It’s Amazon Comedy Pilot time! “But wait,” you say. “Didn’t they just have a pilot season like, two months ago?” That’s the thing with Amazon Studios — no one really knows when things debut, so we just roll with it. And in this batch of series in particular, there are some very interesting projects on the line. Amazon does something no other studio does, by opening up its pilot season to the public (unless it’s Woody Allen, and then they just go straight to series). They produce, we vote, and they move forward with the most popular ones. In the past, that’s included breakout hits like Transparent, Mozart in the Jungle, and The Man in the High Castle. But it’s also given us Hand of God, so, the process certainly isn’t perfect.

Below you’ll find a preview of the three half-hour comedies that will be available to view and vote on Friday, August 19th. And yes, if you pay for Prime Shipping, you have free access to all of Amazon’s original content, and a lot of other movies and TV shows. Use it!

I Love Dick

Created by: Jill Solloway 

Starring: Kevin Bacon, Kathryn Hahn, Griffin Dunne

This is the pilot that people will be talking about as the one with Kevin Bacon’s naked posterior, but it’s also notable as coming from Jill Solloway, the creator of Transparent. I Love Dick is adapted from Chris Kraus’ novel, and lands on themes familiar to viewers of Transparent: exploration of sexuality and desire, fantasy mixing with reality, and (less exciting) the “plight” of the white urban elite. In I Love Dick, Chris (Hahn) goes with her husband Sylvere (Dunne) to Marfa, Texas, where he has a fellowship with a revered novelist and teacher known as Dick (Bacon). Both Chris and Sylvere worship Dick, and their projections have a profound affect on their own relationship through a series of letters Chris writes, which appear on screen.

Like Transparent, I Love Dick is visually lush, and creates an unmistakable sense of place. It’s also full of wit and awkward humor, as Sylvere discusses his Holocaust-themed novel, and Chris is known without irony to the artist community there as “the Holocaust wife.” But the pilot is really a war of pretension between Chris and Dick, with Solloway’s unique brand of earnest sincerity mixed with satire about overly privileged lives setting a distinct tone for this world. Whether it’s a world anyone wants to keep existing in beyond the pilot, though, is less certain, but the leads are all exceptional.

Verdict: Only for the Transparent faithful.

The Tick

Created by: Ben Edlund 

Starring: Peter Serafinowitz, Griffin Newman, Valorie Curry, Jackie Earle Hayley 

Another superhero show, yes, but way weirder than most. In The Tick, superheroes have been around for awhile, but they aren’t taking the threat of a global villain (called “The Terror,” played by Hayley) seriously. Only a lowly accountant, Arthur (Newman), with an obsessive mind and no powers of his own, knows what must be done, and he teams up with an unlikely hero — The Tick (Serafinowitz) — to uncover the conspiracy. The pilot is funny, strange, and has a cartoony score that heightens its absurdity. Yet it grounds itself well in Arthur’s story and his past, while Serafinowitz relishes every moment he has to spout The Tick’s rhetoric in his unmistakable cadence: "Wicked men! Look at you wheedling away at your dung hill of contraband. I am The Tick! And I say unto you, stop your evil ways!"

The special effects are not going to blow you away (although The Tick’s antennae do move … which is a little disconcerting), but the show isn’t out to be serious or to compete with big-budget hero stories. It’s also not for kids, given its references to “weaponized Syphilis” and occasionally graphic violence. It’s ultimately just very strange, occasionally hilarious, and a superhero series that has managed to distinguish itself in a crowded comic landscape. Let's see more.

Verdict: Very fun, but not for the whole family.

Jean-Claude Van Johnson

Directed by: Peter Atencio, Written by: Dave Callahan 

Starring: Jean-Claude Van Damme, Kat Foster, Moises Arias, Phylicia Rashad

If you liked Tropic Thunder, this pilot is for you. And of course, if you’re a JCVD fan, well, it goes without saying. Jean-Claude Van Johnson is based on the premise that Jean-Claude Van Damme is not only an action star, but also does real-life Black Ops under the name “Johnson” (with his movies serving as covers for his missions). The pilot finds him in retirement (“real retirement … not Nicolas Cage retirement”), but a chance encounter with a former love (Foster) brings him back to movies and to his global quest to kick ass. He’s older now and a little rusty, which the pilot has a lot of fun with as he restarts his training. "No one is going to die, except all the people I'm about to kill." 

The best part of Jean-Claude Van Johnson is its winking satire of Hollywood and absurdity of the movie business —especially action movies. A number of fake movies are woven in with the story, and most of them seem bizarrely possible (example: an action movie called “Huck” with a female Tom Sawyer as the love interest). There are also plenty of references to JCVD’s 80s movies, like when he approaches a group of villains and the leader instructs them, “No, no, [fight him] one at a time or it gets confusing!”

Probably the most absurd yet most entertaining of the Amazon pilots this time around, Jean-Claude Van Johnson highlights JCVD’s recent commitment to making fun of himself, which works because he’s still doing amazing stunts and physical work. He kicks and splits and kicks some more to take down the bad guys, all while spouting an impressive amount of asides and one-liners.

Verdict: The world needs more Johnson.