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Mr. Robot is the latest series to get a season-long aftershow.
USA teamed up with The Verge for a digital aftershow that will stream on Vox Media’s technology-themed website, as well as on USA’s Mr. Robot website. It will start following the show’s third episode on Wednesday, July 20, and is called Mr. Robot Digital After Show Hosted By The Verge.
That’s not to be confused with Hacking Robot, a separate one-hour aftershow hosted by TV critic Andy Greenwald, formerly of Grantland and now associated with Bill Simmons’ The Ringer, that will air following the season premiere on Wednesday, and again after the season finale.
The Verge‘s aftershow will run about 25 minutes, and will be hosted by Verge Editor-In-Chief Nilay Patel, Entertainment Editor Emily Yoshida and Reporter Russel Brandom, the website’s cybersecurity and technology expert. The partnership stems from NBCUniversal’s $200 million investment in Vox Media in 2015, and the aftershow emerged organically after The Verge began contributing content to USA’s Mr. Robot website, and hosting Mr. Robot discussions at New York’s Story concept store, according to Adweek.
“We got involved early on from just a pure fan perspective,” said Chad Mumm, VP, Vox Entertainment. “I could see us doing this without the partnership.”
Mr. Robot joins a growing number of series to gain their own after shows, including Preacher, Orphan Black, Game of Thrones, Walking Dead, Fear the Walking Dead and Better Call Saul.
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Launching an aftershow is one of many ways USA is marketing season two of the critically-acclaimed series. Mr. Robot recently used Facebook Live to launch a season two promo, and also dropped the first half of the show’s season two premiere three days early with limited releases across social platforms.
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The network embraced the show’s theme by “hacking” a Facebook Live question-and-answer session with cast members scheduled for Sunday night, and began streaming the first part of the premiere just a few minutes into the session.
USA used Twitter and other social networks to publicize that the sneak peak would be live for a limited time, starting at 8:30 p.m. on Twitter, 8:45 p.m. on Buzzfeed’s Discover Channel on Snapchat, and at 9 p.m. on the Mr. Robot YouTube channel.
Incorporating the “hacker” aspect of the series has been a common thread throughout USA’s marketing of the Mr. Robot, and on The Verge aftershow hosts plan on discussing many of the hacker and cyber-security approaches used on screen, as well as many of the big-picture themes that the series addresses, and delving into interviews with cast and crew members.
“They’ll talk about what you’re seeing on the show from a fan perspective, but also from a technology perspective,” Mumm said. “What’s realistic about these exploits, and is this something you should worry about in real life?”
Alexandra Shapiro, EVP, marketing and digital, entertainment networks for NBCUniversal Cable Entertainment told Adweek that Mr. Robot seemed worthy of an aftershow based on the amount of opportunity for analysis of each episode.
“Not every show deserves it; we know that,” she said. “These things don’t exist unless there’s a hotbed of conversation and dialogue. We knew we had the IP [intellectual property] and fanbase to do that.”
Shapiro also said the network plans on looking at how both Mr. Robot Digital After Show Hosted By The Verge and Greenwald’s Hacking Robot perform to help determine what the future holds.
“A linear one-hour telecast is very labor intensive and also taxing on the cast, because we have to have all of them. There’s more flexibility in the digital format,” Shapiro told Adweek. “But that’s not to say that in success, that if this digital aftershow takes off, that it couldn’t migrate to linear.”
READ MORE: Adweek
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