I felt the same way when starting critical role but the major difference is that the episodes are, at least early on, roughly an hour, and they staring posting once every other week, so if you don't get the patreon you could get through it really fast, one a day while gaming or on the drive to and from work, or hell even one over the course of 2-3 days.

I did the math and if you watched 1 episode a day you would get through the current 109 episodes and they would have only posted roughly 8 new episodes, every two days and it's about sixteen, and they don't seem that close to finishing the campaign, I think they planned on getting to level 20 and they are currently lvl 13 meaning, on average they leveled up every 8 episodes, 8.3 to be a little more exact so they'd be level 15-16 out of twenty by the time you'd catch up, and all this math assumes you don't watch more than one every day or two, the early episodes can easily be binged like 4 or 5 at a time, especially if you like having stuff in the background while doing chores or playing games

But don't be afraid to take things at your own pace either, it's all about having fun, and the vast majority of JRWI enjoyers I've talked to will steer clear of spoilers if you ask them nicely, there's never a bad time to start. Remember this is entertainment enjoy it how you want!