Pilot Program

We made it to 25 episodes! To celebrate, Chase and Pierce are revisiting one of our favorite shows of all time: AMC's Mad Men. While we mostly stay focused on the pilot, this is still a spoiler-heavy episode, so be warned. Show Notes:We mention that Ken Cosgrove's wife is from a rich family, but misidentify her as part of the Heinz family. Her father actually works at Corning Inc. Heinz would become a client for the Sterling Cooper agency in a later season, which led to the confusion.

One of the most celebrated TV shows of all time (as well as one of the most divisive), Lost represented a real shift in network television. While there had certainly been serialized shows in the past, none required the careful viewing and encouraged the immense theorycrafting that Lost did during its six-season run. We explore the show's first episode (the most expensive pilot of its day) and remember just how its mysteries came to be.

We're moving on up for this episode of Pilot Program as we cover the classic 1975 sitcom, The Jeffersons. A spin-off of Norman Lear's seminal work of All In The Family, The Jeffersons sees George and Louise, an upwardly mobile black couple move to "a deluxe apartment in the sky" of Manhattan, and how they they react to their newfound wealth. We have a great discussion about smart casting decisions, the importance of the live studio audience and the lasting legacy of this beloved 11-season show.

Pierce and Chase explore the world of Fallout on this episode of Pilot Program. And we've tapped two veterans of the wasteland to join us for this one: Bobby Pease of The Casual Hour, and Hard Drive writer Johnny Amizich. From the vaults to the Brotherhood of Steel, we talk about it all. But is this video game adaptation closer to the acclaimed Last of Us show or to the awful Doom movie? Let's find out!

We welcome our first guest to Pilot Program, our friend Steve, as we dive into a classic show from the late '90s -- Paul Feig and Judd Apatow's Freaks And Geeks. With a loaded cast and a unique approach to television production, Freaks And Geeks was ahead of its time (which is why NBC canceled it after only 12 episodes). From it's hugely influential legacy to the pilot episode's willingness to tackle tough issues head on, we examine this seminal work of the trials and tribulations of finding your place in high school.

We declare a new tradition on Pilot Program - every 10 episodes is anime. So, for episode 20, we decided to watch a high profile anime neither of us had seen, 2015's One-Punch Man. Adapted from a webcomic by author One, One-Punch Man sees Saitama as the most powerful superhero in the world (and maybe beyond). But without anything to provide him a challenge, Saitama has become bored and existential. Is One-Punch Man a one-trick pony? Or is there more to this show that just brute strength?

On this episode of Pilot Program, Chase and Pierce unearth a time capsule from 2016 in the form of the first episode of Desus & Mero on Viceland (also known as Vice TV).Pre-COVID, Pre-Trump presidency, but still right in the middle of the Black Lives Matter movement, this clip show/talk show often played for laughs, even when touching on serious news topics of the day. With two young, black, charismatic hosts -- Desus Nice and The Kid Mero -- the show quickly gained an audience, and became a stepping stone to the pair's superstardom.We break it all down, from the show's roots in ESPN-style formatting, to dunking on Eminem, to the professional split of the show's popular and prolific hosts.Notes & Corrections:Chase mistakenly referred to the video game MLB The Show 24 as MLB 2K. There hasn't been an MLB 2K game since 2013. Whoops.Pierce references a 2019 Vulture "Beginner's Guide to Desus & Mero" article a couple of times over the course of the episode. You can read that article here.Chase talks about the pilot/test episode of Desus & Mero that never aired, but was recorded before this first episode While the entire episode has never been shown, the interview segment with guest Cord Jefferson is on the show's YouTube channel here.We say Desus & Mero was a five-episode per week show. It actually aired four nights a week.

Content Warning - In this episode, we discuss some very violent scenes and themes, including ritualistic suicide.Based on the 1975 James Clavell novel, Shogun is a piece of historical fiction, mirroring the events of Japan in the early 1600s. It's a time of transition in Japanese history, moving from the bloody Sengoku period into the Edo period, but there's a question of who will take power in the vacuum left behind by the previous Taiko's death. Chase and Pierce examine FX's newest show, explore the efforts of its showrunners to maintain authenticity and comment on one specifically odd and prevalent camera choice.Notes/Corrections:When talking about the manga, anime and Wachowskis-directed Speed Racer, Chase mentions that "Racer" is not the family's last name. Uh...it actually is. The character's name is Speed Racer (though in Japan, he's known as Go Mifune).

On this episode of Pilot Program, Pierce and Chase test out a true classic of the '80s, NBC's The A-Team. A surprise hit of the era, the show would solidify the stardom of Mr. T, spawn a number of memorable catchphrases and become a target for anti-violence media watchdogs despite its tame nature compared to today's crop of shows. But are slow-motion car crashes and one-liners enough to win over our co-pilots? Tune in to find out. Corrections:Eddie the Squirrel does not live with CatDog in the cartoon CatDog. He is a member of the Greasers. Chase was thinking of Winslow T. Oddfellow. Pilot Program regrets this error.While Mr. T is in the WWE Hall of Fame (class of 2014), Cyndi Lauper is not as of yet a WWE Hall of Famer.