PBS's Masterpiece has premiered the British miniseries Press , a tale of warring London newspapers, and we've brought a former newspaper reporter, Daniel MacEachern, back to the podcast to talk about it! Around The Dial clicks through Evil , Big Mouth , and Cash Cab , before we each pitch our own Fosse/Verdon -style limited series based on a real person's life (and possibly a specific biography). Danny presents The Grinder 's "Grinder v. Grinder" for induction into the Canon. Then we're on to na...
Oct 09, 2019•1 hr 45 min•Ep. 271
We couldn't decide which headline show to cover for EHG 270, so we set our shot clocks to eight minutes each for three: Survivor 's 39th (!) season, with an idolatrous twist; new sitcom Sunnyside , starring Kal Penn as a disgraced city councilman; and semi-charming, SUPER-piloty PI/PTSD drama Stumptown . Will any of us keep watching any of these? Can we, when a couple of them already pulled basement-ish ratings? Later, we went Around The Dial with Bissinger doc Buzz , Perfect Harmony , The Chall...
Oct 02, 2019•1 hr 18 min•Ep. 270
Downton Abbey has been adapted from television series to feature film, and professional movie analysts Joe Reid and Chris Feil of the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast are joining us to talk about it! Around The Dial clicks through a trio of CBS sitcom pilots, Unbelievable , 30 For 30 's "Rodman: For Better Or Worse," and Dark Crystal: Age Of Resistance . Sarah and Tara take a look at Mr. Robot creator Sam Esmail's just-announced Battlestar Galactica reboot and ask: Will Dave Hate This? We take on Mar...
Sep 25, 2019•2 hr 10 min•Ep. 269
Reviewers love Undone , Amazon's half-hour rotoscoped drama about time travel and mental illness -- did the panel agree? Should the show be animated, or live-action? Does it need a second season? And is this the San Antonio Kevin recognizes from his youth? We went around the dial with prestige fare like Married At First Sight , Are You The One? , and The Challenge , then Brady Renovation-ed other legendary TV exteriors for an Extra Credit before Tara shared a Tiny Triumph. Then Kevin put a legen...
Sep 18, 2019•2 hr 1 min•Ep. 268
It's the show Lance Bass never wanted you to see: A Very Brady Renovation , in which a collection of HGTV stars join forces with the surviving cast of The Brady Bunch to make the real-life Studio City home that served as the Brady house in b-roll look exactly like the Brady Bunch set inside. Who better to join us in discussing all the Who-lebrities involved than Who Weekly? co-host Bobby Finger! Around The Dial takes us through Season 3 of The Deuce , Part 3 of Money Heist , Ken Burns's latest P...
Sep 11, 2019•2 hr 5 min•Ep. 267
We're not able to record this week so we're treating y'all to a sneak peak at Extra Extra Hot Great, our patrons-only bonus podcast. EEHG 008: Making More Live Remakes, Live (On Tape) The Jimmy Kimmel-spearheaded, ABC-aired restagings of one classic episode each of All In The Family and The Jeffersons , live in front of a studio audience, delivered one of the network’s highest-rated season wraps in years, and you know what that means: copycats are coming. And we want to get ahead of the trend! F...
Sep 04, 2019•41 min•Ep. 266
On Becoming A God In Central Florida premiered on Showtime recently, and Floridian Jeb Lund returned to the podcast to discuss its geographic and period accuracy, whether it celebrates or mocks the poor, and all the process-y parts of a pyramid scheme (fine: "multi-level marketing"). We went Around The Dial with 13 Reasons Why , Why Women Kill and Pennyworth , and then we contemplated converting primetime shows into Saturday-morning cartoons, '70s-style, in an Extra Credit from Dave Snyder. Afte...
Aug 28, 2019•1 hr 26 min•Ep. 265
HBO's new Danny McBride/Jody Hill sitcom, The Righteous Gemstones , takes aim at megachurch evangelists, but will it make you throw up your hands in praise? Adam Sternbergh returns to discuss it. Around The Dial makes stops at Lodge 49 , The Boys , Years And Years , and QB1: Beyond The Lights , before we roll into a Canon presentation on the series premiere of Sherlock , "A Study In Pink." After naming the week's Winner and Loser, we all say "¡si!" to a Game Time about TV's non-union Mexican equ...
Aug 21, 2019•1 hr 35 min•Ep. 264
GLOW returned to Netflix for its third season last weekend, and Adam Grosswirth returned to EHG to discuss the action's move to Vegas, the realism of a long run, whether a more serious tone worked, and where a possible Season 4 can go from here. We went Around The Dial with The Family , Wu Assassins , So You Think You Can Dance , and Last Tango In Halifax before Erica challenged us to create Tony-winning musical episodes from TV shows of yore. We got out the paddles for a Canon submission from S...
Aug 14, 2019•1 hr 42 min•Ep. 263
Noted romcom fan Mindy Kaling has been tasked by Hulu to bring the world a series adaptation of the 1994 feature film Four Weddings And A Funeral , and noted romcom fan Linda Holmes is joining us to talk about whether this ever should have happened! Around The Dial has us discussing HBO's A Black Lady Sketch Show , the series finale of Jane The Virgin , and the end (we hope) of Big Little Lies . Linda makes the case for the induction of The Good Place 's "Dance Dance Resolution" into the Canon; ...
Aug 07, 2019•1 hr 34 min•Ep. 262
John couldn't make it last week for our Veronica Mars discussion, but he fired a baby's laser-beam eyes at Amazon's latest original, The Boys , which we all quite liked. Does Jack Quaid look more like his famous parents, or like a Bill Heder/Pacey Witter hybrid? How will the show diverge even further from its graphic-novel parent in Season 2? And does Butcher swear more than Buntsy? We went Around The Dial with Sherman's Showcase and South Side , John's belated take on Veronica Mars S4, Animal K...
Jul 31, 2019•1 hr 18 min•Ep. 261
Hulu dropped Veronica Mars a week sooner than anyone expected, but Kathryn VanArendonk was ready to leap into action and join us in a VERY SPOILER-FILLED discussion of Season 4! Around The Dial takes us to Frankenstein's Monster's Monster, Frankenstein on Netflix; a spoiler-free farewell to the imminently-ending Jane The Virgin ; Last Chance U ; and a potpourri of TV-adjacent remarks from Dave (including an update on the original book version of The Rook ). Leanna cashes in her Extra Credit to g...
Jul 24, 2019•1 hr 36 min•Ep. 260
TV-based F*ck, Marry, Kill is back, and so is famous original panelist Joe Reid, as we decide whether to bone, betroth, or bash in the heads of Mad Men items, Handmaid's deaths, episode types, trains, fonts, and unkillable robber barons of yesteryear. From Aquarius to Zoo and every Sophie's choice in between -- but this time we've added our own brainteasers for our fellow panelists. Cool off with an extra-hot Extra Hot Great! GUESTS 👤 Joe Reid TOPICS Lead Topic: 💍 F*ck, Marry, Kill NOTES 🗒 Fu...
Jul 17, 2019•1 hr 22 min•Ep. 259
Showtime has turned Gabriel Sherman's Roger Ailes book into a seven-part miniseries, and Will Leitch has returned to talk about what it is, whom it's for, and how it compares to recent-history HBO docudramas like Game Change . Around The Dial takes us through Divorce , the triumph of the USWNT, The Handmaid's Tale , and The Rook . Will Leitch presents "Pt. 5" of (the masterpiece) O.J.: Made In America to the Canon. Then after naming the week's Winner and Loser, an old favourite returns to Non-Re...
Jul 09, 2019•1 hr 30 min•Ep. 258
Try as we might, we couldn't get that "putt down the remote" joke to work, so we'll just say we're happy Daniel MacEachern is back on the pod, and we're even happier to be talking about Holey Moley , the " Wipeout meets mini-golf" summer offering from ABC that finally found a way to use Kenny G's talents properly. From hosts to holes to gimmicky guest get-ups, it's fun for the whole family -- really! Later, we go Around The Dial with Years And Years , Animal Kingdom , Bosch , Lethal Weapon , Col...
Jun 26, 2019•1 hr 31 min•Ep. 257
Comedy writer/performers Ana Fabrega and Julio Torres have brought HBO a new sitcom about a "horror group" that creates practical horror effects for ridiculous reasons (Fred Armisen's hardly in it, we swear!), and Omar Gallaga has returned to discuss it with us! Around The Dial clicks through Younger , Comedy Central's new sketch show Alternatino With Arturo Castro , the upcoming Amazon series Undone , and the third seasons of Claws and Jessica Jones . For her Extra Credit topic, Corey asks us e...
Jun 19, 2019•1 hr 30 min•Ep. 256
We're thrilled to welcome Eve back to the guest chair...but were we as thrilled to welcome Big Little Lies back into our primetime lives? We talked about Meryl Streep's flawlessly passive-aggressive performance and loved Laura Dern because it's a day ending in Y. After Tara reported on a Kit-Kat-jingle-related Tiny Triumph, Sarah joined her to capsule-review the ATX Festival before we went around the dial with Pose , RuPaul's Drag Race , and Black Mirror . Dan Cassino tasked us with assembling o...
Jun 12, 2019•1 hr 19 min•Ep. 255
Shocking the world, the Deadwood movie no one dared believe would actually happen has actually happened, and our old friend Alan Sepinwall, Chief TV Critic of Rolling Stone , returns to discuss it. Around The Dial clicks through American Princess , The Handmaid's Tale , Netflix's sequel to Tales Of The City , Scott & Bailey , Good Omens , and Epix's Perpetual Grace, LTD. Alan takes a leap by submitting the Quantum Leap episode "The Leap Home, Part 1" to the Canon. Then after we name the week...
Jun 05, 2019•1 hr 27 min•Ep. 254
Our (lack of?) enthusiasm for National Geographic's account of a late-'80s Ebola outbreak, The Hot Zone , is infectious -- and Kat Angus returns to the podcast to discuss the plague of wigs and clunky dialogue in the docuseries, plus exposition that made us itch and shows we'd rather watch instead. We went around the dial with Dynasty , What/If , Killing Eve , and Lonely Island's Bash Brothers special, and Tara hoped insurance would cover her Canon submission of a second-season GLOW episode. Chr...
May 29, 2019•1 hr 24 min•Ep. 253
Fleabag is back on Amazon for its second -- and last -- season, and Jeff Drake is back to talk about the big swings the show takes, Olivia Colman's perfect performance, and the show's unique realness about everything from faith to sisterhood to bad haircuts. We go Around The Dial with a My Dad Wrote A Porno update, plus Vida , She-Ra , and a Ron Artest/Metta World Peace documentary on Showtime, and contemplate a short but very sweet Canon submission concerning a Hilda episode about a giant. Pres...
May 22, 2019•1 hr 19 min•Ep. 252
Netflix tries to court the teens with The Society , in which a bunch of high schoolers return to their town to find it emptied of everyone who wasn't in their class; Emily Yoshida joins us to discuss whether Christopher " Party Of Five Keyser" still knows how to write for the youth. Around The Dial clicks through the comedy special My Dad Wrote A Porno , Klepper , Terrace House , Sneaky Pete , and The Good Fight (now we're up to Season 3!). Tara presents Season 1, Episode 4 of Rosehaven to The C...
May 15, 2019•1 hr 35 min•Ep. 251
HBO has gone back to the 1980s for a miniseries take on the Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster; to discuss whether the show is as big a catastrophe as the event, we've invited Adam Sternbergh to join us! Around The Dial clicks through Tuca & Bertie , Dead To Me , Money Heist , Atlanta , and Hulu's upcoming Catch-22 . Sean and Tim use their Extra Credit to challenge us to rank the caregivers of Call The Midwife before Adam presents the first Barry episode to the Canon. After naming the week's W...
May 08, 2019•1 hr 36 min•Ep. 250
It's a good thing today's Canon pitch is for The Other Two , because returning guest John Ramos is a super-fan -- but before we got around to that, we had to punch our tickets for The Red Line , CBS's weighty series on how three Chicago families intersect in the aftermath of a police shooting. Is it trying too hard for significance? Is the writing writing checks some of the acting can't cash? And do we wish Regina Taylor had a more central role? After debate club, we went Around The Dial with I ...
May 01, 2019•1 hr 26 min•Ep. 249
It's an all-Game Time episode to make up for last week's missing competition. Testing their TV knowledge are Kari Race, Chris Billig and Sarah S. Coward. We played TV themes, they tried to figure out what show they were from. Sounds easy, right? GUESTS 👤 Kari Race 👤 Chris Billig 👤 Sarah S. Coward TOPICS Game Time: 🧠 Name That Theme NOTES 🗒 Full episode notes can be found on the episode 248 page on ExtraHotGreat.com...
Apr 27, 2019•38 min•Ep. 248
HBO has imported Gentleman Jack , a BBC dramedy based on the journals of 19th-century lesbian landowner Anne Lister, and we've invited Mark Blankenship to join us in getting way up under its skirts! Around The Dial takes us through the débuts of The New Negroes and Ramy ; Losers ; Fleabag ; and The Good Fight . Jacqueline brings us an Extra Credit question about our teen BFFs. Mark presents the Designing Women episode "The Beauty Contest" to The Canon then we name the week's Winner and Loser. Lo...
Apr 24, 2019•1 hr 19 min•Ep. 247
Game Of Thrones is finally back, and so are Kim and Jim, partly because Tara and Sarah have no real idea what's going on on the show but also because we treasure their insights on everything from Lady Mormont, to whether Jon and Dany have chemistry (no), to whether ANYONE in any kingdom is wearing a hat (no, and Jim has questions about that). After discussing important matters like dragon kibble, we went Around The Dial with CBS reality shows, The Magicians , Bosch , and Bless This Mess , and Da...
Apr 17, 2019•1 hr 43 min•Ep. 246
FX is returning to the Feud space with Fosse/Verdon , a deep dive on a pair of contentious performing geniuses; Broadway savant Adam Grosswirth joins us to opine on whether it should have opened and closed the same night. Around The Dial spins through the Season 2 premiere of Killing Eve ; the series finale of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend ; Brit crime drama Unforgotten ; and Cinemax's new period immigration/tong drama Warrior . In the absence of a Canon segment (...it's a long story), we speed through th...
Apr 10, 2019•1 hr 42 min•Ep. 245
Will Hines joins the panel for the latest imagining of The Twilight Zone from Jordan Peele -- an idea whose time may have come and (thanks to Black Mirror ) gone. Will the show find its footing once the proof-of-concept episodes are done? And is this enough to get folks to pay for CBS All Access? Later, we went Around The Dial with HBO's peek comedies Veep and Barry , Aeon Flux -y guilty pleasure Love, Death & Robots , ER , and Deadwind before Dave The Poker Pro challenged us to find the nex...
Apr 03, 2019•1 hr 37 min•Ep. 244
FX has adapted the 2014 vampire mockumentary film What We Do In The Shadows as a TV series: does it have the same bite as the original? Nick Rheinwald-Jones returns to discuss! Around The Dial spins through The Village ; Playing House alumni Lennon Parham and Jessica St. Clair's live UCB improv show; Season 3 of The Good Fight ; and commonwealth news spoofs This Time With Alan Partridge and Get Krack!n . Tara celebrates a Taskmaster -related Tiny Triumph before pitching the Frasier episode "The ...
Mar 27, 2019•1 hr 30 min•Ep. 243
Project Runway returns to Bravo for its 17th season (the spread-eagle), and Fug Girls Jessica Morgan and Heather Cocks return to the podcast to talk about new judges, new mentor Christian Siriano, a new challenge "twist" we all dislike, and the same old reliable show structure. We make some shot-in-the-dark guesses about the season's eventual winner, too, while feeling relieved the show has a proper budget again. Then it's a super-size Around The Dial discussing Shrill , Instant Hotel , the retu...
Mar 20, 2019•1 hr 49 min•Ep. 242
