How to Track Your TV Shows in 2026 (Without a Spreadsheet)

There are more scripted shows airing right now than any human can follow, scattered across a dozen platforms that each only remember what they show you. Netflix doesn't know you're three episodes into something on HBO. Your brain, heroically, tries to hold it all — and fails somewhere in season 2.

People solve this in four ways: a notes app, a spreadsheet, "I'll just remember," or a tracker built for the job. This guide is about the fourth option, and how to actually set it up in ten minutes.

What a TV tracker should do

A good tracking setup answers three questions instantly:

1. Where did I stop? Per-show, per-episode progress — not a vague "season 3-ish".
2. When is the next episode? Air dates pushed to you, not hunted down on five different apps.
3. What should I watch next? A watchlist that isn't a screenshot folder.

If your current system can't answer all three, it's costing you time every single week.

Step 1: Subscribe to the shows you actively watch

Start small. On Eris, search for the five or six shows you're genuinely following — say House of the Dragon or The Bear — and hit subscribe. That one action does three things: it adds the show to your tracker, enables new-episode notifications, and slots upcoming air dates into your personal calendar.

Step 2: Mark where you actually are

Open each show page and tick off the episodes you've seen. It takes a minute per show, and from then on every episode you watch is one tap. Your progress bar always tells you exactly where you stopped — even if you come back to a slow-burn drama eight months later.

Catching up on a whole season you finished years ago? Bulk-mark the season instead of tapping twenty times.

Step 3: Let air dates come to you

This is the part that replaces all the schedule-checking. With notifications on, you get an alert the moment a subscribed show airs. The calendar view shows your personal week ahead — only the shows you follow, in your timezone. Each month's premieres also get their own page, like June 2026, so you can scan what's new at a glance.

Step 4: Build a watchlist that earns its name

Every "you have to watch this" recommendation goes on the watchlist, not into the void. When you finish a series, the next pick is already waiting. If you need ideas, our curated lists rank the best of each genre — start with the genre hubs to browse by mood.

Why not just use a spreadsheet?

You can — plenty of people do. But a spreadsheet doesn't know that a show got renewed, that the season 5 premiere date moved, or that the episode count changed. A tracker connected to live TV data does, and it updates itself. The spreadsheet's only job becomes... nothing. That's the point.

Tracking on Eris is free: subscriptions, episode progress, notifications, and the calendar all work without paying anything. Set it up once, and you'll never scroll a streaming menu muttering "what was I watching?" again.