The Alien-verse has landed on TV with Noah Hawley's re-imagining (or pre-imagining) of the xenomorphic worlds of the film series -- and Andrew Cunningham has landed back in the guest chair to talk about telepathic blackmail, when hearing is scarier than seeing, and acting choices that don't make sense. Is this essential viewing, or should you jump in a shuttle and bail? Later, we went Around The Dial with War Of The Worlds 2025, The Gilded Age, It's Always Sunny, and American Prince: JFK Jr. before the panel stared into the abyss of Sarah's Sopranos Canon pitch. The Yellowstone-verse won, the Sussexes lost, and we kicked off a new Game Time season with a real facehugger. Skip that cryo-nap and listen to an all-new Extra Hot Great instead!

👤 Andrew Cunningham

Lead Topic: 👽 Alien: Earth

Around The Dial: 🌎 War Of The Worlds

Around The Dial: 🚂 The Gilded Age

Around The Dial: 😎 It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia

Around The Dial: 🤴 American Prince: JFK Jr.

The Canon: 👠 The Sopranos S02.E07: D-Girl

Winner & Loser: 🐮 Y: Marshals

Winner & Loser: 👑 Harry and Meghan

Game Time: 🫦 They Mostly Come At Night

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🦋 Andrew Cunningham on Bluesky

📚 Andrew's book pod with Craig Getting, Overdue

👨🏻‍💻 Andrew at Ars Technica

🌍 Tara's War Of The Worlds review at Cracked

👵🏻 "Oldies but goodies" on sale at Exhibit B. Books

📷 Photo: Patrick Brown / FX

Fifteen years after its series finale on Fox, King Of The Hill is back with its fourteenth season, now at on Hulu. Is it worth yelling from the mountains about? We discuss. Around The Dial stops at The Yogurt Shop Murders and S21 of Project Runway. Tara pitches the Close Enough episode "Secret Horse" for induction into The Canon. Then, after naming the week's Winner and Loser, we close with a Non-Regulation Game Time that's on the level. Grab a can of Alamo and join us!

Lead Topic: 🤠 King Of The Hill

Around The Dial: 🍦 The Yogurt Shop Murders

Around The Dial: 👗 Project Runway

The Canon: 🐴 Close Enough S02.E16: Secret Horse

Winner & Loser: 🕵 The Tennessee high school forensic club that solves cold cases

Winner & Loser: 📝 Temuera Morrison

Game Time: ⚖️ Oops! All Equalizer Challenge Zones

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🛍️ Shop our merch store!

🗒 Full episode notes can be found on this episode's page on our site

🗣️ Brian VanHooker's interview with King Of The Hill writer Norm Hiscock at Cracked

🍺 Tara's review of King Of The Hill S14 at Cracked

📅 Tara's ranking of the King Of The Hill's season premiere's most self-consciously 2025 jokes, at Cracked

🦤 Nicholas Quah's review of King Of The Hill S14 at Vulture

🍦 "The Yogurt Shop Murders Unpacks 'The Craziest Crime In Texas'" by Eve Batey at Vanity Fair

🔍 "HBO's Smart New Docuseries Takes On The Yogurt Shop Murders -- And True Crime Itself" by Sam Adams at Slate

📽️ "9 Clips To Remind You Why Kristen Johnston Is One Of The Greatest Living Comedic Actors" at Cracked

🧑‍🏫 Classroom Essentials Lists at Donors Choose

🎠 Secret Horse

Critic and podcaster Mark Blankenship returns to The Blankenship Chair to discuss Hitmakers, a reality show about songwriters that needs less contrived drama and more process -- but did appeal to a couple of our panelists as eye candy. Should you give it a try, or wait until one of its pop creations comes on in an elevator? We went Around The Dial with Happy Gilmore 2, Million Dollar Secret, The Challenge 41, and The Gilded Age spoilers before tapping our toes to a Canon pitch for Buffy's musical episode. A nepo Beatty won, Resident Alien lost, and Non-Regulation Game Time struck a chord with another round of Tube Tunes. We don't want to call it "fire," but it IS an all-new episode of Extra Hot Great!

👤 Mark Blankenship

Announcement: ❤️‍🔥 EHG Club Update

Lead Topic: 🤩 Hitmakers

Around The Dial: 🏒 Happy Gilmore 2

Around The Dial: 🤑 Million Dollar Secret

Around The Dial: 🏂 The Challenge

Around The Dial: 🐎 The Gilded Age

The Canon: 👩🏻‍🎤 Buffy The Vampire Slayer S06.E07: Once More With Feeling

Winner & Loser: 🪓 Ella Beatty

Winner & Loser: 👽 Resident Alien

Game Time: 🎶 Tube Tunes XVI

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🗒 Full episode notes can be found on this episode's page on our site

💿 Mark Blankenship's Lost Songs Project

⛳️ The one Happy Gilmore 2 joke that made Tara laugh

👍 Tara's appreciation of Christopher McDonald

😳 A ranking of all the HG2 non-sports cameos

🔪 The latest true-crime reviews at Best Evidence

📷 Photo: Netflix

Well, we all have a face that we hide away forever, and we take them out and show ourselves when everyone has gone -- even Billy Joel, who has decided to take his out for Billy Joel: And So It Goes, a two-part HBO docu-series about his life and work. Should he have kept it to himself (it's his life)? Daniel Blau Rogge returns to talk about it. Around The Dial takes us through S02 of Digman!, The Comeback, and Billionaire Boys' Club. Dan presents the Hacks episode "The Roast Of Deborah Vance" for induction into The Canon. Then, after naming the week's Winner and Loser, it's on to Game Time, in which we're listening…to celebrity Frasier callers. Say Goodbye To Hollywood and hello to a new episode!

👤 Dan Blau Rogge

Announcement: 🍎 EHG Apple Podcast Subscription

Lead Topic: 🎹 Billy Joel: And So It Goes

Around The Dial: 🪏 Digman!

Around The Dial: 🥊 The Comeback

Around The Dial: 💰 Billionaire Boys' Club

The Canon: 🎤 Hacks S03.E03: The Roast Of Deborah Vance

Winner & Loser: 👩🏼‍❤️‍👨🏻 High-Concept Dating Shows

Winner & Loser: 🙂 Happy Face

Game Time: 📻 Notable Residents of Seattle

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🛍️ Shop our merch store!

🗒 Full episode notes can be found on this episode's page on our site

🦋 Daniel Blau Rogge on Bluesky

🪏 Tara's Digman! S02 review at Cracked

🛍️ EHG 336, including our discussion of Shangri-La Plaza

🪨 Dan on the Glass Houses ranking episode of Mark And Sarah Talk About Songs

💁🏻‍♂️ Listen To Sassy 141, featuring Dan

🤦🏻‍♂️ Listen To Sassy 142, also featuring Dan

👨🏻‍💻 Dan's website

🍪 Adopt A (PBS) Station

📷 Photo: Courtesy of Art Maillett / Sony Music Archives / HBO

Lena Dunham is back with Netflix romcom Too Much -- and so is Maris Kreizman, to discuss Dunham's return to the discourse, whether we can separate the creator from the show, and what the panelists who didn't care for it still think it did really well. We went Around The Dial with American Horror Stories's third season, Veronica Mars's FIRST season, and Ballard, and Tara hoped we'd come to praise AND bury "the Giamatti episode" of Black Mirror for the Canon. Richard Gadd won, Today's Craig Melvin lost (while letting Rick Springfield also win), and getting "home free" proved a challenge in a tagline-based Game Time. Throw a nightie on your favorite pet and join us!

👤 Maris Kreizman

Lead Topic: 💂🏻 Too Much

Around The Dial: 😱 American Horror Stories

Around The Dial: 🕵🏻‍♀️ Veronica Mars

Around The Dial: 🅱️ Ballard

The Canon: 🪞 Black Mirror S07.E05: Eulogy

Winner & Loser: 🦌 Richard Gadd

Winner & Loser: 🥱 Craig Melvin

Game Time: 👉 Tag, You're It

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🗒 Full episode notes can be found on this episode's page on our site

📇 Maris Kreizman's website

🧨 An excerpt from Maris's new book, I Want To Burn This Place Down, at Rolling Stone

🦋 Maris on Bluesky

🪞 Extra Hot Great 558 on Black Mirror S07

🇬🇧 Tara's review of Too Much

👐 Kerr County Flood Relief Fund

✍🏻 ProPublica's local reporting network

📷 Photo: Ana Blumenkron / Netflix

In the grand tradition of our drafts for Law & Order and the Star Trek franchise, we're using this special episode to draft teams of staff, patients, loved ones, and inanimate shows from ER -- and who better to join us than Laura Hampton, a PA known to us from our Discord as an ER superfan who recently completed a full rewatch of the entire series? No one, which is why she's here picking a team AND organized the draft with the correct number of each category of character for us to choose from. Now we're going to need YOU to vote for which team reigns supreme! Laura also presents Doug saving Ben from a flooding storm drain in "Hell And High Water" for induction into the Hero category of the Tiny Canon. Finally, we close with an on-theme game about body parts in the names of TV shows and actors. Get listening, STAT!

👤 Laura Hampton

Lead Topic: 🏥 ER Draft

Tiny Canon: 🌊 ER S02.E07: Hell and High Water

Game Time: 🫁 The Body Keeps The Score

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🛍️ Shop our merch store!

🗒 Full episode notes can be found on this episode's page on our site

🩻 Final ER draft picks from Laura, Tara and Sarah

📊 Poll: Best ER Lineup

📊 Poll: Hospital You'd Most Want To Be A Patient At

💵 Donate to the National Network of Abortion Funds

💉 Your Local Epidemiologist on Substack

📚 LibraryFinder

We are off this week but present you with this EHG Club unlock of EEHG 343: Should You Sign On To With Love, Meghan?

It's clear the former Meghan Markle wants to do something significant with her British-royal influence; it's also clear her new Netflix homekeeping show, With Love, Meghan, isn't that. Stephanie Early Green is back to talk about why it's so dull, what might have helped, and how Martha Stewart succeeded where Meghan Sussex fails. Ask EHG wondered who would replace Noel Fielding on GBBO and which characters we'd want on our bar-trivia teams, and then Tara pitched a lyrical SNL sketch for the Tiny Canon. And after we listed our Not Quite Winners and Losers of the week, Sarah's Extra Credit polled the panel on important princesses of television. Throw on a $300 linen apron and join us!

👤 Stephanie Green

15s Of Fame: 🤬 The Good Swear

Lead Topic: 🕯️ With Love, Meghan

Ask EHG: 🎂 Replacing Noel Fielding

Tiny Canon: 🏀 Saturday Night Live S38.E18: Vince Vaughn

Winner & Loser: 🃏 Poker Face

Winner & Loser: 🏈 Tracy Morgan

Winner & Loser: 🍄 The Last Of Us

Winner & Loser: 🏢 Keegan-Michael Key

Winner & Loser: 💜 Prince's estate

Winner & Loser: ⛹️‍♂️ Running Point

Winner & Loser: 📉 The Recruit

Winner & Loser: 🎥 Arrested Development

Winner & Loser: 🥀 Bachelor co-EPs Michael Margolis and Keely Booth

Extra Credit: 🫅 Important TV Princesses

Mini: 👑 The Royal Them

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🛍️ Shop our merch store!

🗒 Full episode notes can be found on this episode's page on our site

💚 More from Stephanie Early Green at her website

📖 Vanity Fair's Harry 'n' Meghan cover story

🤨 “Meghan Markle Pioneers New Frontiers in Unrelatability” by Kathryn VanArendonk at Vulture

🗣️ “The Meghan Interview” at People

📷 Photo: Netflix

Like a lot of family-owned businesses, Havenport, North Carolina's Buckley Fishery is having a rough go of it lately. If they can't make their nut and pay all their employees on fish alone, maybe...smuggling cocaine will make up the shortfall? What could go wrong?! Jessica Morgan returns to talk about the ways Kevin Williamson's new show crosses over with the one we know him for best (Dawson's Creek), and the ways it doesn't but that we WISH it would. Around The Dial takes us through Season 3 of The Gilded Age, The Valley, and Trainwreck: The Astroworld Tragedy. Sarah pitches the Law & Order episode "Empire" -- aka "The Julia Roberts One" -- for induction into The Canon. Then, after identifying the week's Winner and Loser, it's on to a game that's naming names -- lots of them. Grab a serving of fresh oysters and join us!

👤 Jessica Morgan

Announcement: 🏦 EHG Mutual Aid Vault

Lead Topic: 🌊 The Waterfront

Around The Dial: 👒 The Gilded Age

Around The Dial: 😎 The Valley

Around The Dial: 🏟️ Trainwreck: The Astroworld Tragedy

The Canon: ⚖️ Law & Order S09.E20: Empire

Winner & Loser: ⭐️ Five-Star Weekend

Winner & Loser: 😱 Ryan Murphy

Game Time: 🪞 Same Name Game

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🗒 Full episode notes can be found on this episode's page on our site

🦋 Jessica Morgan on Bluesky

🔥 Extra Hot Great Club

🏦 Contact Sarah about making a deposit to or withdrawal from the Extra Hot Great Mutual Aid Vault at [email protected]

🔫 "Kevin Williamson Reveals How His Dad's Sordid Past Inspired New Crime Drama 'The Waterfront': 'He Paid The Price'" at the New York Post

🤰🏻 "'Adults' Takes A Strong Stance On Abortion: Everyone Deserves Access, Including Jerks" at Cracked

🌴 Again With This's Membership Campaign

👗 Go Fug Yourself

🍹 The Drinks With Broads Newsletter

📚 Save On True-Crime Paperbacks at Exhibit B. Books

📷 Photo: Dana Hawley / Netflix

And that truth is: none of us thinks you should bother, including returning guest Will Leitch, who agrees that We Were Liars moves too slowly; shows AND tells too fart-sniffily; wastes the talents of an impressive cast, including Mamie Gummer and David Morse; and is based on a property whose author sounds fake. We went Around The Dial with the very real The Chicken Sisters, Untold, and The Mortician before Tara's Canon pitch reunited us with Party Down's third-season premiere. General Hospital won, Doctor Odyssey (maybe??) lost, and Dan Cassino got us all a volume discount on long-running shows in Game Time. Cannonball verrrrrry sloooowwwly into our all-new episode now!

👤 Will Leitch

Lead Topic: 🤥 We Were Liars

Around The Dial: 🐔 The Chicken Sisters

Around The Dial: 🏟️ Untold

Around The Dial: 🪦 The Mortician

Around The Dial: 👺 The Devil's Plan

The Canon: 🎉 Party Down S03.E01: Kyle Bradway Is Nitromancer

Winner & Loser: 🏥 General Hospital

Winner & Loser: 🚢 Doctor Odyssey

Game Time: 📺 Intermittent FASTing

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🛍️ Shop our merch store!

🗒 Full episode notes can be found on this episode's page on our site

🎶 Will Leitch on the Rick Astley/popularity conundrum

🏙️ Will at NYMag

📰 Will at WaPo

📚 Buy Will's books

🎉 EHG 448 on the return of Party Down

😝 Tara runs down the best non-Daily Show comedic performances by TDS cast on Cracked

💀 Sarah reviews The Mortician

📖 Exhibit B.'s paperback sale

📷 Photo: Amazon Content Services LLC

Summer is upon us, but what are we going to watch? Robert Krut joins us to help make our traditional lists of what we're into; what we should be into but aren't; what NO ONE should be into; and what's fine for others but not for us. Dave pitches the South Side episode "Treat Yourself" for induction into The Canon. Then, after naming the week's Winner and Loser, we close out with a Game Time that's pure poetry. Find a spot directly in front of a fan and join us!

👤 Robert Krut

Announcement: 🏦 EHG Mutual Aid Vault

Lead Topic: 🏖️ 2025 Summer TV Preview

The Canon: 🦝 South Side S02.E01: Treat Yourself

Winner & Loser: 👨‍🍳 Jon Bernthal and Ebon Moss-Bachrach

Winner & Loser: 🩰 Étoile

Game Time: ☘️ There Once Was A Man From TV

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🛍️ Shop our merch store!

🗒 Full episode notes can be found on this episode's page on our site

🪶 Robert Krut's website

🌴 The Again With This Club campaign

✊ CHIRLA / Coalition For Humane Immigrant Rights

🙊 Sarah's review of Ask Not at Best Evidence

🏦 How to reach Sarah for Mutual Aid Vault withdrawals

🥮 EEHG 323, including Dave's "Treat Yourself" pitch for the Anger Tiny Canon

🎙️ Tara's interview with Bashir Salahuddin at Cracked