Extra Hot Great: This Week In TV

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322: Should You Search For Utopia? Sep 30, 2020

Show notes

We're thrilled Devindra could step over from Engadget and Slashfilm to talk to us about Utopia, Gillian Flynn's reimagining of a belovedly culty UK original. Sarah was less thrilled by the show itself, which she's probably bailing on after only two episodes, but the rest of the panel had good things to say about the story, the acting (especially John Cusack), and how fundamentally weird it is that Amazon chose to release Utopia anyway during All Of This. After a trip Around The Dial with Enola Holmes, Julie And The Phantoms, The Legend Of Korra, 30 For 30's new Oscar Pistorius deep-dive, and Dave's long-awaited Cobra Kai review, we took the correct train to Coney Island for Whitney's Canon presentation on the Mr. Robot pilot. Christine Baranski won, tight pants lost, and Game Time put a song in our hearts. Put down those raisins and cue up an all-new Extra Hot Great!

GUESTS

👤 Devindra Hardawar

TOPICS

Lead Topic: 😷 Utopia

Around The Dial: 🔍 Enola Holmes

Around The Dial: 🎸 Julie And The Phantoms

Around The Dial: ⚔️ The Legend Of Korra

Around The Dial: 🤾‍♂️ 30 For 30

Around The Dial: 🥋 Cobra Kai

The Canon: 🤖 Mr. Robot

Winner & Loser: 👍 Christmas On The Square Netflix

Winner & Loser: 👎 Family Feud Kathie Lee Gifford's son-in-law

Game Time: 🧠 The Man From Simon & Garfunkel, Vol. 3

NOTES

🗒 Full episode notes can be found on the episode 322 page on ExtraHotGreat.com

🐦 Devindra Hardawar on Twitter

🤠 ATX Festival

🎧 The Korra cast on Fighting In The War Room

💻 Devindra at Engadget

🎧 Engadget podcasts

🎧 The Film Cast (fka Slashfilmcast) on Apple Podcasts

🔪 The Best Evidence newsletter

🌴 The Again With This podcast

👖 The video of Kathie Lee Giffords's son-in-law and his too-tight pants

321: Coming Clean On Filthy Rich Sep 23, 2020

Show notes

Fox's newest soap opera places Kim Cattrall at the head of a televangelist family that -- and you're never going to believe this -- are not as polished and pious as they appear on TV. First-time guest Meredith Haggerty joins us to discuss whether this is a good use of La Cattrall's many talents! Around The Dial takes us through Sing On!, Just Shoot Me!, and Netflix's videogame docs-series High Score. Lauren presents the "Co-op" episode of Documentary Now! for induction into the Canon; then after naming the week's Winner(s) and Loser(s), it's on to a Game Time that could buy and sell you. We hope you'll find it in your heart and in your spirit to join us!

GUESTS

👤 Meredith Haggerty

TOPICS

Lead Topic: 🙏 Filthy Rich

Around The Dial: 🎶 Sing On

Around The Dial: 📸 Just Shoot Me

Around The Dial: 🏆 High Score

The Canon: 📽 Documentary Now!

Winner & Loser: 👍 The Emmys

Winner & Loser: 👎 Quit

Game Time: 🧠 More Filthy Riches

NOTES

🗒 Full episode notes can be found on the episode 321 page on ExtraHotGreat.com

🐦 Meredith Haggerty on Twitter

💻 Meredith at Vox

🎶 Tara's review of Sing On! at Primetimer

🌴 A Very Special 90210 Book in hardcover

🎧 A Very Special 90210 Book, the audiobook

🌴 The Again With This podcast

💸 Again With This on Patreon

🎧 Charting TV theme songs of the '90s at Mark And Sarah Talk About Songs

🎶 MASTAS ranks songs called "Hold On"

📽 MASTAS on "Co-op"

320: Zooming In On Home-Shot Reality TV Sep 16, 2020

Show notes

Reality-TV vet Andy Dehnart has seen a LOT of unscripted crap in his decades in the field, so we're glad he brought his expertise to our discussion of this unprecedented time in the genre's history: the home-shot, socially-distanced versions/spin-offs of some of our old "favorites," plus some new DIY unscripted stuff tailored to pandemic "set" safety. We talked about the challenges facing reality competitions in the Zoom-show era, then drilled down on a few specific shows like Dr. Pimple Popper: Before The Pop, Ghosted: Love Gone Missing, Design At Your Door, and Amy Schumer Learns To Cook. What works for these shows and what doesn't? What innovations -- or filler-busters -- should they keep when quarantine's over? Later, we went Around The Dial with Challenger: The Final Flight, Get Organized With The Home Edit, 16 And Recovering, and The Great Pottery Throw Down, and Tara shared a Tiny Tessitoriumph. We petitioned a reality-competition court to overthrow legendary injustices in the day's Extra Credit, and Andy argued to OUR jury that the first-season Survivor finale acquitted itself well enough to join the Canon. Sam Elliott won, the English language lost, and every night is Saturday night at Game Time. Set up that ring light: it's an all-new Extra Hot Great.

GUESTS

👤 Andy Dehnart

TOPICS

Lead Topic: 🩺 Dr. Pimple Popper: Before The Pop

Lead Topic: 👣 My Feet Are Killing Me: First Steps

Lead Topic: 👻 Ghosted: Love Gone Missing

Lead Topic: 🗝 Love After Lockup

Lead Topic: 🪞 Design At Your Door

Lead Topic: 🥘 Amy Schumer Learns To Cook

Tiny Triumph: 🎉 Holey Moley Joe Tessitore tweet

Around The Dial: 📚 Get Organized With The Home Edit

Around The Dial: 💊 16 And Recovering

Around The Dial: 🏺 The Great Pottery Throw Down

Around The Dial: 🚀 Challenger: The Final Flight

Extra Credit: 🤑 The People’s Appellate Court

The Canon: 🏝 Survivor

Winner & Loser: 👍 Family Guy Sam Elliott

Winner & Loser: 👎 CBS All Access rebranding as Paramount Plus

Game Time: 🧠 Ready For Primetime Players

NOTES

🗒 Full episode notes can be found on the episode 320 page on ExtraHotGreat.com

🐦 Andy Dehnart on Twitter

🐦 Joe Tessitore tweets at Tara

📸 The Home Edit on Instagram

⚾️ Defector

💻 Reality Blurred

📧 Andy's Newsletter

🔪 Best Evidence

319: Should Away Be Tossed Away? Sep 09, 2020

Show notes

Netflix's latest space drama takes a mother, played by Hilary Swank, to Mars, to try to balance work and family; Inkoo Kang of THR joins us to talk about it! Around The Dial takes us through The Boys, 90 Day Fiancé, and For All Mankind. We ponder whether The X-Files's "Humbug" should burrow into The Canon; then after naming the week's Winner and Loser, it's on to a Game Time that reads us all for filth. Put on your space suit and join us!

GUESTS

👤 Inkoo Kang

TOPICS

Lead Topic: 👩‍🚀 Away

Around The Dial: 🦸‍♂️ The Boys

Around The Dial: 💍 90 Day Fiancé

Around The Dial: 🚀 For All Mankind

The Canon: 👽 The X-Files

Winner & Loser: 👍 Andre Dawson

Winner & Loser: 👎 The Venture Bros.

Game Time: 🧠 Like TV But Silent And Boring

NOTES

🗒 Full episode notes can be found on the episode 319 page on ExtraHotGreat.com

🐦 Inkoo Kang on Twitter

👩‍🚀 Inkoo's review of Away at THR

☄️ Michael Baumann at The Ringer on what makes a good space show

🦸‍♂️ Tara's review of The Boys at Primetimer

⛳️ Tara on Holey Moley at Mel

🎧 The Quaid In Full Podcast

318: Premium Filler Sep 02, 2020

Show notes

We're off this week but we've glued together three listener-suggested topics from our Patreon supporter bonus podcast Extra Extra Hot Great.

EEHG 055: Series Starter Kits

Nicole tasked us: Each of you pick a show and then give your 5 most essential or favorite episodes from that show and discuss why they are in your top five.

EEHG 059: The Can'tnon

Seth White figured since this feed is a little looser than EHG Prime, that we should talk about our favourite episodes of a show that, for some reason, would never make it into The Canon and why they have that connection.

EEHG 064: Three With Mustard

With theaters temporarily shuttered, diction and pronunciation in television is more important than ever. Make a short list of the greatest word pronunciations in TV history, and which characters felt the need to add that extra "bit of mustard" to their speech.

TOPICS

Lead Topic: 📺 Series Starter Kits

Lead Topic: 😪 The Can'tnon

Lead Topic: 🌭 Three With Mustard

NOTES

🗒 Full episode notes can be found on the episode 318 page on ExtraHotGreat.com

317: Appraising Lifetime's Ruthless Realtor Aug 26, 2020

Show notes

Podcaster and Lifetime-movie-ologist Brandon is going deep on not just Ruthless Realtor (we would give you a plot summary, but it's...that, with a dash of Bad Ronald) but the evolution of Lifetime movies and the cultural anxieties they reflect; whether we'd ghost a weirdo who brought us a brisket; and why nobody seems to get a second take, or any direction. Then we staged an Around The Dial with stops at Love In The Time Of Corona, vintage Amazing Race, and Below Deck Med before Doug made an animated Canon case for Avatar: The Last Airbender's Empire Strikes Back episode. Dan Mallory won, Drunk History lost, and you won't believe who got re-cast at the pilot stage during Game Time. Don't change those locks: it's an all-new Extra Hot Great.

GUESTS

👤 Brandon

TOPICS

Lead Topic: 🏠 Ruthless Realtor

Around The Dial: 😷 Love In The Time Of Corona

Around The Dial: 🌎 The Amazing Race

Around The Dial: ⚓️ Below Deck Mediterranean

The Canon: 🌬 Avatar: The Last Airbender

Winner & Loser: 👍 Dan Mallory, subject of a limited series from Janicza Bravo, in which he'll be portrayed by Jake Gyllenhaal

Winner & Loser: 👎 Drunk History

Winner & Loser: 👎 Tosh.0

Winner & Loser: 👎 The Other Two

Winner & Loser: 👎 South Side

Winner & Loser: 👎 The Society

Winner & Loser: 👎 I Am Not Okay With This

Game Time: 🧠 Ch-ch-ch-changes

NOTES

🗒 Full episode notes can be found on the episode 317 page on ExtraHotGreat.com

🐦 Brandon on Twitter

👩‍❤️‍💋‍👨 Tara's Singletown review at Primetimer

🎧 The Discourse podcast

🤝 Sarah's review of The Vow at Primetimer

316: Booking A Trip To Lovecraft Country Aug 19, 2020

Show notes

TV Guide senior editor Malcolm Venable is here to talk about Lovecraft Country, HBO's series imagining of Matt Ruff's novel -- and why everything from the show's look and feel to the acting to Jonathan Majors's believable charisma drew us in. Then we drove our woody wagon Around The Dial with stops at Ted Lasso, Little Voice, and The Great Heist before Rebecca's Extra Credit tasked us with casting reality-competition shows with our favorite TV characters. Sarah then filed a Canon motion on behalf of a latter-season Law & Order Mothership episode. The British Empire won, the DC Universe lost, and we mashed up actor names and fictional reboots in Game Time. Grab a wooden bat and an illustrated map: it's an all-new Extra Hot Great.

GUESTS

👤 Malcolm Venable

TOPICS

Lead Topic: 🛣 Lovecraft Country

Around The Dial: ⚽️ Ted Lasso

Around The Dial: 🎙 Little Voice

Around The Dial: 💸 The Great Heist

Extra Credit: 🤑 Be Our Host

The Canon: ⚖️ Law & Order S15.E13: Ain't No Love

Winner & Loser: 👍 The Crown Jonathan Pryce, Elizabeth Debicki

Winner & Loser: 👎 DC Universe

Game Time: 🧠 Name Above The Title

NOTES

🗒 Full episode notes can be found on the episode 316 page on ExtraHotGreat.com

🐦 Malcolm Venable on Twitter

👓 "How Lovecraft Country Reappropriates H.P. Lovecraft's Notoriously Racist Creations" at Slate

🦴 The Bones Zone podcast

📖 Malcolm at TVGuide.com

🎧 The Mark And Sarah Talk About Songs podcast

🏆 The Great American Pop Culture Quiz Show podcast

🎶 "2 Are Charged In Killing Of Jam Master Jay, Hip-Hop Pioneer" at NYTimes.com

📖 Rap On Trial at TheNewPress.com

🚨 "A History of Violence: Why I Loved Cop Shows, and Why They Must Change" by Alan Sepinwall at RollingStone.com

👮‍♂️ "Cops Are Always the Main Characters" by Kathryn VanArendonk at Vulture

315: Taking Aim At Hitmen Aug 12, 2020

Show notes

Before they were the original co-hosts of The Great British Bake Off, Mel Giedroyc and Sue Perkins were comedy partners, and their new project Hitmen, imported from Sky to Peacock, returns them to their roots. Did it slay us? We'll talk about it! Around The Dial takes us through An American Pickle, Hard Knocks, and Star Trek: Lower Decks. For his Extra Credit, Taylor Cole -- inspired by The Great -- asks us to create our own heightened, quasi-comedic bio-series about a world leader of yesteryear. Then after naming the week's Winner and Loser, it's back to school for Game Time. Pop an extra-strong mint and join us!

TOPICS

Lead Topic: 🔪 Hitmen

Around The Dial: 🥒 An American Pickle

Around The Dial: 🏈 Hard Knocks

Around The Dial: 🚀 Star Trek: Lower Decks

Extra Credit: 🤑 World Leader Pretend

Winner & Loser: 👍 C.S.I.: Vegas

Winner & Loser: 👎 Taskmaster

Winner & Loser: 👎 Succession

Game Time: 🧠 It's All Academic: Second Semester

NOTES

🗒 Full episode notes can be found on the episode 315 page on ExtraHotGreat.com

🧢 Defector

🏈 Joe Reid on Hard Knocks at Primetimer

🏝 Sarah on Surviving Jeffrey Epstein at Primetimer

⛈ Sarah on Storm Over Brooklyn at Primetimer

🚀 Tara's Star Trek: Lower Decks review at Primetimer

🤔 The Great American Pop Culture Quiz Show podcast

314: Unraveling Frayed Aug 05, 2020

Show notes

The latest British Commonwealth addition to HBOMax's library is the BAFTA-nominated Frayed, and Christina Tucker joins us to discuss whether its riches-to-rags protagonist is as compelling as the world its star-creator, Sarah Kendall, has built around her. Around The Dial takes us through Immigration Nation, Coroner, Desert Hearts (now streaming on Showtime!), the Happy Endings Zoom reunion, and a brief re-plug for Taskmaster now that it's come over to The CW. Francoise uses her Extra Credit to ask us about TV series that revolve around the wrong protagonist, and who would have been the right one. Tara presents the Feud episode "And The Winner Is… (The Oscars Of 1963)" for induction into the Canon. Then after naming the week's Winner and Loser, we kick off a new Game Time season with a game that takes us deep into the history of various stars' TV careers. Pour yourself a glass of Moet (how you pronounce it is no concern of ours) and listen!

GUESTS

👤 Christina Tucker

TOPICS

Lead Topic: 🇦🇺 Frayed

Around The Dial: 🛂 Immigration Nation

Around The Dial: 💀 Coroner

Around The Dial: 💞 Desert Hearts

Around The Dial: 😄 Happy Endings The reunion

Around The Dial: 💌 Taskmaster

Extra Credit: 🤑 Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are On TV

The Canon: 🤬 Feud S01.E05: And The Winner Is... (The Oscars Of 1963)

Winner & Loser: 👍 The Bachelorette Tayshia Adams, Clare Crawley

Winner & Loser: 👎 The Simpsons Harry Shearer

Game Time: 🧠 Humble Beginnings

NOTES

🗒 Full episode notes can be found on the episode 314 page on ExtraHotGreat.com

🐦 Christina Tucker on Twitter

🎧 Christina's podcast, Unfriendly Black Hotties

😍 The Google Images tab for Coroner co-star Éric Bruneau

🇦🇺 Tara's review of Frayed at Primetimer

😄 The Happy Endings reunion

🎶 Mark And Sarah QUIZ About Songs

🎙 The Deadline report on Harry Shearer with the VERY bad photo of him

313: Finding Ourselves At Lost Resort Jul 29, 2020

Show notes

Apparently TBS is not just for "very funny" shows anymore, as we learned from the premiere of Lost Resort, a new series with the bones of a reality show and the shredded guts of untreated trauma. The Verge's TV and film critic Joshua Rivera joins us to discuss what entertainment value its producers think the show has, and whether they are right. Around The Dial takes us through Married At First Sight; Hannibal; Twin Peaks: The Return; and Last Chance U. Joshua presents Watchmen's "This Extraordinary Being" for induction into The Canon. Then after naming the week's Winner(s) and Loser, it's on to a Non-Regulation Game Time seething with personal animosity. Limber up all your ecstatic dance muscles and join us!

GUESTS

👤 Joshua Rivera

TOPICS

Lead Topic: 🙏 Lost Resort

Around The Dial: 💍 Married At First Sight

Around The Dial: 🍽 Hannibal

Around The Dial: 🏔 Twin Peaks: The Return

Around The Dial: 🏈 Last Chance U

The Canon: 🦸‍♀️ Watchmen

Winner & Loser: 👍 Netflix

Winner & Loser: 👎 The Ellen DeGeneres Show

Game Time: 🧠 Enemies: A Hate Story