Extra Hot Great: This Week In TV

For this special episode, we have selected 27 very memorable TV mustaches to do battle in our Thunderdome. Listen to find out which of them vanquishes all its opponents!

TOPICS

Lead Topic: 🥸 TV Moustache Thunderdome

NOTES

🗒 Full episode notes can be found on the episode 390 page on ExtraHotGreat.com

Resident Amazing Race expert Jessica returns to the guest chair to talk about the legendary reality show's unique thirty-third season: how it handled an 18-month interruption, whether we expect more from its production than we do from other shows, the true-crime connection that's somehow charming, and whom we expect to win. We went Around The Dial with the new Joe Millionaire, Married At First Sight, Letterkenny, Yellowjackets, and 9-1-1: Lone Star before celebrating a Tiny Triumph for Tara going back to March of 2021. Greg L. asked us to Pop Culture Veto TV properties before we went Down Under for Jessica's Canon submission from The Letdown's first season. History won, gas lost, and we boarded a rollercoaster of series highs and lows for Game Time. The world is waiting...for this all-new Extra Hot Great.

GUESTS

👤 Jessica Liese

TOPICS

Lead Topic: 🌍 The Amazing Race

Around The Dial: 💰 Joe Millionaire: For Richer Or Poorer

Around The Dial: 👰‍♀️ Married At First Sight

Around The Dial: 🍺 Letterkenny

Around The Dial: 🐝 Yellowjackets

Around The Dial: 🤠 9-1-1: Lone Star

Tiny Triumph: 🎉 Soapdish

Extra Credit: 🤑 Pop Culture Veto

The Canon: 🏆 The Letdown S01.E04: Trivial Pursuits

Winner & Loser: 👍 Tobias Menzies

Winner & Loser: 👎 Stephanie Matto

Game Time: 🧠 Best Of Times, Worst Of Times

NOTES

🗒 Full episode notes can be found on the episode 389 page on ExtraHotGreat.com

🐦 Jessica Liese on Twitter

🎧 Jessica's TAR podcasts at Rob Has A Website

🏔 EEHG 109: Adding To Paramount+

🎙 Tara's interview with Tim Minear

🔍 Best Evidence

✂️ Jourdain Searles intro-ing In The Cut at the Nitehawk

So...the original plan was to watch the 1979 miniseries Backstairs At The White House -- even though, at nine hours, it's longer than some actual series are these days. Then Dave and Tara got less than half an hour into it and pulled the plug. Dan -- who did watch it -- tells us what we missed, but then we just roll on past that to a trio of Non-Regulation Game Times! Who knows the most about TV actors who share names with U.S. presidents, and about original songs from TV episodes, AND about reunion movies made years after the series that spawned them went off the air? This special episode's games leave no one in doubt!

GUESTS

👤 Dan Cassino

TOPICS

Around The Dial: 🏛 Backstairs At The White House

Game Time: 🧠 His Name Is My Name Too

Game Time: 🧠 Tube Tunes VIII

Game Time: 🧠 TV Reunions

NOTES

🗒 Full episode notes can be found on the episode 388 page on ExtraHotGreat.com

🐦 Dan Cassino on Twitter

We challenged our listeners to get us to 1000 Patreon supporters by December 15, and they went above and beyond. Your reward? This drunk episode. Author, screenwriter, and sake enthusiast Pamela Ribon joins us as we discuss Bridgerton, the first Shonda Rhimes show to hit Netflix. Which of us found its 1813 society romances compelling? The answer won't surprise you! Around The Dial takes us through How To With John Wilson, the feature film We Are Little Zombies (available to buy or rent on all the platforms), NBC's revival of The Weakest Link, and Taskmaster NZ. A WILDLY compromised Dave pitches the Peep Show episode "Shrooming" for induction into the Canon; then after Dave crowns the episode's Winner and Loser based on who's most drunk, it's on to the most shambolic Game Time ever. Pour yourself a LARGE cup of Christmas cheer and listen!

GUESTS

👤 Pamela Ribon

TOPICS

Lead Topic: 🎩 Bridgerton

Around The Dial: 📐 How To With John Wilson

Around The Dial: 🧟‍♀️ We Are Little Zombies

Around The Dial: 🔗 The Weakest Link

Around The Dial: 💌 Taskmaster New Zealand

The Canon: 👀 Peep Show S03.E03: Shrooming

Winner & Loser: 🍺 ??!?

Game Time: 🧠 TV Theme Karaoke

NOTES

🗒 Full episode notes can be found on the episode 387 page on ExtraHotGreat.com

Being The Ricardos, Aaron Sorkin's latest project as a big-screen writer-director is...also very much a small-screen project, so we are claiming it. Look, it's about TV (specifically, the stars and making of I Love Lucy) and it's kind of on TV (members can stream it for free on Amazon Prime Video), so IT COUNTS. Anyway: joining us for the discussion is actual film critic Tim Grierson! Around The Dial takes us through film-to-TV adaptation Finding Magic Mike; TV-to-film-back-to-TV adaptation MacGruber; Insecure; How To With John Wilson; Dead Asleep; and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. John Potts asks us to choose a TV getaway for our next imaginary holiday. Ilan brings us back to the TV-to-movie pipeline with a Canon presentation on The Simpsons episode "Itchy & Scratchy: The Movie." Then we name the week's Winner and Loser before closing out with a Game Time that really decks the halls. No need to arrange a multi-cam setup: this podcast is for your ears only!

GUESTS

👤 Tim Grierson

TOPICS

Lead Topic: 😘 Being The Ricardos

Around The Dial: 🕺 Finding Magic Mike

Around The Dial: 🧨 Macgruber

Around The Dial: 🧍🏽‍♀️ Insecure

Around The Dial: 📐 How To With John Wilson

Around The Dial: 🛌 Dead Asleep

Around The Dial: 🧑‍⚖️ Law & Order: Special Victims Unit

Extra Credit: 🏖 TV Getaways

The Canon: 🏆 The Simpsons S04.E06: Itchy & Scratchy: The Movie

Winner & Loser: 👍 Texas Monthly

Winner & Loser: 👎 Peloton

Game Time: 🧠 The Caroling Burnett Show II

NOTES

🗒 Full episode notes can be found on the episode 386 page on ExtraHotGreat.com

🐦 Tim Grierson on Twitter

🙃 "Aaron Sorkin Defends Being the Ricardos Casting Decisions" at The Hollywood Reporter

🤥 "What's Fact and What's Fiction in Being The Ricardos"

🗣 Tara's interview with Gloria Calderón Kellett at Decider

🎞 Tim at Screen International

🍈 Tim at Mel

📚 Tim's book, This Is How You Make A Movie, at The Last Bookshop

🛌 Sarah's Dead Asleep review at Best Evidence

Novelists and Go Fug Yourself editors Heather and Jessica are back to talk about the Sex & The City...update? reboot? whatever you call it, you can also call it And Just Like That. And you can ALSO call it "tone-deaf," "cringey," and "a clumsy character assassination," as the legendary HBO sit-rom-com returns with a bunch of new characters, and one very notable absence. Is there anything to relate to here? Does the show, as it used to, still do a couple of things extremely well while being exhausting the rest of the time? And couldn't they just have given Samantha COVID?

Later, Dan Cassino was NOT a crackpot for suggesting that many Netflix properties would benefit from a faster watch speed, and then we went Around The Dial with Love Life, Live In Front Of A Studio Audience, The Big Leap, The Monkees, and Call My Agent!.

Listener Laura hoped there wouldn't be "Bad Blood" between her and the panel when she submitted yet another X-Files ep for the Canon. Yellowstone won, wasting the court's time lost, and we contemplated the legendary hookups of the Big Apple in a non-regulation Game Time.

Grab a sad fascinator and have a listen to an all-new Extra Hot Great!

GUESTS

👤 Heather Cocks

👤 Jessica Morgan

TOPICS

Lead Topic: 🌆 And Just Like That

Around The Dial: 💝 Love Life

Around The Dial: 😂 Live In Front Of A Studio Audience

Around The Dial: 🎭 The Big Leap

Around The Dial: 🐒 The Monkees

Around The Dial: ☎️ Call My Agent!

I Am Not A Crackpot: ⏩ Speed Watching TV

The Canon: 👽 The X-Files S05.E12: Bad Blood

Winner & Loser: 👍 1883

Winner & Loser: 👎 Jussie Smollett

Game Time: 🧠 The Sexinest City

NOTES

🗒 Full episode notes can be found on the episode 385 page on ExtraHotGreat.com

💃 Go Fug Yourself

🐦 GFY on Twitter

📸 GFY on Instagram

📚 Heather and Jessica on Bookshop

💝 The For Colored Nerds podcast on S02 of Love Life

🎭 Vulture on The Big Leap

🐒 The Monkees S02.E22 ("the Paris episode")

👩🏽‍⚕️ Tara's Doogie Kamealoha, MD post at Decider

✍️ Tara's author page at Decider

🎶 Mark And Sarah Talk About Songs

📷 Photo: HBO Max

HBO's latest British miniseries import is Landscapers, telling the story about Christopher and Susan Edwards and their, er, unorthodox gardening habits; we tell you whether we thought it was, heh, fertile ground for drama. Around The Dial takes us through Annie Live!, Money Heist, Baptiste, and Hawkeye. Elenore pitches the Drunk History episode "Civil Rights" for the Canon. Then after naming the week's Winner and Loser, we close out with a Game Time that's live from New York, featuring surprise Valued Guest Taylor Cole. Join us for all the dirt on Landscapers and so much more!

GUESTS

👤 Taylor Cole

TOPICS

Lead Topic: ⛲️ Landscapers

Around The Dial: 💸 Money Heist

Around The Dial: 👩🏻‍🦰 Annie Live

Around The Dial: 🎨 Baptiste

Around The Dial: 🎯 Hawkeye

Extra Credit: 🏖 TV Getaways

The Canon: 🏆 Drunk History S05.E05: Civil Rights

Winner & Loser: 👍 FX

Winner & Loser: 👎 Chris Cuomo

Game Time: 🧠 Do You Know What Not Ready For Prime Time It Is?

NOTES

🗒 Full episode notes can be found on the episode 384 page on ExtraHotGreat.com

📰 The Guardian's deep dive on the Edwards case

🤔 Streaming options for Quiz

🚨 The Blotter Presents podcast on Quiz

👩🏻‍🦰 Jackson McHenry and Kathryn VanArendonk on Annie Live! at Vulture

💸 Tara's Money Heist recaps at Vulture

🗽 The Great American Pop Culture Quiz Show on Patreon

📚 12(% off) Days Of Christmas at Exhibit B. Books

It's the return of the EHG Thunderdome! This time we're sending 27 HBO characters of our choosing into the Thunderdome to see who is the last character standing. Will it be the horse from Luck? WILL IT?!

TOPICS

Lead Topic: ⛈ Selective HBO Character Thunderdome

NOTES

🗒 Full episode notes can be found on the episode 383 page on ExtraHotGreat.com

Sarah and Tara are busy eating turkey so Dave assembled a crew of Wheel Of Time experts to try to explain what the hell he just watched. Join Dan Cassino, Sean Pflueger and Jim Durr as they discuss Amazon's adaption of the epic series then stick around for a spicy game time!

GUESTS

👤 Dan Cassino

👤 Jim Durr

👤 Sean Pflueger

TOPICS

Lead Topic: ⏳ Wheel Of Time

Game Time: 🧠 Wheel Of Thyme

NOTES

🗒 Full episode notes can be found on the episode 382 page on ExtraHotGreat.com

Returning guest Dave Roth got on the couch with us for The Shrink Next Door, the Apple TV adaptation of the Wondery podcast of the same name. We discussed the pacing, whether the show needed more jokes and less attention to production-design details, and the very obviously not New York light on the outdoor sets. Did true-crime "expert" Buntsy feel differently from the rest of the panel? Later, we went Around The Dial with Yellowjackets, SNL, Evil, and The Curse Of Von Dutch before popping on our fezzes for a Lodge 49 Canon submission from Lisa. Annie Live! won, Terry Crews lost, and we tried to keep it 100 with some creative arithmetic in Game Time. Bail on your second bar mitzvah early and listen to an all-new Extra Hot Great.

GUESTS

👤 David Roth

TOPICS

Lead Topic: 😶‍🌫️ The Shrink Next Door

Around The Dial: 🐝 Yellowjackets

Around The Dial: 🌃 Saturday Night Live

Around The Dial: 😈 Evil

Around The Dial: 🧢 The Curse Of Von Dutch

The Canon: 🏆 Lodge 49 S01.E03: Corpus

Winner & Loser: 👍 Alan Toy

Winner & Loser: 👎 Terry Crews

Game Time: 🧠 Keeping It 100

NOTES

🗒 Full episode notes can be found on the episode 381 page on ExtraHotGreat.com

🏓 David J. Roth at Defector.com

🦜 The Distraction podcast

🤶 The It's Christmastown podcast with Jeb Lund

🐨 Tara on Frayed S02 for Decider

🌃 Tara's SNL recap at VF

🗽 The Great American Pop Culture Quiz Show Patreon

🧢 Sarah's Von Dutch review on Best Evidence

🎧 Subscribe to Quaid In Full for even more Roth and Lund in our S05 finale