If your group chat has already sent you three different clips of a boy with fangs looking conflicted about a girl he's not supposed to want, congratulations — you've discovered Coven Academy, Disney's new supernatural teen drama, and yes, we noticed the resemblance too.
What Is Coven Academy About?
The show is set at Crescent Veil Academy, a hidden magic boarding school in New Orleans. Briar (Malina Pauli Weissman) — a New Yorker who's just found out she's a witch — ends up there after her mother, Mary, dies under circumstances nobody at the school seems willing to fully explain. So she's not just adjusting to magic, she's also trying to figure out what actually happened to her mom while everyone around her is being cagey about it. Along the way she falls in with two other students, Sasha (Jordan Leftwich), who can read minds, and Tegan (Ora Duplass), who can bend time, and the three of them form the coven the show is named after.
Underneath the magic-school setup is a much older supernatural conflict bubbling up around the city, plus the usual boarding-school minefield of secrets, rivalries, and crushes that could ruin everything. The creative team has been open that the tone leans closer to grounded, character-driven drama than pure fantasy spectacle — closer to The Vampire Diaries or Wednesday than a straightforward magic-academy romp.
The Love Triangle Twilight Fans Will Recognize
Here's the part that got this show onto our radar in the first place. Briar ends up caught between two very different supernatural guys: Jake (Malachi Barton), a warlock with real talent and an edge that keeps pulling him toward darker magic, and Ollie (Louis Thresher), a classmate who's recently been turned into a vampire and is still learning to control the hunger that comes with it.
A girl new to the supernatural world, torn between an intense, slightly dangerous magic-user and a vampire who's actively fighting his own instincts around her — we're not saying the writers' room had a mood board with Bella, Edward, and Jacob pinned to it, but we also wouldn't be shocked. Whether that's intentional influence or just two stories independently landing on the same irresistible setup, it's the exact flavor of push-pull romance that built this site's entire audience.
Genre: Supernatural teen dramedy · Creator: Tim Federle · Network/Platform: Freeform, Disney+, Hulu · Setting: A hidden magic academy in New Orleans
Release Date & Where to Watch
Coven Academy premieres October 1, 2026 on Freeform at 8 p.m. EDT/PDT, airing as part of the network's annual Halloween programming block. If you'd rather binge than wait week to week, the entire first season drops all at once the very next day, October 2, 2026, on Disney+ and Hulu.
Freeform is splitting the broadcast into three chunks — nine chapters on October 1, six more on October 8, and the final six on October 15 — but that's only if you're watching it live on cable. The streaming release skips all of that and hands you the complete season in one go.
Cast
Skeptical, guarded, and not thrilled to be starting over in a new city. Briar didn't ask for any of this — she just wants to know what really happened to her mother, and "you're a witch" was not the answer she was expecting.
Talented enough to be genuinely dangerous, and drawn to exactly the kind of magic he should be staying away from. The kind of guy Briar knows better than to trust and can't quite stop thinking about anyway.
Newly turned into a vampire when the show picks up, and still white-knuckling his way through the hunger part — especially when Briar's around.
Can read minds, which sounds fun until you remember it means she's stuck feeling everyone else's drama along with her own.
Bends time, treats most school rules as optional. The one in the group chat who's somehow both the chaos and the reason the plan actually works.
Runs the school without needing to raise her voice — if you grew up on Saved by the Bell or 90210, you already know Thiessen can play intimidating without breaking a sweat.
Takes a personal interest in mentoring Jake, which — given Jake's track record with dangerous magic — feels like it's setting up trouble.
The recurring cast also includes Swayam Bhatia as McKenna, Brendon Tremblay as Alexander, Keegan Connor Tracy as Tamora, BJ Harrison as Agnes, and Nathaniel Logan McIntyre as Teese.
The faculty casting is doing a lot of quiet nostalgia-baiting on its own. Thiessen spent the '90s on Saved by the Bell and Beverly Hills, 90210 before headlining White Collar, so watching her run a school full of unruly teenage witches has an almost meta quality to it. Sawa, meanwhile, has spent the last few years firmly in horror territory (Chucky, the Final Destination franchise), which makes "charismatic warlock professor" feel like a pretty natural next step rather than a stretch.
A Very Specific Kind of Setting
New Orleans isn't just a backdrop here — the city's whole reputation for voodoo history, above-ground cemeteries, and old-world gothic architecture does a lot of the atmospheric heavy lifting before the plot even kicks in. It's the same instinct that made Forks work for Twilight: pick a real place that already feels a little haunted, and let the location do half the mood-building for you. Disney's marketing material has leaned into this hard, describing the school as sitting in the "haunted heart" of the city, hidden from the regular world the same way Hogwarts is hidden from Muggles.
Why It's Told in "Chapters," Not Episodes
Instead of the usual hour-long episode structure, Coven Academy is broken into 21 short chapters built for back-to-back watching — the kind of format that's basically daring you to hit "next" one more time before bed. Series creator Tim Federle has described the show as a love letter to the supernatural teen properties that shaped him growing up, name-checking Charmed, The Craft, Practical Magic, and Hocus Pocus as direct inspirations, alongside character-first dramas like Dawson's Creek.
Federle pulled off something similar with High School Musical: The Musical: The Series — took a nostalgic property and got kids who weren't alive for the original movies to care about it anyway. Coven Academy is him trying that trick a second time, just with witches instead of showtunes.
Trailer
This is the official teaser, set to Olivia Rodrigo's "Brutal," which first introduced Briar, Jake, and the rest of the coven. Disney has since released a fuller trailer that digs deeper into the Briar-Jake-Ollie triangle — worth searching out if the teaser leaves you wanting more before October 1.
FAQ: Coven Academy (2026)
When does Coven Academy come out?
It premieres on Freeform on October 1, 2026, with the full season streaming on Disney+ and Hulu starting October 2, 2026.
Who is in the cast of Coven Academy?
Malina Pauli Weissman leads as Briar, with Malachi Barton as Jake, Louis Thresher as Ollie, Jordan Leftwich as Sasha, and Ora Duplass as Tegan. Tiffani Thiessen plays Miss Graves, and Devon Sawa guest stars as Mr. Cole.
Is Coven Academy connected to Twilight?
No — it's a completely separate, original Disney series. The similarities fans have pointed out (a girl new to the supernatural world, torn between a dangerous magic-user and a newly turned vampire) appear to be coincidental, not an official connection.
How many episodes does Coven Academy have?
Season one has 21 short chapters rather than traditional hour-long episodes, built for a fast, bingeable viewing format.
Where can I watch Coven Academy?
It airs on Freeform starting October 1, with the full season available to stream on Disney+ and Hulu from October 2, 2026.
Team Jake or Team Ollie? We'll have thoughts after October 2.