Various legal proceedings aside, The Pitt is ABSOLUTELY not ER...but if you liked ER, Fug Girl Heather Cocks agrees with the panel that you'll like Max's new and extremely gnarly medical drama. It has all the ingredients that make a doctor show (versus a soap with doctors in it) compelling: solid casting; elegant world-building via medical students; and just enough jargon. We're going Around The Dial with Switching Gears, The Breakthrough, and comfort TV scripted and non- in the form of The Traitors and The Summer I Turned Pretty. We're also interrogating The West Wing's ill-advised 9/11 response episode, "Isaac And Ishmael," to see if it belongs in the EHG Nonac. Sanrio won, the Chrisleys lost, and Dan Cassino brings us below the line with a crazy-credits Game Time. Roll your gurney up to a speaker and listen!

👤 Heather Cocks

Lead Topic: 👨🏻‍⚕️ The Pitt

Around The Dial: ⚙️ Switching Gears

Around The Dial: 🔪 The Traitors

Around The Dial: 👙 The Summer I Turned Pretty

Around The Dial: ⛓️‍💥 The Breakthrough

The Nonac: 🏛️ The West Wing S03.E00: Isaac And Ishmael

Winner & Loser: 😸 Sanrio character My Melody

Winner & Loser: 😤 Chase Chrisley

Game Time: 🎬 Where Credit Is Due

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💃 Go Fug Yourself

🧯 The Anti-Recidivism Coalition's firefighter fund

🧑‍🚒 The L.A. Fire Department Foundation

📚 Exhibit B. Books's L.A. County Library fundraiser

🚗 Tara's Switching Gears review at Cracked

⚖️ In August, Michael Crichton’s estate sued The Pitt for revamping a proposed ER sequel into The Pitt

🤷‍♀️ In November, Warner Bros. claimed it was NOT derivative of ER

🍓 Ramy S01.E04, "Strawberries," on Hulu

📷 Photo: Warrick Page / Max

Amy is a hard-charging doctor who's alienated almost everyone in her life. Then amnesia following a car accident erases the last eight years of her life from her memory. Can she start over and fix what she broke during that lost time?! Sarah Baker is here to discuss whether Fox's new drama Doc imprinted on her memory at all. Around The Dial takes us through Going Dutch, The Circle, Somebody Somewhere, and Everwood. Mlle. Caroline pitches the Ghosts (UK) episode "The Thomas Thorne Affair" for induction into The Canon. Then, after naming the week's Winner and Loser, it's on to a Game Time about VERY useless keywords. Tighten up that head bandage and join us!

👤 Sarah Baker

Lead Topic: 😶‍🌫️ Doc

Around The Dial: 🫡 Going Dutch

Around The Dial: ⭕️ The Circle

Around The Dial: 🍣 Somebody Somewhere

Around The Dial: 🪵 Everwood

The Canon: 👻 Ghosts (UK) S02.E05: The Thomas Thorne Affair

Winner & Loser: 🏆 Joey King and Cooper Koch

Winner & Loser: 📰 CNN

Game Time: 🤷‍♀️ Decidedly Unhelpful

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📸 Sarah Baker on Instagram

🪖 Tara's Going Dutch review at Cracked

🧭 The Great North on Hulu

🔦 Sarah D. Bunting at Best Evidence

📷 Photo: Fox

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We are off this week for EHG Prime but present you with this EHG Club unlock of EEHG 313: Taking A Journey In The World Of David The Gnome.

It's time again for us to submit to the wishes of listeners like you, which is how we've ended up watching the series finale of The World Of David The Gnome. What was clearly conceived as a sweet story about gnomes and animals living harmoniously together in nature takes a WILD turn for its very last episode, so: thanks for exposing us all to that, Matt! Then it's on to your answers to our last Ask Ask EHG question, and our answers to your latest Ask EHG questions about Bryan Fuller's career, whether we are brat, and more. Some Not Quite Winners and Losers get their time in the sun and shade. Then we welcome in the grandpas for cartoon crossovers. Hop onto the fox that transports you around the forest and join us!

15s Of Fame: 🍔 Rax

Forcening Pool: 🌳 The World Of David The Gnome S01.E26: The Mountains of Beyond

Ask EHG: 🦴 TV Theme Boning Pitfalls

Winner & Loser: 🤣 Jimmy Fallon

Winner & Loser: 🐴 My Lady Jane

Winner & Loser: 💤 The Acolyte

Winner & Loser: 🔫 The Sopranos

Winner & Loser: ⚖️ Andy Cohen

Winner & Loser: ⛳️ Owen Wilson's untitled AppleTV+ golf comedy

Winner & Loser: 😑 An NBC executive who was wrong about Friends

Extra Credit: 🖖 Those Old Something Elses

15s Of Fame: 🍔 Rax

Mini: 🪓 Cartoon Version (Jun 2016)

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🦊 The World Of David The Gnome S01.E26: The Mountains Of Beyond on YouTube

🧠 Mojo Jojo after getting absolutely wrecked by the Powerpuff Girls

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We are off this week for EHG Prime but present you with this EHG Club unlock of EEHG 296: Showing Proper Deference To Star Maidens.

We're in the doldrums of mid-May. None of the week's TV premieres lit us with a fire of passion. What better time for Dave to make us all watch Star Maidens, a mid-70s British sci-fi show about a CRAZY planet where women are in charge and men are their bitter servants. What could go wrong? For Ask EHG, we solicited your DUMBEST questions, and you came through with queries about, among others, how our pets would get in trouble if they went to school and which of the three of us would win in an EHG Thunderdome. We bring you some all-new Not Quite Top 11 Lists in lieu of the week's Winner and Loser. Then we close up with Anthobuzz's Extra Credit submission on updating a Rodman's World Tour poker segment for the decade of our choice. Get in the Hypnomat and join us!

Lead Topic: 👸 Dave Forces Everyone To Watch The Series Premiere Of Star Maidens

Ask EHG: 🤪 Your dumbest questions

Not Quite Top 11: 🚐 Saturday Morning Programs Whose Titles Could Double As Basic Cable Shows In A Different Genre

Not Quite Top 11: 🎀 TV Portrayals Of Jackie O

Not Quite Top 11: 🍁 Canadian Snacks To Enjoy While Watching TV

Extra Credit: 🃏 Rodman Flush

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

👸 Star Maidens S01.E01: Escape To Paradise on YouTube

🤴 Sexy King Vitaman

🃏 "Dennis Rodman plays poker with Kelsey Grammar & Pat Smear (1997)" on YouTube

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One week out from Christmas, we're bringing you a special all about the holidays. Will festive episodes of The Twilight Zone and Frasier take their place in our TV Hall of Fame? Will a famous failure of a Veronica Mars episode land in our Hall of Shame? Fa la la la la la la la listen and find out!

The Canon: 👞 The Twilight Zone S01.E12: What You Need

The Nonac: 📼 Veronica Mars S02.E10: One Angry Veronica

The Canon: 🤶🏻 Frasier S06.E10: Merry Christmas, Mrs. Moskowitz

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

📷 Paramount / CBS / Warner Bros.

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It had been far too long since we played Mullendash, one of our favorite games, so we reached out to our network and gathered three people who write jokes for a living: standup comic Brandi Brown; comic and former Desus & Mero head writer Josh Gondelman; and former Last Week Tonight writer Jill Twiss. How good were they at writing bad punchlines that could pass for Jim Mullen's, thus fooling their fellow players? Listen and find out!

👤 Josh Gondelman

👤 Brandi Brown

👤 Jill Twiss

Lead Topic: 🧠 Mullendash

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

🫠 The first Mullendash episode from 2023

📸 Brandi Brown on Instagram

🦋 Josh Gondelman on Bluesky

🦋 Jill Twiss on Bluesky

🦙 "What I Saw At The Minnesota State Fair's Llama-Alpaca Experience" by Brandi at Defector

🎡 "We Must Never Forget That Amy Klobuchar Is A Cowardly State Fair Centrist" by Brandi at Defector

🗳️ Jill's book Everyone Gets A Say

😌 Josh's newsletter That's Marvelous

🏟️ Tour dates and more at Josh's website

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Once again, 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 yearly EHG tradition!

👤 Alan Sepinwall

👤 Brandi Brown

👤 Caroline Lefloch

👤 Sarah Baker

👤 Alison Herman

👤 Adam Grosswirth

👤 Taylor Cole

👤 Omar Gallaga

👤 Krystal Farmer

👤 Dan Cassino

👤 David Wiebe

👤 Eve Batey

👤 Monty Ashley

👤 Andy Dehnart

👤 Alex Collins

👤 Daniel MacEachern

👤 Kari Race

👤 Nick Rheinwald-Jones

👤 Jessica Morgan

👤 Devindra Hardawar

👤 Stephanie Green

Lead Topic: 🧠 Guest Thought Experiments

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

🤔 2023 Guest Thought Experiments

🧐 2022 Guest Thought Experiments

👕 Dave made Dave the shirt

One of the oldest and most venerated game show formats is Password, dating back to well before all your co-hosts were alive. On an entirely unrelated note, for this special episode, we're playing a game called Personal Authorization Code! We've invited our friends Sarah Baker, Robert Krut, Jeff Drake, and Wendy Molyneux to play; since all of them live on the west coast and had to record in the middle of the night, our beloved Joe Reid sat in for Sarah as Tara's partner. Who can do the most with the least...number of words? Listen and learn!

👤 Sarah Baker

👤 Jeff Drake

👤 Robert Krut

👤 Wendy Molyneux

👤 Joe Reid

Game Time: 🤐 Personal Authorization Code

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📸 Sarah Baker on Instagram

🦋 Jeff Drake on Bluesky

📸 Robert Krut on Instagram

📸 Wendy Molyneux on Instagram

🦋 Joe Reid on Bluesky

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Prestige series Dune: Prophecy travels more than ten thousand years into the past to see what put in motion the Dune-iverse events we already knew about. Guest Phil Maciak took the time-machine trip with us to discuss whether the series is only for fans of the existing IP; what the series might have focused on instead of administrative wrangling; and why the club always looks annoying regardless of timeline. We went Around The Dial with A Man On The Inside, Junior Taskmaster, Say Nothing, and a Day Of The Jackel update before Phil appealed to our hearts -- and guts -- with a Somebody Somewhere pitch. Friday Night Lights won, Jenny Mollen lost, and the melody lingered on with another round of Tube Tunes. Cue up your thinking machines and listen now!

👤 Philip Maciak

Lead Topic: 🪱 Dune: Prophecy

Around The Dial: 🚪 A Man On The Inside

Around The Dial: 💌 Junior Taskmaster

Around The Dial: 🇮🇪 Say Nothing

Around The Dial: 🔫 The Day Of The Jackal

The Canon: 🧻 Somebody Somewhere S02.E02: #2

Winner & Loser: 🏈 Friday Night Lights

Winner & Loser: ✈️ Jenny Mollen

Game Time: 🎶 Tube Tunes XV

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🦋 Phillip Maciak on Bluesky

🔥 EHG Humans Bluesky Starter List

🤐 Phil's Say Nothing review

🤫 ...which Sarah's review links to in her review

😻 Find cat TNR and rescue groups near you (in the U.S.)

🥋 Tara's Cobra Kai S06 review at Cracked

🧤 Donate to Street Forum's winter-gear fundraiser

💵 The National Network Of Abortion Funds

📷 Photo: HBO

🔥 EHG Club Perk Links & How-To

💬 Get On Our Community Discord

Superstore creator Justin Spitzer has teamed up with Eric Ledgin for a new sitcom set at an Oregon hospital. Is it goofier than the subject matter demands? Stephanie Early Green returns to talk about it. Around The Dial takes us through Married At First Sight, Anatomy Of Lies, Sister Wives, Cruel Doubt, and The Penguin. Stephanie pitches the 10th episode of Australia's Instant Hotel's first season for induction into The Canon. Then, after naming the week's Winner and Loser, we close up with a Game Time about TV shows that burned brightly, but too briefly (and...not always brightly). Put your feet up -- in or out of traction; that's up to you -- and join us!

👤 Stephanie Green

Lead Topic: 🏥 St. Denis Medical

Around The Dial: 👰‍♀️ Married At First Sight

Around The Dial: 🩻 Anatomy Of Lies

Around The Dial: 💍 Sister Wives

Around The Dial: 🤔 Cruel Doubt

Around The Dial: 🐧 The Penguin

The Canon: 🏨 Instant Hotel S01.E10

Winner & Loser: 😱 Macaulay Culkin

Winner & Loser: 🐮 Taylor Sheridan

Game Time: 📉 One Season And No Movie

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

🩺 Tara's comedies about doctors and hospitals, at Cracked

🍽️ Stephanie's essay "My Great Hunger" at The Cincinnati Review

🤔 Cruel Doubt on YouTube

📚 The major-case sale at Exhibit B. Books

🎁 Extra Hot Great gift subscriptions at Patreon

📷 Photo: Ron Batzdorff / NBC