Review: Test Pilots
- ThomM
- Jul 6
- 8 min read
Step inside Test Pilots Studios, where the cameras are furry, the crew is on the verge of mutiny, and the audience keeps hijacking the narrative with futuristic tech devices. It’s a show about shows inside a show that skewers the Hollywood tradition of show selections.
Immersive Scene Los Angeles 2026 Review
Upon entering the Test Pilots Studio, remarkably similar in appearance to an actual TV taping stage where real shows are created, I spotted all the familiar trappings: cameras at the ready, boom mics dangling, applause signs flashing, and a stage crew buzzing with pre-show energy. Except here, the applause sign read applesauce, the cameras were wrapped in stuffed-animal fur, the boom mic had no cord, and the crew wore outfits that looked like a cross between 1960s flight attendants and a futuristic Sci-Fi brigade. Clearly, this wasn’t going to be like other pilot tapings.
And that’s a good thing.
Test Pilots reimagines the classic Hollywood live-taping experience through a surreal, tech-heavy, genre-bending lens. If you’ve lived in L.A. for more than a month, you’ve probably been approached to go to a free live shooting of a show and maybe even a new one just being considered for airing – the storied pilot (2% make it to air, 98% to the bottom of résumés). Here, that tradition continues, but filtered through an adjacent realm blender of scripted satire, improv, and malfunctioning technology.
Immersive Scene Los Angeles had already attended one Test Pilots show — Colony Quest 2099 — and were intrigued enough with the concept to want to visit again and experience a completely different genre with Forever Destiny: Fallen One. Five other faux-pilot options beckoned, but these two intrigued us the most.
So, we knew the setup: audience arrives, finds out from the frazzled director Ellie (Ellie DiBerardino) that tonight’s lead actor has either called in sick, is on a bender, or perhaps couldn’t find parking out front on Hollywood Blvd. They’ll need to cast the lead role from the show’s audience. Will anyone volunteer? This is Hollywood…and Fringe; hands shoot up instantly. After a quick audition, the Talent Manager (Katie Collins) chooses the replacement star and hustles them off to hair and makeup. The audience is then ushered into the adjacent studio and handed a RemCon 1000, a futuristic-looking handheld voting device that might make the difference between the pilot being greenlit or tossed onto the heap of never-aired hopefuls. Our real-time opinions and votes will be broadcast onto two screens live during the show. RemCon will query us on numerous topics: philosophical questions, show-steering suggestions, and, ultimately, the fate of said pilot itself. In this alternate-universe Hollywood, the audience holds the power.
Let the voting begin!
Colony Quest 2099
The title evokes every TV sci-fi debacle of decades past and imagines a future where man has destroyed earth (okay, so far a documentary), and explorers must venture to deep space, like way further than Babylon Five ever dared, to find another planet to colonize. So far, no luck — one planet is entirely made of rice, another was already inhabited by hostile creatures, and a bunch of them are just made up of gas. With only ten days left before human extinction, our hero Cadet Kelly (David Roston/tonight’s audience volunteer), must secure humanity’s new home.
Before we’d find out though, the Test Pilots crew is already bickering, our RemCons are malfunctioning after quizzing us about our compassion levels, and the offstage voice actor for character Robot Rover (VO: Jonah Goldberg) — think a landing party advance man, but made of scrap metal — is having trouble speaking. Once those issues are temporarily sorted, the cameras rise, the slate clapper (Serenity Caldwell) who doesn’t grasp the whole concept of soft sticks, nearly deafens the Sound Person (Emma Bradford),, and director Ellie, already exhibiting increasing levels of auteur anger, shouts, “Action!”
Robot Rover discovers a suitable planet, so the Cadet heads down to the surface with Commander Mars Sector 6 (Molly Balloons), a David Lee Roth circa-‘78 inspired galactic stoner sporting an “enhancement package” under tight spandex. Rover, though, has gotten quite an attitude since discovering the planet. The damn thing has developed opinions about man’s colonization habits, about the disrespectful sound of the word “extraterrestrial,” and about everything else it views as wrong with the universe. And if that wasn’t enough, it’s also taken an organic, cute-as-hell fluffy lifeform, injected it with a copy of its digital mind, and has been propagating itself all over the planet, creating a robot society. With Rover, humans created a bitter metal monster that’s smarter and craftier than us. Will man ever learn? Will the planet be our salvation or our doom? And why the hell has Ellie stormed off set mid-show, leaving the whole thing up to the crew and tech director (Alex DiBerardino) to figure out?
Forever Destiny: Fallen One
It’s a different night, and a new pilot, but damn it, the same thing has happened – the lead actor is a no-show again! What are the odds? (Maybe we should ask RemCon….100%). After the backstage auditions from three willing participants, Fringe regular, Maddie, is the clear crowd favorite and steps into the lead role. Back in our seats, RemCon 1000s at the ready, we brace ourselves for another genre experiment, or rather two.
Tonight’s pilot is half-written, or double written depending on how you see things, because the producers can’t quite decide whether it’s an elven fantasy or a cyberpunk adventure. So they’ve done both in one to cover the bases. The onsite writer has prepared enough dialogue for both, depending on our votes. Maddie as the character TBD takes the stage wearing a hodgepodge of wardrobe items that would seem suitable for whatever genre we end up going with tonight. Ellie, showing no ill effects of the previous show’s storm out, is directing and running the camera since the usual operator is also missing. Test Pilots Studio clearly has staffing issues.
After a quick last-looks talent touchup by the Makeup Goblin (Garth Elson) - don’t ask - Ellie calls Action! TBD begins her narrative in a fantasy shire, but the audience immediately seems finger happy on their RemCons and flips the story's genre to cyberpunk. Our suddenly-thrown actor pivots mid-sentence from elvish to cybertalk, wardrobe adds hover boots, and the teleprompter becomes a battlefield of shifting text. It’s sewers, then shires, tech-dystopian then mythic, and back again. The crowd wreaks wireless havoc, gleefully bouncing from one genre to the other.
Soon, Creature Pet (VO Jack Drewry) appears — a dinosaur-like giant caught between two worlds, but perfectly named for the dual genres. His Yoda-like voice guides TBD through the growing chaos. Cut! Ellie wants a new camera angle, RemCon 1000 has a philosophical question, and the writer (Jonah Goldberg) quits after his script choices are questioned. “Action!” Ellie is really going for gold now. Fantasy bats become cyberpunk drones, Creature Pet is replaced by greenscreen tennis balls, a futuristic villain, Evil Big Bad (Dana Moore) appears alongside a shrouded-figure seemingly from Middle-earth, with the helpful moniker of Plot Advancing Wizard Hacker (Lindsey Ford), and the audience begins shouting for a fight scene and gets it. The writer returns, but now, having lost the reins, Ellie quits again. It’s all out of control, in the best sense.
Test Pilots skewers the Hollywood pilot-selection process with a winning blend of outrageousness, intelligence, sarcasm and between-the-freeways knowledge of the TV biz to land most of its arrows. It’s organized chaos: a hot-mess production team juggling faulty equipment, disappearing staff, and a nightly star plucked from the crowd who thought they were going to see a show, not star in one. Some glitches are real, some scripted, and the improv factor keeps each show unique and unpredictable.
While we attended two of the shows, five other distinct genres exist, each clearly scripted, but loose enough for cast and crew (one in the same really) to push boundaries. With over thirty performers and twelve writers across seven options, Test Pilots is large-scale by Fringe standards.
The writing in both shows we saw was crisp, clever, and genre-savvy, with just enough original story mixed in with sharp satire to make the creations stick. Both pilots landed well, but Forever Destiny: Fallen One proved the stronger and more fully realized story of the two. The writing was sharper, the music was used to much better effect, and the cast nailed the genre-switching madness with gusto. Guest performer Maddie Mutations owned the stage as she juggled ever-shifting teleprompter lines, improvised melodramatic stage poses, and added some nifty fight moves, all while laughing at her occasional confusion with total charm. The nightly guest actor presents a real wild-card element in this very interactive experience, but on this particular night, the gamble paid off. The ensemble cast were uniformly solid, led by Moore as the despicable Evil Big Bad and Ford playing the Plot Advancing Wizard Hacker, both terrific and both benefitting from being among the best-written characters.
Colony Quest 2099 was the comedy highlight of the duo. Perhaps an easier target for satire, Sci-Fi's built-in tropes make it riper for spoofing, and it was a real crowd-pleaser. Roston as Cadet Kelly embraced his guest role with gusto and the cast around him were super, particularly Balloons as the overwrought Commander Mars Sector 6, chewing the scenery hilariously all the while. And Robot Rover, operated by puppeteer Sara Paquette, was even funnier here than its cyberpunk doppelgänger in Forever Destiny. Hey, if you build a robot you're going to use it wherever you can.
And in case you were wondering, we greenlit one of the two.
Both shows benefitted from excellent voice actors, who provided the words for the non-human characters on stage. And the audience, with their suggestions and ever-present RemCons steering the narrative, are a big part of the creation process too.
Speaking of the RemCon 1000s, they were a big hit in their own right. While I doubted the wireless instruments’ authenticity at first, they proved themselves an accurate and interactive wonder. When a guest yelled “Everybody vote cyber now” the meter soared upward in that direction instantly. Plaudits to show producer Alex DiBerardino for developing these high-tech gizmos that were far more than props — they were genuine deciders and provided an innovative way of getting the audience interactively involved.
The improv banter with the tech crew provided a lot of non-scripted highlights that were as funny as what was written. Surely, many of these bits are well-practiced over repeat performances, but there were some that had to have been invented in real time due to the shows’ unexpected surprises. Tech issues – either genuine or scripted, also got their fair share of big laughs.
Both productions were a hoot, but one commonality stood out that might hinder Test Pilots from reaching that next level: each seemed to run longer than necessary. Colony Quest clearly had run out of comedic steam a half-hour into its hour-long running time, and Forever Destiny was slowing at about 45-minutes but rallied for a strong ending.
I left the theatre smiling, though I couldn't help thinking a tighter thirty-minutes each double bill — two pilots facing off for greenlight victory — could elevate the concept even further. At current length, the shows still succeed with a unique style, a sly sense of humor, and plenty of interactive possibilities, even if you don't raise your hand to audition.
Immersive Scene Los Angeles looks forward to catching all seven shows in the future to see how this comedic concept plays out across its many genres. Channeling great boob tube-themed satires of the past like Second City TV, The Larry Sanders Show, Mystery Science Theatre and pretty much every real studio taping ever, Test Pilots clearly has established its own unique voice and is ready for its next takeoff.
by Thom Mills
Fringe run of Test Pilots complete.
From Test Pilots: To be informed of future opportunities to attend a Test Pilots "taping," follow @testpilots.show on Instagram
