Pilot TV

Stanley Tucci and Carrie Coon are our guests on this week's show, talking to us about La Fortuna (23:00-32:51) and The Gilded Age (53:06-1:02:37), respectively. Plus we have a stupidly long lineup of shows to review, including Starzplay's post-apocalyptic drama, Station Eleven; Julian Fellowes' Downton-in-America drama, The Gilded Age; Apple's whodunnit comedy, The Afterparty; Martin Freeman's gritty BBC police drama, The Responder; and the long-awaited arrival of The Sinner Season 4 on Netflix. All of which was more than enough to keep James, Beth and Boyd glued to screens through most of last week. However, paying no heed to minor inconveniences like the laws of time and space, Boyd still found time to devour Archive 81 and bring us a full update, James gave The Tourist another go, and the team hoovered up the Yellowjackets finale (no spoilers) as well.

Ricky Gervais joins us on this week's show to discuss the finer points of blowing belly raspberries with Tony Way in After Life, plus Nell Tiger Free stops by to dispense childcare advice in the third season of Apple's Servant, where she and Boyd get into such varied topics as incest and the finer points of moth taming. In addition (and we apologise in advance) James finishes his rewatch of The Expanse just in time to watch the finale live, and proceeds to bang on about why it's amazing for what we can only hope is the last time (so sorry). Plus the team reviews bomb disposal thriller Trigger Point on ITV, comeback show Queens on Star, and Stanley Tucci's treasure-hunting adventure, La Fortuna, on AMC UK. NOTE: Ricky and Tony's After Life interview is, unusually, a spoiler interview and goes deep on lots of the third season's plot points, including the finale. If you've not seen it then you might want to do so first, or you can skip the interview entirely to preserve its secrets by avoiding 29:22-1:00:00.

Happy New Year! Can you hear us? We certainly hope so, because the first Pilot TV podcast of 2022 is brought to you by none other than Clem Fandango, Mr Shazad Latif himself, who joins us to talk all things Toast of Tinseltown. Plus, we take a look at all the TV we didn't cover over the Christmas break and line up Jamie Dornan's outback ordeal, The Tourist, for the full review treatment. Also in reviews are Maxine Peake-starring HR escapade Rules Of The Game, and the third (and final) season of Ricky Gervais' Afterlife (where Boyd decides that Ricky Gervais' character and James might share more DNA than is entirely healthy).

We have a BUMPER year-end special for you this week. We're joined not only by The Doctor herself, Jodie Whitaker, and her companion Mandip Gill, but — in a very special Christmas gift to James — we are also joined by the entire core cast of The Expanse! Aside from ushering in the new year with these titans of modern sci-fi, we take a look back at the year that was, run down our list of the top TV shows of 2021 and generally take a look at the highs and lows of the past 12 months over a glorious two-and-a-half hours. Happy New Year!

Sarah Phelps joins us on this week's show (39:14-1:01:37) to discuss her new BBC miniseries, A Very British Scandal, which pits Claire Foy against Paul Bettany in a break-up for the ages as the Duchess and Duke of Argyle. Plus we take a trip with David Tenant in Around The World In 80 Days, and find out what Agent Starling got up to after Buffalo Bill (and before eating Ray Liota's brains) in Clarice on Alibi. Plus, James, Beth and Boyd go through some of the shows they're most looking forward to in 2022 and you'll discover why Succession makes Phelpsie want to have a wee.

Henry Cavill, Geralt of Rivia himself, joins us on this week's show, to talk a little bit about the The Witcher's second season and a lot more about fantasy books, Warhammer 40k and general geekery (24:34-46:54). In addition to Netflix's returning fantasy, we take a look at Gugu Mbatha-Raw's living situation as she moves in to David Oyelowo's rather terrifying apartment in The Girl Before on BBC1, and we find out what Carrie Bradshaw's been up to since Sex And The City in follow-up show And Just Like That on Sky Comedy (first episode spoilers exist between 1:21:21 and 1:35:58). PLUS we record a special drop-in to talk about the Succession finale (1:09:20-1:20:16), mull over the best will-they/won't-they relationships, and James manages to trample all over Beth's Ex Machina analogy and she refuses to let him cut it out.

National treasures Olivia Colman and David Thewlis take time out of their busy schedules to drop by the podcast this week (31:27-52:09), telling us all about quirky black comedy Landscapers on Sky. Plus we take a look at Ragdoll on Alibi, and the team debate the reasons why directors in TV don't get the same credit as their big screen counterparts, while the reverse is true of writers. But all that pales into insignificance compared to the main event this week, as we dive headfirst into deep space for the televisual event of the year — nay, the decade! — when The Expanse returns for its sixth and *final* (for now) season on Prime Video. BELTALOWDA!

More Star Trek shenanigans abound this week as the team try to work out what in the name of the Prime Directive Pluto TV is. Elsewhere, we finally get to talk about Disney's Hawkeye series, take a trip to the wilderness with a girls' soccer team in Yellowjackets on Sky Atlantic, catch up with killer Charles Lee Ray in Child's Play spin-off series Chucky, on Sky Max, and get a little courtroom monologuing from Samuel Adewunmi in You Don't Know Me on BBC1. Plus, in perhaps the greatest upset in Pilot TV history, James voluntarily watches an animated series — listen now to find out what he thought of it.

I spy Aes Sedai on this week's show as we're finally able to talk about Amazon's The Wheel Of Time. Plus we explore the decaying carcass of small town Pennsylvania in American Rust on Sky, and see if we've discovered the new Squid Game in the form of South Korean supernatural thriller Hellbound on Netflix. All that and we vent our righteous fury over the sudden departure of Star Trek Discovery for Paramount+, plus take a trip down memory lanes to discuss some of the best (and worst) pilot episodes we've seen.

To herald the arrival on Disney+ of Dopesick, Danny Strong’s drama chronicling the devastating impact of the opioid crisis on America, the Empire Podcast and Pilot TV Podcast crews have, once again, set aside their differences and come together to have a good old natter. In this very special crossover episode, in association with Disney+, Chris Hewitt, James Dyer, and Beth Webb do a deep dive into Dopesick, which tackles the opioid crisis from the points of view of characters connected to the crisis in various ways. They talk about the crisis itself, about the show’s all-star cast (including Michael Keaton, Rosario Dawson, Peter Sarsgaard, Kaitlyn Dever, and Will Poulter), and much, much more. And if that weren’t enough, Beth also sits down with Danny Strong, Kaitlyn Dever and Will Poulter for an in-depth chat about the show. So sit back, relax, and enjoy Dopesick, an Empire + Pilot TV podcast special with Disney+.