The Thunderdome is welcoming combatants again, and this time, they're all TV nerds! Will their big, juicy chess club brains serve them, or is it all down to pure brute strength? We tell you EXACTLY how such fights would DEFINITELY go down, as 27 TV nerds enter, leaving just one victorious (and alive) at the end. TOPICS Lead Topic: 🤓 TV Nerd Thunderdome NOTES 🗒 Full episode notes can be found on the episode 451 page on ExtraHotGreat.com...
Mar 22, 2023•1 hr 41 min•Ep. 451
Dave had collected several different Game Times about the intersection of stage and TV stardom, so what could he do but save them for our most theatre-knowledgeable friends to play in this special episode? Mark Blankenship, Sean Pflueger, and Adam Grosswirth (that was his joke in the episode title) join us to test their memories for stage trivia and their ears for famous stage singers. Those blinking lights mean it's time for you to find your seat and listen! GUESTS 👤 Mark Blankenship 👤 Adam G...
Mar 15, 2023•1 hr 22 min•Ep. 450
We're thrilled to welcome first-time guest Kari Race to talk about Amazon's limited-series adaptation of Daisy Jones And The Six ; we're less thrilled by the show, which is handsome to look at, but...knows that, and doesn't move fast enough. We also talk about bad wigs, resting dickface, "the Studio 60 rule," and the character whose story we really wanted to see instead. Later, we went Around The Dial with a MAFS micro-update, Cunk On Earth , the new Quantum Leap , and the rogue ampersand of Dic...
Mar 08, 2023•1 hr 29 min•Ep. 449
If you've been waiting since Party Down 's S02 finale in 2010 for your pink-bowtied friends to come back into your life: good news! S03 premiered on Starz last week, and Mark Lisanti has come back to discuss it with us. Around The Dial takes us through The Consultant , Harrison Ford's new TV career, a selection of highlights from Peacock, Yellowjackets , and a horrifying ad for the home repair app Thumbtack. We answer Suley's challenge to create a Downton Abbey spinoff concept in which Lord Gran...
Mar 01, 2023•1 hr 24 min•Ep. 448
The Two Cents Plus Tax podcast's Krystal Farmer is back, and we picked her a good one this time -- to everyone's surprise! ABC's new Soderberghian con-fam rom-com isn't perfect, but it's cast really well, has good romantic and familial chemistry, and seems to think it's on premium cable, and for whatever reason, it works for us. (And so, for a change, does Sarah Callies!) After a list of mostly favorable comparisons to other heist shows, we went Around The Dial with Canadian hotel TV, Hunters , ...
Feb 22, 2023•1 hr 29 min•Ep. 447
Just because some stars of Love Is Blind , Too Hot To Handle , and Sexy Beasts (among others) failed to find love on their shows, does that mean they should give up entirely? Netflix said NO, and put a bunch of them together in Perfect Match ; Christina Tucker bravely returns to discuss it with us. Around The Dial takes us through Season 4 of You ; The Real Housewives Of Potomac ; The Good Fight S05; and a viscerally memorable moment from The Inbetweeners . Tara shares a Tiny Triumph that, if we...
Feb 15, 2023•1 hr 27 min•Ep. 446
Primetimer's Mark Blankenship returns to his eponymous chair to talk about Dear Edward , an adaptation of a 2020 book that most of the panel found manipulative and stilted -- but others thought was moving and sweet. Does the show's success depend on what mood you're in when you sit down to watch? Why can't writers' rooms get middle-grade children's dialogue right? And how's Connie Britton's hair? After addressing these critical questions, we went Around The Dial with Not Dead Yet , Ghosts , and ...
Feb 08, 2023•1 hr 22 min•Ep. 445
Peacock's latest original series is a Rian Johnson-created Columbo -esque "case of the week" procedural starring a fugitive cocktail waitress/human lie detector played by Natasha Lyonne; Rolling Stone Chief TV Critic Alan Sepinwall returns to discuss it (and bring with him all his coverage from the magazine)! Around The Dial takes us through the start of a new season of Married At First Sight (yes, already), plus Shrinking , Russian Doll , Lockwood & Co. , and a new season of 9-1-1: Lone Sta...
Feb 01, 2023•1 hr 48 min•Ep. 444
Nine Extra Hot Great listeners who do know how to tell time, unlike some people , compete in a special all-Game Time episode! We test their knowledge of TV MacGuffins, TV vampires, and TV weddings; then the winner of each game progresses on to the finals, in which they show off how much they know about shows that changed their theme songs. Find out which Valued Guest is the most Valued in this very special episode! TOPICS Game Time: 🏺 MacGuffins Game Time: 🧛🏻♂️ Blah! Game Time: 💍 I Do, I Do...
Jan 25, 2023•1 hr 30 min•Ep. 443
Chernobyl 's Craig Mazin has teamed with Neil Druckman, creator of the video game The Last Of Us , to adapt said game as a post-apocalyptic drama series; Omar Gallaga is here to discuss the series premiere! Around The Dial takes us through MILF Manor (a real show, not a 30 Rock gag); Alice In Borderland , a whole pile of Nordic crime dramas, and the British true crime period piece Stonehouse . Omar pitches South Side 's S01.E03: Turner Buys A Building, for induction into the Canon. Then after na...
Jan 18, 2023•1 hr 21 min•Ep. 442
Anne Rice source material is back on TV, and Best Evidence's Eve Batey is back to talk about Mayfair Witches , the latest Rice IP to hit the small screen. Listen and find out whether anyone on the panel is going to keep watching, how realistic an Alexandra D'Addario neurosurgeon is, why Interview With The Vampire works better than this one, and when to stop reading Rice. We also went Around The Dial with Harry & Meghan , Slow Horses , The Circle , and "randomized" show Kaleidoscope , before ...
Jan 11, 2023•1 hr 29 min•Ep. 441
It's a mini Television Without Pity reunion as the gang and former recappers Dan Rogge (DJB), John Ramos (Couch Baron), Kim Reed (Kim), and Joe Reid (Joe R) play Mullendash -- a game invented and played at the TWoP annual summits of yore. Take the game Balderdash and replace the cards with items from Jim Mullen's Hot Sheet from the pages of Entertainment Weekly . The set up to a Hot Sheet "joke" is read and players must create their own punchline in that particularly confounding Mullen style in ...
Jan 04, 2023•1 hr 30 min•Ep. 440
To ring in 2023, Tara has crafted a very special non-regulation game time. Refill your champagne and find someone to kiss! Or just listen in the normal way.
Dec 28, 2022•36 min•Ep. 439
EEHG 156: The 12 Shows Of Christmas We’ll all getting our asses ready for some serious not-moving-off-the-couch action over the holidays. So here are 12 shows from each of us that we think are worth your time. EEHG 158: What Made Your Christmas Crappy? If you’re a TV character approaching a holiday, one thing is certain: something is going to happen that will make it SUCK. But how well do Dave and Sarah remember what things sucked on which shows? Tara tests their knowledge in this festive Non-Re...
Dec 21, 2022•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 438
Seriously. Do they? Because four people just didn't show up. The Listener Game Time Tournament is back! Kinda! Up to maybe 9 contestants may or may not do battle in all sorts of TV trivia concocted by some of our smartest, most devious and possibly French game makers. TOPICS Game Time: 🥖 En Français Game Time: 🌟 Special Guest Star Heather Locklear Game Time: 🛋️ The One With The One With Titles Game Time: 🛌 Strange Bedfellows NOTES 🗒 Full episode notes can be found on the episode 437 page on...
Dec 14, 2022•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 437
We made some of our Valued Guests stick around after their tapings and muse about TV in our version of a What If? Find out where their imaginations took them in this very special episode! GUESTS 👤 Andrew Cunningham 👤 Robert Krut 👤 Brandi Brown 👤 Dan Cassino 👤 Dan Rogge 👤 Daniel MacEachern 👤 Dave Chen 👤 Devindra Hardawar 👤 Ilan Muskat 👤 Jeff Drake 👤 Joe Reid 👤 John Ramos 👤 Karina Longworth 👤 Kim Reed 👤 Nadia Chaudhury 👤 Nick Rheinwald-Jones 👤 Roxana Hadadi 👤 Santiago Melli-Huber...
Dec 07, 2022•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 436
Netflix's new cooking show takes a leaf from Claire Saffitz's book and challenges its chefs to make their own homemade versions of commercially available snacks. Home Cook and Food Scientist (one of these titles accurately applies) Adam Grosswirth returns to talk about it! Around The Dial takes us through S03 of Mythic Quest , Selena + Chef , and an update on Sarah's Cheers rewatch. Adam pitches the Will & Grace two-parter "Lows In The Mid-Eighties" for induction into The Canon. Then after n...
Nov 30, 2022•1 hr 30 min•Ep. 435
Book critic and The Maris Review host Maris Kreizman is here to discuss Hulu's glowingly reviewed adaption of Fleishman Is In Trouble , whether it works as TV given its structure as a book, and how. Is it better for people who didn't read the book? Is the pleasure in watching what Claire Danes, Lizzy Caplan, and the former Seth Cohen do with the roles? And is Hannah the most sympathetically slappable TV tween of all time? Later, we went Around The Dial with a Married At First Sight recap, Gypsy ...
Nov 23, 2022•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 434
Did Paramount+'s Tulsa King SLY-ly (sorry) work its way into our hearts? The Filmcast 's Devindra Hardawar is back to talk about the Sylvester Stallone vehicle, good pacing, bad wigs, and making room for weirdly charming B-minus viewing in your viewing diet. Later, we had Tyson drive us Around The Dial, with stops for The Big Brunch , the ends of The Crown and Atlanta AND The Good Fight , and true-crime royal-watching. Mike hoped we would NOT eliminate The Middleman with his Canon presentation o...
Nov 16, 2022•1 hr 25 min•Ep. 433
The Crown is back for a new season, with a whole carriage load of new actors; Go Fug Yourself's Jessica Morgan returns to talk about whether its late 20th century setting has made it less compelling. Around The Dial takes us through Weird , Jersey Shore , Low Country: The Murdaugh Dynasty , and a current TV ad that's really boiling Dave's potatoes. Sarah presents The Sopranos episode "Christopher" for induction into The Nonac. Then, after we name the week's Winner and Loser, we wrap up with a Ga...
Nov 09, 2022•1 hr 29 min•Ep. 432
The White Lotus is back on HBO for a second season of subjecting rich jerks to various indignities (now in Italy); Joe Reid returns to discuss, among other things, which guests may deserve better than they're getting, and who that season premiere corpse might be. Around The Dial takes us through Love Is Blind , The Vow , and the series premiere of You . Sophie makes the case for our inducting The X-Files episode "Pusher" into The Canon. Then after naming the week's Winner and Loser, it's on to a...
Nov 02, 2022•1 hr 34 min•Ep. 431
Big thanks to Nick for stepping in last-minute for our winter-television preview: all the new or returning shows we're psyched for (like The White Lotus ), all the shows we should be psyched for but aren't (like Welcome To Chippendales ), and a bunch of shows nobody should be psyched for or even in the same room as (didn't we cancel Criss Angel in the aughts?). After Nick tried to get an episode from The Dropout into the Canon's lab, The Watcher won; James Corden lost; and we all called on the p...
Oct 26, 2022•1 hr 39 min•Ep. 430
Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan take an unsolved stalking case as the inspiration for their latest Netflix limited series; Dan Rogge returns to discuss whether anyone should be watching it OTHER than The Watcher. Around The Dial takes us through Freevee's High School , baseball on TV, and the latest episodes of The Vow . Sarah and Tara try to determine whether Dave will Hate a TV series adaptation of The Wicker Man . Tara presents "The Two Mrs. Cranes" for induction into The Canon. Then after naming...
Oct 19, 2022•1 hr 23 min•Ep. 429
Canadian journalist Danny MacEachern is back to take a look at the frustrating, but also maaaaybe promising, Alaska Daily , which spends a good half of its first episode giving us unnecessary backstory and throwing around phrases like "woke wussies" before finally getting into the real story. We discussed star Hilary Swank's wigs, why a network version of this show is never going to center the Indigenous people at the center of the mystery, whether we can expect the show to settle down and get b...
Oct 12, 2022•1 hr 18 min•Ep. 428
The Vampire Lestat is back in a new series adaptation of Interview With The Vampire at AMC, and You Must Remember This creator Karina Longworth is here to talk about all its pleasures -- which definitely extend past its bare butts, but very much include its bare butts. Around The Dial takes us through new seasons of The Amazing Race and Abbott Elementary ; a new evolution of Celebrity Jeopardy! ; and a not-so-new relic recently returned to YouTube: Bands On The Run . Dave explains why he is NOT ...
Oct 05, 2022•59 min•Ep. 427
The Star Wars universe has expanded yet again, and Never Not Funny 's Matt Belknap joins us for the first time to talk about Andor , a Rogue One prequel of sorts that's much more meditative and "adult" than you'd expect from the franchise. Dave quizzes us on our favorite character from the new show, plus we talk about world-building, the first real swear word in Lucasfilm IP, whether we'd buy Andor toys, and backstory gaps that don't need filling. We went Around The Dial with 9-1-1 , Never Have ...
Sep 28, 2022•1 hr 37 min•Ep. 426
Everything old continues to be new again as NBC brings its late '80s/early '90s time travel series Quantum Leap back for a new generation; Vulture TV critic Kathryn VanArendonk joins us to discuss whether we wish we could travel back to stop it from happening. Around The Dial takes us through Los Espookys , Reservation Dogs , Halt And Catch Fire , and Journeyman . For the long-awaited return of Will Dave Hate This?, Sarah and Tara try to predict the titular Dave's reaction to the Marvel special ...
Sep 21, 2022•1 hr 43 min•Ep. 425
Forty-two years after Paul Schrader's American Gigolo pioneered the sex-worker neo-noir micro-genre, Showtime's limited series of the same name is trying it again -- and returning guest Sarah Baker joins us to talk about tone problems; weird directing choices; pervasive misogyny that's even more tiresome than usual; MVP Rosie O'Donnell; and whether Jon Bernthal should have gotten better writing to work with. We went Around The Dial with Monarch , The Dick Van Dyke Show , The Mary Tyler Moore Sho...
Sep 14, 2022•1 hr 16 min•Ep. 424
It's the first week of September -- traditionally the time when students go back to school (and if your district is one of those cess pools that call kids back in early August: get yourself on the school board and FIX IT). So in recognition of the moment, we've chosen 27 TV educators to face each other in the Thunderdome and, per usual, fight to the death. Do magic users and telepaths have an advantage over literal murderers? Listen and find out which one ends up triumphantly covered in the bloo...
Sep 07, 2022•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 423
After co-creating The Americans , where have Joel Fields and Joe Weisberg gone next? Back to FX...on Hulu, with the psychological thriller The Patient , and first-time guest Patrick Monahan is joining us to talk about it! Around The Dial takes us through Star Trek: Lower Decks , For All Mankind , Industry and Mike . Tara pitches the Regular Show episode "That's My Television!" for induction into the Canon. Then it's on to the week's Winner and Loser, and the eleventh (can you even believe it) ro...
Aug 31, 2022•1 hr 22 min•Ep. 422
