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Comedic culinary competition “Gastronauts” has been renewed for Season 2 at indie streamer Dropout.

Hosted by comedian and Dropout staple Jordan Myrick, the show features a rotating group of three comedians each episode, who all have “specific, ridiculous” culinary challenges for each episode’s group of chefs.

Among several of the new chefs set up for the challenge in Season 2 are Amanda Palomino, Saransh Oberoi (“Beat Bobby Flay”), Christina Xenos (“Chopped”) and Joi Fowler (“Masterchef”).

Guest comedians serving as judges throughout the season include Cameron Esposito, Paul F. Thompkins, Emily Axford, Siobhan Thompson, Katie Marovitch, Erika Ishii, and Scott Aukerman.

Production on “Gastronauts” Season 2 wrapped this week. Episodes are slated to premiere on Dropout this summer.

“Gastronauts” is showrun by host and creator Myrick. Justin Cyrul serves as producer and Morgan Evans directed the Season 2 episodes. Courtney McBroom is culinary producer. Meagan Stockemer is director of photography, Caitlin Williams is production designer,...

The second season of Apple TV+’s psychological thriller “Surface” has a new trailer for its eight-episode season, teasing Sophie’s (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) ambitious venture to London.

The new chapter of the show follows Sophie as she is forced to unravel the secrets of her past with an injury that has wiped her memories clean. She embeds herself in royal British society but everything changes when a journalist unexpectedly reaches out to her about a new scandal.

Mbatha-Raw returns alongside co-stars Oliver Jackson-Cohen (“The Invisible Man”) and Millie Brady (“The Queen’s Gambit”). New additions to the “Surface” world include Phil Dunster (“Ted Lasso”), Gavin Drea (“Daisy Jones & The Six”), Rupert Graves (“Maurice”), Tara Fitzgerald (“Sirens”), Nina Sosanya (“Baby Reindeer”), Joely Richardson (“101 Dalmatians”) and Freida Pinto (“Slumdog Millionaire”).

“Surface” Season 2 drops its first episode on Friday, Feb. 21 followed by weekly new episodes. Watch the trailer below.

In other TV...

Exclusive: Peacock’s espionage thriller series Ponies has added five new cast members to its series regular cast: Adrian Lester, Artjom Gilz, Nicholas Podany, Petro Ninovskyi and Vic Michaelis.

They join previously announced Emilia Clarke, who also executive produces, and Haley Lu Richardson.

Set in Moscow in 1977, the series follows two Ponies (“persons of no interest” in intelligence speak) who work anonymously as secretaries in the American Embassy. That is until their husbands are killed under mysterious circumstances in the Ussr, and the pair become CIA operatives. Bea (Clarke) is an over-educated, Russian-speaking child of Soviet immigrants. Alongside her cohort, Twila, they work to uncover a vast Cold War conspiracy and solve the mystery that made them widows in the first place.

Lester will play “Dane” – Precise and impossible to read, Dane is...

Back in my college days, I was a theatre performance major and became the first woman to serve as captain in the history of my underfunded state school's improv team (no one who reads /Film regularly is shocked), which meant I spent an excessive amount of time on YouTube consuming sketch clips and illegally uploaded episodes of "Who's Line Is It Anyway?" This fixation led me to the CollegeHumor channel and I became obsessed with a show called "Hello My Name Is." Each episode had Josh Ruben being transformed into a new character with prosthetics, wigs, and costumes, after which he would have to sit down for an improvised, in-character interview upon seeing the result. Nearly 15 years later, my college friends and I still quote a few of the episodes.

"Hello My Name Is." ended long ago, but "Very Important People" hosted by Vic Michaelis has continued to carry that...

Dropout is home to much more than Dimension 20 and other DnD actual play, and now the critically acclaimed series Very Important People returns for season 2, giving host Vic Michaelis (known for playing Mildred in Upload) a whole new roster of idiosyncratic creations to interview. Structured as a long-form interview show, Very Important People sees Vic (playing an exaggerated version of themself) discuss the life, origins, and goals of bizarre characters created through a mixture of improv comedians and stunning make-up work. Season 1 was a strange and surprisingly sweet collection of characters (who were never too far away from revealing a horrible secret).

Season 2 ups the ante, with some returning faces from across Dropout appearing as new characters. A number of new guests like John Early, Danielle Pinnock, Bobby Moynihan (Lego Star Wars: Rebuild The Galaxy), Nicole Byer, Chris Redd, and more are also poised to join the festivities. Ahead...

Dropout’s “Very Important People” has a very important list of guest stars for Season 2. That starts off with Anna Garcia (“Superstore”), who plays “Zeke Aaron McKinley,” fourth grader who was turned into a rock formation after making a wish. Also set to appear this season: Comedians including Nicole Byer, Chris Redd, Bobby Moynihan, John Early, Kate Berlant, Paul F. Tompkins, Echo Kellum, Lisa Gilroy and Danielle Pinnock.

The premise of the comedic talk show, which comes from the team formerly known as CollegeHumor and host Vic Michaelis, is simple. It starts out as a chat between Michaelis and their guest — who has to come up with the character they’re going to play during the interview in five minutes, following a blind makeover.

Garcia is one of several “VIP” Season 1 guests and fellow Dropout stars who have returned this time, along with the well-known stars like Byer, Moynihan and Tompkins.

Apple TV+ has released the trailer for “Silo” Season 2. Based on Hugh Howey’s trilogy of dystopian sci-fi novels, the second season premieres Nov. 15 with new episodes airing every Friday until Jan. 17.

According to an official logline, “‘Silo’ is the story of the last ten thousand people on earth, their mile-deep home protecting them from the toxic and deadly world outside. However, no one knows when or why the silo was built and those who try to find out face fatal consequences. Rebecca Ferguson stars as Juliette, an engineer who seeks answers about a loved one’s murder and tumbles onto a mystery that goes far deeper than she could have ever imagined, leading her to discover that if the lies don’t kill you, the truth will.”

Steve Zahn joins the Season 2 cast, starring alongside Ferguson, Tim Robbins, Common, Harriet Walter, Chinaza Uche, Avi Nash, Alexandria Riley, Shane McRae,...

Indie streamer Dropout has set the full guest-star lineup for the second season of its Vic Michaelis-hosted comedic interview series “Very Important People.”

“Very Important People” features Michaelis as the host of a standard talk show series with a twist: all interview subjects receive makeovers before sitting down to chat and then must immediately invent a character to play during the interview.

Following the Aug. 14 announcement of the guest stars for the first eight episodes of “Very Important People” Season 2, which debuts Nov. 7, Dropout has confirmed that Episodes 9-16 will star Bobby Moynihan (“Saturday Night Live”), Nicole Byer (“Nailed It!”), Echo Kellum (“Arrow”), Corin Wells (“A Black Lady Sketch Show”), Alex Song-Xia (“Rick & Morty”) and Paul Robalino (“Smarypants”).

Additionally, “Very Important People” Season 1 guests Brennan Lee Mulligan (“Dimension 20”), Izzy Roland (“Sex Lives of College Girls”) and Lisa Gilroy (“Glamorous”) will return in new roles.

Left to right: Bobby Moynihan,...

Dropout has ordered a second season for its “Misfits & Magic” edition of table-top roleplaying game show “Dimension 20,” which is scheduled to premiere Sept. 25 on the streamer.

“Years after the events of season one, the Pilot Program must embark on a quest for the future of magic,” the show’s logline teases.

The 11-episode season, led by game master Aabria Iyengar, will rollout out new episodes weekly on Wednesdays.

The cast for the second season of “Dimension 20: Misfits & Magic” will include Brennan Lee Mulligan as Evan Kelmp, Erika Ishii as K , Danielle Radford as Sam Black and Lou Wilson as Whitney Jammer.

The most recent season of Dropout’s Dungeons & Dragons actual play show “Dimension 20” concluded Aug. 28 with the 10th and final episode of “Never Stop Blowing Up,” an ’80s action-movie-themed installment.

The “Dimension 20″ franchise is among the most popular programs in the small but growing...

Indie streamer Dropout has set the second season premiere date for its Vic Michaelis-hosted comedic interview series “Very Important People,” and revealed five new guest stars joining the lineup for Season 2.

“Very Important People” features Michaelis as the host of a standard talk show series with a twist: all interview subjects receive makeovers before sitting down to chat and then must immediately invent a character to play during the interview.

New cast members booked for an improvised interview in “Very Important People” Season 2 include John Early (“Search Party”) and Kate Berlant (“Don’t Worry Darling”), Danielle Pinnock (“Ghosts”), Chris Redd (“Saturday Night Live”) and Paul F. Tompkins (“Bojack Horseman”).

Left to right: Kate Berlant (Photo Credit: Sela Shiloni); Danielle Pinnock (Courtesy photo); Paul F. Tompkins (Courtesy photo); Chris Redd (Photo Credit: Chris Haston/NBC); John Early (Photo Credit: Michael Tyrone Delaney).

Dropout will launch the first episode of “Very Important People” Season 2 Nov.

Colleen Kilpatrick’s Collective Publicity has tapped Hiltzik Strategies’ Nicole Dukoff as associate director at the PR firm.

Dukoff’s addition marks the company’s first hire since Collective founder and CEO Kilpatrick launched the firm in September 2023 as a one-person operation.

The hire comes as Kilpatrick has been leading the FYC campaign for her most noteworthy client, comedy streaming platform Dropout (formerly CollegeHumor), which airs series including “Game Changer,” “Very Important People” and “Dimension 20,” and handling overall expansion of traditional press coverage for the Sam Reich-led company.

Among Collective’s other clients are Lauren Mandel’s production company Disco Nap, which recently put on the Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers-hosted Las Culturistas Culture Awards, and “There’s Treasure Inside” author Jon Collins-Black, who is about to launch a nationwide multi-million dollar treasure hunt tied to the release of his new book. Collective also works closely with...

Very Important People has seen host Vic Michaelis interview an assortment of characters that really can’t be described in just a few words. From Vic’s Ex-Step Grandmother (Lisa Gilroy) to Mental Health Advocate Tommy Shriggly (Zac Oyama), every improvisor brought a uniquely wild energy to Dropout’s short form series, matched by Michaelis’ ability to perfectly adapt to every situation while keeping up their host persona.

After being given full makeovers—including makeup, prosthetics and costumes—comedians come up with a character to sit down for a fully improvised interview. Michaelis says it was important for them, as well as director Tamar Levine, to create a sense of continuity with the host character, especially since the goal of the series was to showcase “different comedian’s styles of comedy” by not putting them into a box, “but to build the box around them.”

Host Vic Michaelis interviewing Princess...

There are a lot of streamers out there, but none quite like Dropout. “I’m a determined hipster,” jokes Dropout owner and CEO Sam Reich. “I can’t do anything that the rest of the industry is doing — I’m just too determined to be unique.”

Unique is not difficult to find on Dropout, which was created in 2018 as a subscription service for CollegeHumor content before CHMedia rebranded to Dropout in 2023. Take Game Changer, hosted by Reich, where the premise changes every episode and the contestants must learn the rules as they play. This season alone has seen an elaborate version of Simon Says, a parody of The Newlywed Game and a simple trivia game-turned-scavenger hunt where contestants need to search the studio for buzzers to answer questions.

There’s also Dimension 20, an anthology series where a group of improvisors play role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons. “It all...

The Emmy race just got a bit more spicy.

Three popular YouTube web series have found their content creators taking a chance on themselves, which could significantly impact the Emmy race in some categories. The spicy chicken wing interview series “Hot Ones,” hosted by Sean Evans, has successfully petitioned to be included in the outstanding talk series category. It will compete against late-night hosts Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers and Stephen Colbert.

Created by Chris Schonberger and produced by First We Feast, “Hot Ones” has garnered over three billion views since its debut in 2015. With three seasons airing per calendar year, seasons 21-23, totaling 36 episodes, all fall within the Emmy eligibility window from June 1, 2023, to May 31, 2024. The show has featured celebrity guests like John Mulaney, Sydney Sweeney and Jamie Dornan, and has scored massive viewership on episodes with Jennifer Lawrence (15 million), Conan O’Brien (9.5 million), Stephen Curry (8.2 million) and *Nsync (6.7 million). Its...

The two-part season finale of Dropout’s hit game series “Game Changer,” originally scheduled to premiere on May 20, has been delayed “to allow for more time in the edit.”

On Monday, Sam Reich, host and Dropout CEO, announced on social media: “Scheduling Update: we’re pushing the 2-part Game Changer season finale to allow for more time in the edit. It’s one of the most complicated episodes we’ve ever done (you’ll see why). Part 1 will now launch on Dropout on June 3rd, and Part 2 on June 17th.”

Despite the delay, the sixth season, which featured seven episodes, surpasses the six-episode minimum requirement for submission for the outstanding game show category. According to current Emmy rules, the two-part finale will compete as part of the upcoming seventh season when it airs during the next eligibility window. This is consistent with other competition and game shows with multiple seasons competing as one,...

Indie streaming platform Dropout, formerly known as CollegeHumor, is vying for a spotlight at this year’s Primetime Emmys with an ambitious campaign to secure its first major nominations. With a passionate and niche audience, Variety has learned exclusively about Dropout’s top contenders submitted for Emmy love, including the innovative game show “Game Changer” and the unique interview series “Very Important People.”

“Game Changer,” a standout series hosted by Dropout CEO Sam Reich, turns the traditional game show format on its head. Each episode introduces a new game, but the twist is that the three comedian contestants are clueless about the rules until the game begins. The blend of improv comedy and fierce competition has not only captivated audiences but also spawned three successful spinoffs: “Dirty Laundry,” “Make Some Noise” and “Play It by Ear.”

Two of the season’s funniest episodes, “Sam Says 3” (featuring Jacob Wysocki’s epic...