Christmas"

So Fly Christmas

November 30

A Royal Christmas Surprise

The Christmas Ringer

December 7

Never Alone for Christmas

December 14

Christmas Rescue

Favorite Son Christmas

December 21

Whatever It Takes

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