Bad Pilots

Fairies, magic, evil beasts, house parties, genocide, and vaping. Fate: The Winx Saga has it all. Based on a cartoon from the early aughts, the gritty Netflix reboot fails to find its footing compared to similar schlock like CW's Riverdale. Special guest and Editor-in-Chief of demo magazine, Zain Ahmad, helps us discern when teen dramas embrace camp versus when they just flat out suck.

How you doin'??? Well since you asked, not great. Why? Because we just watched Joey, the Friends spinoff starring everybody's favorite meatball, Joey Tribbiani. Special guest & lifelong Friends fan, Dawsyn Borland, joins us as we struggle to figure out what went wrong between Joey's trip from NY to LA. We also discuss Matt LeBlanc's meta redemption arc with Showtime's hit comedy, Episodes.

Imagine The Wire and Glee had a baby. Now imagine Randy Newman sang the theme song for that baby. Boom, you've got Cop Rock—a gritty police procedural with choreographed dance routines and Emmy Award winning musical numbers. Special Guests Ethan Krebs and Ben Kaplan help us make sense of this primetime fever dream while analyzing the place that musicals have in TV.

Happy Valentine's Day, lovebirds! Whether you're boo'd up or not, if you listen to this podcast, you probably have an opinion on dating shows. Well so do we! In this very special episode, we are joined by panelists Sasha Kalra, Mackenzie Thomson, Manisha Krishnan, Tamara Khandakar, and Will Reid to answer one simple question: what is the greatest single season of any dating show ever produced? So pour yourself some Jackson Triggs, crack open those Dollarama chocolates, and come get cozy with us.

In what is possibly the most bonkers dating show ever created, 12 American women are whisked away to a British countryside estate to compete for the love of a man pretending to be Prince Harry. It's insane. Filmmaker Sasha Leigh Henry joins us on our dark descent into this royal nightmare of a show. We also talk shit about The Crown for a little while and express our love of Family Feud.

In a very special crossover episode, Dan and Aidan are joined by James Rathbone and Jordan Sowunmi, the hosts of Catch up, a fantastic podcast about hip hop. Fittingly, they discuss The Mayor, a 2017 ABC comedy about a young rapper who haphazardly becomes the mayor of his hometown. Also mentioned: the pros and cons of holograms, bizarre rap appearances on The View, and the recipe for strong hip hop television.

High Fidelity is actually a really good show with a strong pilot. So why are we talking about it? Well, Hulu cancelled it after just one terrific season, so it qualifies for the pod. Special guest Alexa Serrano joins us to discuss Zoe Kravitz’s take on Rob, a character that John Cusack originally perfected as the blueprint for the modern day fuckboi.

It's the summer of 2001. The Mummy Returns is killing at the box office. Nelly's "Ride Wit Me" is playing on every radio station. You don't have homework, so you're up late on a Tuesday night watching Murder in Small Town X, one of the most original, intriguing, and poorly executed reality competition shows ever made. Or at least that was this episode's special guest, Justin Ling, an investigative journalist and author of Missing From the Village.

One of the most unlikely spinoffs ever greenlit, The Cleveland show lasted a solid four seasons on FOX. But was it any good? Family Guy historian Terry Obeng joins Dan and Aidan to offer insight into the show’s off-kilter run. They also discuss representation in animation, the DNA of a good spin-off, and historical figures you didn’t know were actually nazis.

IT'S FINALLY OVER!!! 2020 was a trash year for so many reasons—but mostly because of Gwenyth Paltrow's Goop Lab. In this end of the year mega spectacular extravaganza, Dan and Aidan crack a few cold ones and countdown the 10 worst TV shows of the year, according to metacritic dot com. Without spoiling the order, they watch Marvel's Helstrom, The Duchess, Utopia Falls, Indebted, Broke, and more. Tangents include: Gritty's battle with covid, Dan's musical theatre career, NBA stars and their Hogwarts houses, Aidan's deadbeat dad, and of course, a massive thank you to you, the listener.