Pilot TV
Empire Magazine
From the creators of The Empire Film Podcast, Pilot TV is your essential guide to every TV show that matters, providing a weekly rundown of all the new must-see TV shows dropping across streaming, terrestrial, satellite, cable, and beyond. Join Empire's James Dyer, Heat's Boyd Hilton, Steph Seelan, and Kay Ribeiro as they bring you breaking TV news, reviews of the week's major shows, and interviews with some of the biggest names in TV.Pilot TV is here to make sure every minute you spend in front of the box is a minute worth spending. Served with a heavy helping of insider knowledge, irreverence and humour, Pilot TV won't just keep you informed, amused and entertained, but is guaranteed to save countless hours of your life. Because you can’t watch *everything*.Enjoying the podcast? Sign up to Pilot+ for a bonus episode every Thursday, in-depth spoiler specials, and early, ad-free access to the regular show! Find out more at www.empireonline.com/pilottv
Episodes
Mentioned books
May 10, 2020 • 1h 24min
#85 - I Know This Much Is True, Hightown, and Dave
It's a double dose of Mark Ruffalo this week as he takes on twin duties in HBO’s preternaturally depressing adaptation of Wally Lamb's I Know This Much Is True. Plus we head out to Cape Cod with Monica Raymund in cop drama Hightown and rap along with Dave Burd (who seems unhealthily obsessed with his own genitals) in FX comedy Dave. Plus there's some fun with names in this week's listener question, we engage in some spoiler-free discussion of the Homeland (Woo!) and Westworld (Boo!) finales, and James makes a rather disturbing revelation about Gloria Estefan...
May 3, 2020 • 1h 19min
#84 - Hollywood, The Eddy, and Brassic
All three of us take the opportunity this week to gush liberally over our experiences watching the rest of Normal People (Marianne! Connell! All the feels!). After that, we finally manage to bring your our review of Ryan Murphy's Tinseltown fairytale, Hollywood; take a look at Jack Thorne and Damien Chazelle's Parisian jazz series, The Eddy; and witness the triumphant return of Joe Gilgun's Brassic. Plus we entirely fail to come up with an agreed set of rules for naming our favourite shows on each streaming service.
Apr 26, 2020 • 1h 38min
#83 - Trying, Upload, Stumptown, Code 404, and Blood
On this week's show, Empire's Chris Hewitt parachutes in to join Boyd in giving Better Call Saul some long overdue love. Plus we look at parenting with Rafe Spall and Esther Smith in Apple's Trying, sample a technological afterlife in Amazon’s Upload, see Danny Mays brought back to life in Sky’s Code 404, investigate a kidnapping with Cobie Smulders in Stumptown, and find out what's going on behind the curtains in series 2 of Channel 5's Blood. All that and James bangs on about season 4 of The Last Kingdom. Because of course he does.
Apr 19, 2020 • 2h 13min
#82 - After Life, Gangs Of London, Normal People, and Defending Jacob. Featuring Ricky Gervais
Ricky Gervais is our guest on this week's show in a truly mammoth interview with Boyd about series 2 of After Life. As well as reviewing that show, we also tackle the heroically violent Gangs Of London from the director of The Raid, Gareth Evans, get into some courtroom drama with Chris Evans in Defending Jacob and feast our eyes on the Beeb's adaptation of Normal People. Plus a discussion (with photographic proof) of our three hosts' youth, back in the days when Boyd and James had hair and Terri was... well, still Terri.
Apr 12, 2020 • 1h 44min
#81 - Devs, Killing Eve, Quiz, Run and Bosch. Featuring Matthew Macfadyen & Sian Clifford
Matthew Macfadyen & Sian Clifford stop by the pod this week to discuss ITV's Quiz. Plus it's wall-to-wall reviews as we make up for last week's leaner slate with out takes on Season 3 of Killing Eve (finally!), Alex Garland's twisted mystery Devs, HBO comedy/thriller Run, the aforementioned Quiz and the latest season of Bosch. Plus we take a dive into the world of book series we'd like to see adapted to the small screen and reel off about fifteen bits of different Tiger King news.
Apr 6, 2020 • 1h 16min
#80 - Red Dwarf: The Promised Land, Alma's Not Normal, and (not) Killing Eve
It's only smegging Red Dwarf on the podcast this week — a show that Terri had never seen before this *feature-length* episode, much to James and Boyd's collective enjoyment. Plus we review Alma's Not Normal (a sitcom Terri enjoyed far more, but mainly as it appears to have been based upon her life) but sadly *not* Killing Eve Season 3 as, while we've seen it, apparently the embargo doesn't lift until Tuesday. Sorry. On the plus side, there's a trio of Banshees for your enjoyment and a misty-eyed discussion of the best TV theme tunes — including The Raccoons, for some reason. Cyril Sneer would not approve.
Mar 29, 2020 • 1h 13min
#79 - Save Me Too, Tales From The Loop, and Home Before Dark
The magnificent Lennie James returns to our screens (in a bright yellow puffer jacket, naturally) having written a follow-up to 2018's brilliant Save Me. And that's not all, because this week we're also wrangling with the very fabric of existence with Amazon's Tales From The Loop, and keeping print journalism alive with a tween reporter in Apple's Home Before Dark. Plus the team take the current lockdown to heart, prompting an in-depth discussion of TV's best bottle episodes.
Mar 23, 2020 • 1h 25min
#78 - The Mandalorian, Veronica Mars, Hitmen, and Ozark
It's here! The first socially distanced Pilot TV podcast is live, and not only is it business as usual for Pilot TV during the current pandemic but we also see the triumphant return of Terri White as it turns out that isolation and maternity leave are actually quite compatible. On this week's show we *finally* get to review The Mandalorian as Disney + launches here in the UK, and we *at last* get to see the return of Veronica Mars as it makes a belated appearance here as well. Plus we go murderising with Mel and Sue in Sky's Hitmen and catch up with Jason Bateman in Ozark Season 3. All that and enough banter, random police sirens and general nonsense to keep your minds off all things virus-related for an hour and a half. Enjoy!
Mar 16, 2020 • 1h 28min
#77 - Belgravia, The English Game, and Feel Good
It's a Julian Fellowes double-bill this week as we sit down to high tea with some posh socialites in Belgravia and then set about scoring goals against posh footballers in The English Game. And that's all prior to being thoroughly charmed by Mae Martin and Charlotte Ritchie in Feel Good. Don't worry, though, there's plenty of conflict to balance it all out as Boyd goes all Season 8 Daenerys on James over what they've been watching this week and we talk about the best in apocalyptic TV.
Mar 9, 2020 • 1h 45min
#76 - Westworld, Breeders, and Mrs. Fletcher
Martin Freeman and Daisy Haggard are our guests this week, stopping by to talk about their parenting comedy Breeders, which features Freeman hurling obscenities at a toddler and calling an alarm clock a c***. We also tackle Sky’s Mrs Fletcher, in which empty nest syndrome collides with hardcore pornography — an incident that unexpectedly spiced up James' commute. And last but by no means least we return to HBO’s Westworld to see whether Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan’s show survives its transition to the real world.
If all that wasn’t enough, this week’s listener question leads to a frankly shocking confession from Pilot’s very own Beth Webb.
