Pilot TV

It's an ITV double bill this week as we bask in the golden glow of Sunday evening feels with The Larkins, before shifting tonal gears entirely for Joanne Froggatt's domestic abuse thriller, Angela Black. Then we head up into the big black for Disney's astronaut documentary, Among The Stars, and James gets saddled with some extra homework as Boyd and Beth decide he needs to watch something out of his comfort zone as retribution for #StarTrekForBeth. Plus we talk about the wisdom of Steve Coogan playing Jimmy Savile, Larry David's bald head, and the prospect of Babylon 5 getting rebooted.

On this week's show we have a story that slowly unfolds over a thousand years... we also talk about Foundation. While the runtime for this week's episode is undeniably immense (sorry!), we did have good reason because the delightful Sophie Petzal joins us a guest co-host, ostensibly to talk about her new show Hollington Drive but more accurately to debate the merits of Star Trek: Voyager, call out our anti-animation bias, shed light on the secrets of great screenwriting, and speculate about sex with fairies. PLUS, we have Empire himself, Mr Lee Pace, on the show to talk about Apple's new sweeping sci-fi series Foundation and we take a look at sixties fascism in Ridley Road on BBC1. All that and we even recorded an emergency drop-in section so we could dissect all things 'Tadum' and talk about Netflix's big announcements, plus Boyd had FEELINGS about Russell T Davies returning to Doctor Who. It may take you half a day to get through this episode but trust us when we tell you that it's worth listening to every minute.

Y: The Last Man showrunner Eliza Clark and star Ashley Romans join us on this week's show as we enter a world without men in that apocalyptic drama on Star. Plus we get the bejesus scared out of us by horror maestro Mike Flanagan as he returns with Midnight Mass, and finally get to talk about the second season of The Morning Show. Elsewhere in the show, we talk (and occasionally scream and shout) about the winners and losers at last night's Emmys, and reel off our lists of shame by confessing to the various shows we've been meaning to watch since time immemorial but just haven't got around to yet. All that and you also get to find out which Star Treks we plan to inflict upon Beth in #StarTrekForBeth.

The wonderful Julianna Margulies joins the cast of The Morning Show for season 2, and Pilot TV for episode 159, dropping by this week's show to chat all things TMS and how it feels to be reunited with Jennifer Aniston, with whom she exploded onto network television at exactly the same time and on the very same lot. Plus James, Beth and Boyd take to task people who still think films are better than television, try to navigate streaming subscription priorities, and still find the time to review Netflix's Sex Education, Channel 4's Help and Sky's Young Rock. All that and Beth foolishly opens the door to a galaxy of possibilities by teeing herself up for an inaugural Star Trek experience, which YOU can help organise #startrekforbeth.

The entirely fabulous Amanda Abbington joins the team for this week's show as a special guest host, discussing everything from Sherlock and her new show Wolfe to parenting tarantulas and the horrors of forgetting lines on stage. Plus we run through the annals of great televisual wordsmiths to assemble our picks for the greatest living screenwriters, pull on the latex for Ryan Murphy's American Horror Stories, and go whaling with Stephen Graham in The North Water on BBC2.

After 151 episodes, it was the end of an era for the Pilot TV podcast this week, as the third leg in our triumvirate of bellends, the legend that is Terri White, bid the show a fond farewell and signed off for the very last time. To mark the occasion we did make the somewhat dubious decision to stream the episode live online (you can find it on the Empire Magazine YouTube channel) and, miraculously, nothing went wrong! In addition to giving Terri the send off she so richly deserved, we let you, the listeners, bombard her with questions, a few of Boyd's celebrity friends sent in their own parting thoughts, and James gave her one final serenade on the guitar. All that and we still found time to review Stephen on ITV, Series 2 of Back To Life on the BBC and Only Murders In The Building On Star.

As a wise doctor once said, "we're in the endgame now." Particularly when it comes to The Walking Dead. The eleventh and final season of the iconic, groundbreaking show is set to premiere from Monday 23rd August as a STAR exclusive on Disney+, and that is an occasion so momentous that, once again, the Pilot TV and Empire Podcast teams have joined forces with STAR on Disney+ to talk about it. So, in this very special crossover episode, Chris Hewitt, James Dyer, and Beth Webb pop into the virtual podbooth for an in-depth discussion about their hopes, fears, and dreams for the final season. Who will survive, and what will be left of them? And what about the characters on the show? But that's not all. In an exclusive interview, James sits down across Zoom with Angela Kang, the show's producer and co-writer of Acheron Part I and Acheron Part II, the first two episodes of this 24-episode run, and they have a conversation about sticking the landing. So sit back, relax, and enjoy.

It's not only our one hundred and fiftieth episode this week but it's also Terri's *penultimate* show. Fitting, then, that she chose to mark the occasion by being more 'Terri' than ever before, laying into James' penchant for "fantasy shite", due to being forced to watch season 2 of the magnificent See with absolutely no context. As well as the return of of Steven Knight's post-apocalyptic magnum opus, we find out what Line Of Duty on a submarine would look like in Vigil on BBC1, explore the darker side of sitcoms in Kevin Can F*** Himself, and listen to a Jamesplanation of the final season of The Walking Dead. All that and a Terri makes a concerted effort to not offend animation lovers... and fails spectacularly.

It's quite the week for getaways as The White Lotus opens its opulent Hawaiian resort on Sky Atlantic and Nicole Kidman's wellness retreat receives visitors in Nine Perfect Strangers on Amazon. Of course, Nicola Walker pulling bodies out of a river in Annika doesn't *quite* fit the theme, but her boss has an office that puts most five star hotels to shame so we'll let it slide.

We're all about the hypotheticals this week as we explore alternate superhero realities in Disney's What If?. Plus, we enter the squared circle with StarzPlay's drama about the ups and downs of small town wrestling in Heels, and go undercover to try and catch a killer in Channel 4's Deceit. All that and Terri takes a deep dive into the latest episode of The Handmaid's Tale (19:47-26:43 if you want to avoid spoilers) and we find out why she and Pacey Witter would never have lasted.