USA Channel.................The Sinner ...............

[tv-junky]

Ugh oh................ Boo-hiss!

Season 3-episode 1 aired a few days ago.  Still unavailable..............unless you wanna pay $2.99. (which I don't)

USA might need another nudge from Comcast to hurry it up.

[Bulkington]

The free view of the episode is not in any folder, but it IS AVAILABLE (SD and HD) via my legacy set-top box using SEARCH and the keyword "SI".  Don't know what the X1 procedure may be.

I was able to watch it Friday night & I just checked that it is still accessible.  The episode is labeled as "Available Until 02/09/2020", so a time-compressed version may post (correctly?) after midnight.

Hope this solves it.

[ForrestS]

Also, under the USA folder (via By Network) there are folders (SD & HD) for "Sinner", as well as "The Sinner".  The new episode is only found under the latter.  (One can only hope that the staff add a sub folder "You Sinner!" or "Repent, Sinner" in due course 😜 )

[tv-junky]

Welllllllllllllllllll..............

Episode 1 did finally appear to be seen for free.................about 3 days after the fact.  Episode 2 finally became available today. Again days after airing.  If I wanted to see what happened with each episode (before I see it) that can be viewed the very next day.    UGH!

So much for on-demand viewing the next day after airing.  I'll just have to be patient and wait.   USA network not giving it up right away.

[ForrestS]

We only recently decided we wanted to view all of Season 3 of The Sinner, which aired a few months ago.

Does anyone who watched in a more timely fashion recall whether any of episodes 4-8 were ever (even if only briefly) available for free viewing?

As it stands now, it is quite odd indeed. Episodes 1-3 are free through February 2021, in ginormous contrast to episode 4-8 unavailability. Normally networks expire things all at once, or expire earlier things first.

I did contact USA Network and may have more to share but am curious what others saw here.

[Bulkington]

Sad to say that episodes 4 - 8 were available, but "short-dated" and have expired...back in April.

Very frustrating when Networks do this 😖 

[ForrestS]

I can’t remember any other TV series that did something like this.

Unless it is unintended, caused by an error in not supplying commercial-shortened replacement files after the brief-lived full-commercial file. THAT we’ve seen many times over the years, and normally fixed in due course by the On Demand team. But 5 episodes “unfixed” is unprecedented for anything I ever cared about. (Sigh...maybe someone will give this a look.)

[Bulkington]

Another USA Network show Dare Me has episodes 1 - 3 available, others are PPV

The "inverse" also happens:

NBC's The Blacklist episodes 1 - 14 were available "short timed" while 15 - 19 are/will be aviailable until 09/20/2020

[ForrestS]

Btw, USA Network did give me a reply, but unfortunately it had a form letter feel. And it was totally off point, saying such problems were nearly always authentication-based. (Yeah they didn’t actually read my post. No user gets eps 4-8 free. Oh well.)

My guess is that NBC (owns USA) are saving these missing episodes for Peacock access only, as they prepare for that launch, do everything within limits to make it more attractive. (They are NOT doing the same...withholding episodes... with new series Briarpatch which aired at around the same time as Sinner Season 3, which is why this is even more of a guess. But it might be the reason for episode withholding rather than, as one can still only hope might be true and thus eventually correctable, a clerical error in failing to post commercial shortened files for eps 4-8.)

[ForrestS]

Good news: NBC gave me a to-the-point reply! In my experience it is rare to get clear and relevant answers to these types of questions so I thank NBC despite...

Bad news: ...the fact that it’s bad news, oy.

Here’s NBC’s reply, Forum-Land:

“ Unfortunately, the episode offering seen right now for The Sinner is correct: our business agreements currently limit the episodes available on our website and apps to those first three. I believe the rest are intended to be seen on Netflix for the time being.

We're sorry: we know this answer isn't what anyone wants to hear, and we apologize for the inconvenience.

Thank you for watching,
NBC Digital Support”

We can hope that perhaps the current limitations in favor of Netflix terminate before Feb 2021. Maybe we’ll eventually be able to view the season here. I hope giving precedence to Netflix for viewing recently aired TV series doesn’t become a trend. This is all new and unprecedented, I believe.

[rufus97]

Same thing happened to us.  We wait until a show has aired all episodes, and then watch one each night.  Was keeping an eye on The Sinner,  and finaly saw all 8 episodes.  Went back short time later to start watching, and found that episodes 4-8 disappeared.  Only available in "Search" as "Buy".  Interestingly, "By Network",  it still has "Inside Episodes 1-8" for free.  This makes absolutely no sense.   Same thing happened with "Evil" on CBS. The last two episodes disappeared and were only available as "Buy".  Other shows are missing episodes.   Right now, we're checking Yellowstone, which has aired two episodes.  Problem:  they're only in SD, not HD.  Will we bother to contact Comcast?  Why bother?   If you "Chat" with Comcast, they say they'll give it priority, but nothing gets done.  Comcast needs to do something about this for their customers.