You need to specify the return-format of the acf-field as ‘l’
& then modify your query as follows:
$todayName = date('l');
$schedules = new WP_Query([
'posts_per_page' => -1,
'post_type' => 'serie',
'meta_query' => [
'relation' => 'AND',
[
'key' => 'status',
'value' => '1',
'compare' => '=',
],
[
'key' => 'release_date' ,
'value' => '"'.todayName.'"',
'compare' => 'LIKE',
// You might try this too. If you can use this instead of `LIKE` please do, because it's more efficient
// 'value' => todayName,
// 'compare' => '=',
]
]
]);