Prime Video's Series With Patrick Stewart As A Foul-Mouthed Pig's Head Is A Wild 3-Hour Binge
Memory Ngulube joined Screen Rant in April 2024 as part of the Movies and TV team. Since then, she has written for the Perennials and Streaming team, covering a wide range of topics from new releases to old movies and TV shows. Memory is currently a Classic TV writer.
Before joining Screen Rant, Memory was a freelance copywriter who specialized in email marketing and social media management. While she enjoyed her job, her true passion was always movies and TV.
When she isn’t writing for Screen Rant, Memory can be found reading, baking (which is one of her passions), or watching her favorite K-drama.
The small screen has never been short of bizarre TV show concepts, but every once in a while, a series comes along that makes even the strangest ideas seem tame by comparison. However, few premises sound quite as ridiculous as a show featuring legendary actor Patrick Stewart voicing a foul-mouthed pig's head. Stewart’s movie career has been nothing short of incredible, from his role in Star Trek as Captain Picard to the brilliant Professor Charles Xavier in Marvel’s X-Men.
The sort of character that Stewart plays in Bait sounds like a joke until you realize that it is completely real, and that the actor behind him, who is widely known for taking on serious roles, is lending his unmistakable voice to one of the most absurd protagonists to appear on television in recent memory. Created by and starring Riz Ahmed, the six-episode comedy follows Shah Latif, a struggling British actor whose life descends into chaos after he auditions to play James Bond.
Suddenly thrust into the spotlight, Shah finds himself grappling with his ambitions and needing some advice, which he begins taking from a severed pig's head. Across its compact six-episode, roughly three-hour run, Bait combines celebrity satire, psychological comedy, and social commentary into a bizarre story. The series begins fairly normal, but as it goes on, it descends into the kind of chaos that is difficult to look away from.
Bait Is One Of The Most Unique Shows You'll See This Year
The range of Prime Video shows released in 2026 has been superb, but Bait takes the cake for the streamer’s most distinctive series of the year. On the surface, Bait is a show about who will play the next James Bond and the pressure that comes from taking on the mantle from Daniel Craig. The series, however, is more than that. Bait takes a lot of creative swings, from the talking pig's head to Shah's hallucinations, and they work. The Prime Video TV show is weird, funny, and thought-provoking all at the same time, which is something that many series fail to do perfectly.
Bait has a willingness to experiment with its tone and characters in a way that no TV show has done this year. At one point, the series could be a comedy, and at another it turns into a thriller. Yet, this genre switch never once makes the show feel overcrowded or unbalanced. In fact, it does the opposite because it gives viewers a chance to see how flawed its characters are. Shah, for instance, makes questionable choices that lead to his life spiraling out of control, but viewers are able to understand why he does this.
The Prime Video series masterfully explores deeply human emotions. Shah’s self-doubt is something that audiences can relate to to some extent, even though he sabotages himself more often than not. Bait’s best attraction is its James Bond hook. Ever since Craig stepped down from the role, there has been a lot of discourse about who will be the next 007.
What Bait does well is shine a spotlight on what would possibly happen if the next Bond is a person of color and the weight that would come from that. Though Shah believes playing 007 is the chance of a lifetime, he gets backlash because he is not who audiences would expect to take on the role. It examines his anxiety, doubt, and need to be accepted as he fails to hold onto what he thought he wanted.
Patrick Stewart's Ridiculous Bait Role Explained (Yes, It's Really Him)
The strangest surprise in Riz Ahmed's Bait isn't its James Bond connection, though. The one that probably had viewers questioning their hearing is the unexpected appearance of Patrick Stewart. Stewart is one of the most respected actors of his time and has a reputation for playing the kind of characters who are typically seen as leaders. So it is no surprise that the actor’s role in Bait raised some eyebrows, particularly because of how ridiculous it is.
When Ahmed pitched the idea to Patrick Stewart, he didn’t really expect him to say yes, but the distinguished actor was excited to voice the unhinged pig’s head that lent his unusual wisdom to Shah. In an interview with Deadline, Ahmed admitted that he actually had to teach Stewart some Urdu swear words, which goes in line with the foul-mouthed character the actor voices in Bait.
Scratch & Peek
Identify the cover art while scratching off as little foil as possible.
The bizarre character, nicknamed "Pigtrick" Stewart, a hallucinated severed pig's head, appears when Shah is already struggling with his ambitions, insecurities, and sudden exposure to public scrutiny. Instead of Pigtrick being the voice of reason for Shah, he delivers cutting commentary to a man who is in the middle of an existential crisis. Though everyone in Bait adds a lot of humor to the show’s plot, Pigtrick is the one who truly elevates the show’s comedy.
Source: Deadline
Cast
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Shah Latif
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Guz Khan
Zulfi
Struggling actor Shah Latif grapples with an impending role that thrusts him into an existential crisis and a surreal conspiracy.
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