Pilot TV

It's been two years since His Dark Materials last graced our screens but the Philip Pullman adaptation returns this week with the third and final instalment, and we have star Amir Wilson on the show to talk Daemons, dimension-hopping and waging war on heaven. Plus, we see if National Treasure: Edge of History can live up to the movies’ legacy, and watch David Tenant re-enact a political assassination in Litvinenko on ITVX. Oh and it’s Boyd’s birthday as well. All together now: “For he’s a jolly good fellow…”

Strike is Back! Which is excellent news, but more excellent by far is that both Strike and Robin (street names Tom Burke and Holliday Grainger) are on the show this week to talk about it. Plus Guy Pearce is also around to chat A Spy Among Friends, which marks the launch of ITVX, a streaming service that also brings us Tell Me Everything, enabling us to get in touch with our inner Gen Z. Plus we delight in (or endure) a little country music (depending on taste) in George & Tammy on Paramount+, and we get back in touch with our European brethren as the Dutch take our pronunciation to task, and the Spanish take issue with us perpetuating falsehoods about their accent. It's been quite a week!

You've got to give Apple's Slow Horses one thing, it's anything but slow. The brilliant espionage drama returns for its second season in one year this week and we have stars Gary Oldman and Saskia Reeves on hand to talk all about it. Elsewhere, we're undertaking some unconventional therapy with Steve Carrel in The Patient, experiencing some even more unconventional living arrangements with Jessica Brown Findlay in The Flatshare, and solving snowy crimes in Canada with Alfred Molina in Three Pines. All that and Beth's toothbrush issue is vindicated, we take a detour on accents and there's even more Andor appreciation (sorry).

Luke Evans is with us on the show this week, talking Echo 3, Apple's new geo-political thriller set in the jungles of Colombia (there may be a little Strictly chat surreptitiously slipped in there by Kay as well). Elsewhere, we're heading back to school with the best member of the Addams Family in Netflix's Wednesday, and taking a look at what our cousins across the pond have done to beloved sitcom Ghosts. Plus, in a ludicrously extended postbag sequence, James stages a spirited defence of TV bellends and we find out all about Beth's weird vicarious toothbrushing phobia.

Who do we have on this week's show? It's only Sylvester Stallone, who finally, after all these years, makes his scripted TV debut with Tulsa King on Paramount+. But that's not all because we also take a trip on Netflix's spooky ghost ship in polyglot creep show 1899 on Netflix, and discover that the only thing more horrifying than ghouls and ghosts is college-age men in Tell Me Lies on Disney+. All that and yet more cancellations of shows (some with fairies) as the streamers start swinging the axe with wild abandon.

Emily Blunt, Chaske Spencer and The English creator Hugo Blick join us on this week's show to talk about their rip-roaring rampage of revenge through the Old West. Plus we unpick some marital strife with James Corden in Mammals on Prime and head off to Balmoral for the long-awaited (and Judi Dench-baiting) fifth season of The Crown on Netflix. Plus, James tries to come to terms with a week which not only saw drama come to his beloved Witcher, but also the demise of Fate: The Winx Saga. It's been a lot!

We're back on holiday at The White Lotus for season 2 of the Mike White's excellent comedy-drama. Plus we're revisiting a bit of saucy 19th century literature in Dangerous Liaisons on Lionsgate+, and getting meta about reboots with, well, Reboot on Disney+. Plus, no halloween episode would be complete without a little haunted house chat (aka what James did on his recent holiday — not to a White Lotus), plus there are some scintillating updates about Beth's recent eye test and the state of Boyd's boiler. Never let it be said that we don't bring you the most *essential* content.

The excellently titled witch drama The Bastard Son And The Devil Himself is on our watch list this week and star Nadia Parkes joins us to talk all things witchy, as well as turning rats into soup (sort of). Plus we catch up with See creator Steven Knight's latest show, SAS: Rogue Heroes, and discover that what goes bump in the night is actually Peter Capaldi in The Devil's Hour. All that and the usual generous helping of TV ramblings as we catch up with all the latest episodes.

Wedding Season is the new thrill-packed, mystery-stuffed rom-com that is now streaming on Disney+. The first-ever UK Original Series on Disney+, it follows the adventures of Stefan (Gavin Drea) and Kate (Rosa Salazar), a couple on the run after Katie's entire wedding party, including her husband, are killed, leaving Katie as the prime suspect, and the cops (and other interested parties) hot on their heels. And in this special crossover episode, brought to you in association with Disney+, the Empire Film Podcast and Pilot TV Podcast teams — Chris Hewitt, James Dyer, and Kay Ribeiro — come together to have a big old natter about the show, about the disastrous weddings they've attended, the nature of love, and the dangers of cake. But that's not all — there are exclusive, and enormously fun, interviews, in which Chris talks to cast members Jamie Michie, George Webster, Bhav Joshi, Omar Baroud and Callie Cooke, plus star Gavin Drea and the show's creator, Oliver Lyttelton. We now pronounce you pod and listener. Enjoy!

Gangs Of London star Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù joins us on this week's show, chatting murderisation (and, unexpectedly, Arsenal) with Boyd, plus we look at Gangs' second season and Kay is forced to put her low gore tolerance to the test. Then we head off to a virtual future with Chloe Grace Moretz in Prime Video's The Peripheral, and wonder what it would have been like to miss all of the past 15-odd years in Somewhere Boy on Channel 4. All that, plus a load of listener questions and a riveting account of the shows James has *not*, in fact, been watching.