Vanity Fair's Richard Lawson returns to the pod for the first time since Mark 1 to talk about an equally old-timey take on a beloved character: HBO's dark take on Perry Mason before he became the gold standard of TV defense attorneys. Is this imagining of his life before Raymond Burr canonical? Did we need to see that level of post-violence gore? And does EVERY cell of this show's being hate the LAPD? (Not that we're complaining about that.) Then we went Around The Dial with Sherman's Showcase, Legendary, Taste The Nation, and Lenox Hill, and Richard announced Tara's upcoming Forcening before humming a few bars of "La Vie En Ro" in his Sopranos Canon presentation. Jharrel Jerome won, Chris D'Elia lost, and the players got very animated during a Dan Cassino Game Time. Pass the time during a home marcel wave with this all-new Extra Hot Great!

GUESTS

👤 Richard Lawson

TOPICS

Lead Topic: 🔍 Perry Mason (2020)

Around The Dial: 🕺 Sherman's Showcase

Around The Dial: 💄 Legendary

Around The Dial: 🍽 Taste The Nation

Around The Dial: 🩺 Lenox Hill

The Canon: 🍝 The Sopranos

Winner & Loser: 👍 Jharrel Jerome

Winner & Loser: 👎 Chris D'Elia

Game Time: 🧠 Simpsons Did It

NOTES

🗒 Full episode notes can be found on the episode 308 page on ExtraHotGreat.com

🐦 Richard Lawson on Twitter

💻 Richard at VanityFair.com

🕺 The Sherman's Showcase Black History Month Spectacular

❤️‍🔥 Tara's Floor Is Lava review at Primetimer

📖 Richard's novel All We Can Do Is Wait at Penguin Random House

🎧 The Quaid In Full podcast

Production Note: Dave did a bad copy-paste in his notes and credited the wrong Dave in Game Time. Dave is a bad Dave. Dave LARSON is not a bad Dave, he is a good Dave and the author of Viva Lost Wages!

Apparently unsatisfied by dominating the world of scripted film, Ryan Reynolds has branched out into alternative TV programming by creating a new ABC game show called Don't, hosted by Adam Scott. Will "Don't" also be our advice on whether you should watch it? Frequent Game Time writer Dan Cassino joins us to discuss! Around The Dial clicks through Netflix's latest dopey game show, Floor Is Lava; Top Chef All-Stars L.A.; and an I Am Not A Crackpot rant from Sarah regarding plotlines about bad and learning drivers. John Horner uses his Extra Credit to have us imagine TV characters from unusual careers trying to interview for jobs in the straight world. Dan presents the Father Brown episode "The Passing Bell" for induction into The Nonac. We name the week's Winner and Loser, and then we take a gamble on the latest Game Time. DON'T let your attention wander for a second!

GUESTS

👤 Dan Cassino

TOPICS

Lead Topic: 🚫 Don't

Around The Dial: ❤️‍🔥 Floor Is Lava

Around The Dial: 🍽 Top Chef: All-Stars

I Am Not A Crackpot: 🚘 Subplots about bad/learning drivers should be forbidden

Extra Credit: 🤑 TV Character Job Interviews

The Nonac: 🙏 Father Brown

Winner & Loser: 👍 The Simpsons

Winner & Loser: 👍 Insecure

Winner & Loser: 👎 Quibi

Game Time: 🧠 Viva Lost Wages

NOTES

🗒 Full episode notes can be found on the episode 307 page on ExtraHotGreat.com

🐦 Dan Cassino on Twitter

⚔️ Tara's Crossing Swords review at Primetimer

🤔 The Great American Pop Culture Quiz Show

🌴 A Very Special 90210 Book at Abrams Books

🎧 Mark And Sarah Talk About Songs 191 with Chris Barron of the Spin Doctors

Stephanie Early Green returns to talk about Trackers, the 2019 South African "thriller" that Cinemax has imported. Unfortunately, the only place it led the EHG panel was Dullsville, despite big game, gun battles, and the apparent love child of Christian Bale and Randall Batinkoff...but we did talk about the "COVID programming trough" that's rapidly approaching for all TV fans. Later, we went Around The Dial with Love Life, Married At First Sight Australia, Please Like Me, 13 Reasons Why's final season, and Disney Gallery Colon The Mandalorian; then we wondered what themed episode titles would look like for series that don't already have them in David Ellis Dickerson's Extra Credit. Did Crazy Ex-Girlfriend sing successfully for its Canon supper? Who's smashing the Iron Throne on HBOMax, and what police (shows) got defunded? And who was attuned to Sad Hulk's rewrites of legendary TV theme songs during Game Time? Stare into the middle distance as you listen to an all-new Extra Hot Great.

GUESTS

👤 Stephanie Green

TOPICS

Lead Topic: 🚨 Trackers

Around The Dial: 💕 Love Life

Around The Dial: 🇦🇺 Married At First Sight: Australia

Around The Dial: 👨‍❤️‍💋‍👨 Please Like Me

Around The Dial: 📓 13 Reasons Why

Around The Dial: 🐭 Disney Gallery

Extra Credit: 🤑 The One Where The Titles Have A Theme

The Canon: 🤪 Crazy Ex-Girlfriend

Winner & Loser: 👍 Looney Tunes Cartoons

Winner & Loser: 👎 Cops

Winner & Loser: 👎 Live PD

Winner & Loser: 👎 L.A.'s Finest

Game Time: 🧠 Songs In The Key Of Hulk

NOTES

🗒 Full episode notes can be found on the episode 306 page on ExtraHotGreat.com

🐦 Stephanie Green on Twitter

👩‍🍳 Tara's post on homemaking Amys at Primetimer

📖 The New Ohio Review

🔪 The Blotter Presents podcast

🤔 The Great American Pop Culture Quiz Show

The announcement that Donald Trump was creating a new branch of the military called the Space Force was swiftly followed by the announcement that Greg Daniels and Steve Carell, the creator and star of The Office, would re-team on Space Force, a sitcom about said branch. Should that have occurred? Now that the first season has dropped on Netflix, John Ramos has returned to discuss the matter. Around The Dial takes us through AMC's ITV import Quiz, Season 2 of Ramy on Hulu, Netflix's docuseries Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich, and the new Starz drama Hightown. Tara wastes no time in pitching the three-week-old What We Do In The Shadows episode "On The Run" to The Canon. Then after naming the week's Winner and Loser, it's the sequel to a Game Time that sings. Put on your moon-print fatigues and join us!

GUESTS

👤 John Ramos

TOPICS

Lead Topic: 🚀 Space Force

Around The Dial: 💷 Quiz

Around The Dial: 🏡 Ramy

Around The Dial: 🏝 Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich

Around The Dial: 🚨 Hightown

The Canon: 🧛‍♂️ What We Do In The Shadows

Winner & Loser: 👍 Dishmantled

Winner & Loser: 👎 Glee Heather Morris, Lea Michelle

Game Time: 🧠 The Man From Simon & Garfunkel 2: The Garfunkeling

NOTES

🗒 Full episode notes can be found on the episode 305 page on ExtraHotGreat.com

🐦 John Ramos on Twitter

🤔 The Great American Pop Culture Quiz Show

💷 Tara's Quiz review on Primetimer

🔪 The Blotter Presents podcast

🌴 Again With Again With This on Patreon

🎧 Mark And Sarah Talk About Songs on Sinéad O'Connor's "I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got"

💻 "Cops Are Always The Main Characters" by Kathryn VanArendonk at Vulture

We're welcoming Vanity Fair TV critic Sonia Soraiya to the guest chair to talk about the shorter, neater, Julia-Roberts-less-but-still-better second season of Amazon's Homecoming -- from sensible episode lengths to overacting extras to how TV has conditioned us to react to mystery shows. We went Around The Dial with Mrs. America, Run, Nadiya's Time To Eat, and a rare successful Zoom episode from Mystic Quest, before listener John rolled a 20-sided die on getting Community's D&D episode into the Canon. Vampires won, Skeet Ulrich lost, and one was the winningest number in a Pointless-inspired Game Time. Slap on a fake tattoo before you forget, and join us for an all-new Extra Hot Great!

GUESTS

👤 Sonia Saraiya

TOPICS

Lead Topic: 🫐 Homecoming

Around The Dial: 🙋‍♀️ Mrs. America

Around The Dial: 🚆 Run

Around The Dial: 🍽 Nadiya's Time To Eat

Around The Dial: 🎮 Mythic Quest

The Canon: 🎲 Community

Winner & Loser: 👍 What We Do In The Shadows

Winner & Loser: 👎 Riverdale Skeet Ulrich

Game Time: 🧠 Lowest Of The Low

NOTES

🗒 Full episode notes can be found on the episode 304 page on ExtraHotGreat.com

🐦 Sonia Saraiya on Twitter

🙋‍♀️ Sonia's Mrs. America review at VanityFair.com

🫐 Tara's Homecoming review at Primetimer

💻 Sonia at VanityFair.com

🎧 The Mark And Sarah Talk About Songs podcast

🤔 The Great American Pop Culture Quiz Show podcast

Fox is welcoming summer with a very silly American Gladiators take on tag -- yes, the playground game -- so who better than Daniel MacEachern, veteran of our Holey Moley episode last year, to join us to discuss it? Around The Dial clicks through Snowpiercer, Katy Keene, Call The Midwife (CW: there are clips and you will cry), The Last Dance, Killing Eve, and a preview of Holey Moley's Season 2 premiere. Mary uses her Extra Credit to ask us which TV role permanently ruined an actor for us. We consider the induction of Big Mouth's "I Survived Jessi's Bat Mitzvah" into The Canon. Then after naming the week's Winner and Loser, it's on to a Game Time that lives to serve. Race up a wall if you have to, but listen!

GUESTS

👤 Daniel MacEachern

TOPICS

Lead Topic: 👉 Ultimate Tag

Around The Dial: 🚆 Snowpiercer

Around The Dial: 🏙 Katy Keene

Around The Dial: 👶 Call The Midwife

Around The Dial: 🏀 The Last Dance

Around The Dial: 🔪 Killing Eve

Around The Dial: ⛳️ Holey Moley

Extra Credit: 🤑 Who Stank Up The Actor?

The Canon: 😵 Big Mouth

Winner & Loser: 👍 The Mandalorian Timothy Olyphant

Winner & Loser: 👎 Brian Austin Green

Game Time: 🧠 Butlerfield Earth

NOTES

🗒 Full episode notes can be found on the episode 303 page on ExtraHotGreat.com

🐦 Daniel MacEachern on Twitter

👉 Tara's Ultimate Tag review at Primetimer

💻 Kai Power Tools

🚆 Tara's Snowpiercer review at Primetimer

🎙 Tara's Rich Sommer interview at Primetimer

🪨 CBC.ca's coverage of Newfoundland and Labrador

🫧 Sarah and Joe on the history of soap operas, also at Primetimer

We hope Bobby Krut agrees to come BACK to Extra Hot Great after putting him through the unrelenting barrage of anguish that is HBO's latest limited series, I Know This Much Is True. Sure, the acting is good; yeah, it's impressive that Mark Ruffalo plays twins; not one of us is planning to keep watching, because there's never a break or a moment of levity, and even Dave's ice-cream-fixins-bar metaphor made us sad. Our trip Around The Dial made us MAD, mostly -- Tara was disgusted with Regular Heroes, Sarah was disappointed in American Experience's Dubya-sode, and Dave was not a crackpot about The Good Fight's failure to understand electricity -- but at least Bobby brought in the Antenna TV Comfort Blanket roster to cheer us up. Jeff's Extra Credit saw us rewriting well-regarded series finales with How I Met Your Mother-style bungling, before we headed to the polls for Bobby's Canon submission, NewsRadio's "President" episode. Guy Fieri won (for once), Lori Loughlin lost (again), and the competition got feverish during Game Time. Give yourselves a hand for listening to an all-new Extra Hot Great!

GUESTS

👤 Robert Krut

TOPICS

Lead Topic: 😭 I Know This Much Is True

Around The Dial: 📦 Regular Heroes

Around The Dial: 🏙 Diff'rent Strokes

Around The Dial: ✏️ The Facts Of Life

Around The Dial: 🏡 Gimme A Break

Around The Dial: 👨‍🏫 Head Of The Class

Around The Dial: ⏲ The Hogan Family

Around The Dial: 🇺🇸 American Experience

I Am Not A Crackpot: 🤪 The Good Fight

Extra Credit: 🤑 Defeat From The Jaws Of Victory

The Canon: 📻 NewsRadio S03.E01: President

Winner & Loser: 👍 Guy Fieri

Winner & Loser: 👎 Lori Loughlin

Game Time: 🧠 Merry Maladies

NOTES

🗒 Full episode notes can be found on the episode 302 page on ExtraHotGreat.com

🐦 Robert Krut on Twitter

🌴 The Again With This podcast

💻 Robert Krut's website

🔪 The Best Evidence newsletter

Hollywood, the latest product of Ryan Murphy's Netflix deal, has hit the streaming service. What did we think about his ahistorical take on marginalized voices in the film industry? Kevin O'Keeffe joins us to discuss! Around The Dial clicks through Betty, Never Have I Ever, The Circle Brasil, and Masterpiece's new procedural Baptiste. Erica uses her Extra Credit to get us to pitch new Big Mouth transfer students and the Hormone Monsters they'll bring with them. Kevin pitches The O.C.'s "The Rainy Day Women" for induction into The Canon. Then after naming the week's Winner and Loser, we kick off a new season of Game Time with a quiz that tests our knowledge of shows' 300th episodes. Jerk yourself a soda and join us!

GUESTS

👤 Kevin O'Keeffe

TOPICS

Lead Topic: 🎥 Hollywood

Around The Dial: 🛹 Betty

Around The Dial: 😍 Never Have I Ever

Around The Dial: 🇧🇷 The Circle Brasil

Around The Dial: 🇳🇱 Baptiste

Extra Credit: 🤑 Hormone Monsters For Everyone!

The Canon: 🍊 The O.C.

Winner & Loser: 👍 Law & Order: Special Victims Unit

Winner & Loser: 👎 The Last Dance

Game Time: 🧠 First And 300

NOTES

🗒 Full episode notes can be found on the episode 301 page on ExtraHotGreat.com

🐦 Kevin O'Keeffe on Twitter

💰 Tara on Good Girls

🍹 Kiki With Kevin

🔪 The Blotter Presents

Captain America and Lady Mary did their best, but Allison and the rest of the panel still found legal procedural Defending Jacob guilty of crappy pacing in the second degree; aggravated TV tropes; and felony possession of moody blue gels with intent to distribute. Were the regulars able to get Al into a diversion program before she felt obliged to finish the season? We also went Around The Dial with Vida, Arde Madrid, and The Last Dance, before Dave trotted out a solution to the problems with Devs. Dan Cassino's Extra Credit tasked us with growing some goateed evil twins to spice up our favorite shows, and Elenore brought us back to a '90s kind of world with her Living Single Canon submission. Re-casting ("alleged") felons won, nudity lost (but also kind of won?), and we kicked up our heels with Tara's Tube Tunes 6 Game Time. Got a garage door to scrub? Pass the time with an all-new Extra Hot Great!

GUESTS

👤 Allison Lowe Huff

TOPICS

Lead Topic: 👩‍⚖️ Defending Jacob

Around The Dial: 🍺 Vida

Around The Dial: 🇪🇸 Arde Madrid

Around The Dial: 💃 The Last Dance

Around The Dial: 💾 Devs

Extra Credit: 😈 The Upside Of Evil Twins

The Canon: 🏆 Living Single S01.E06: Great Expectations

Winner & Loser: 👍 Solid properties subtracting leads

Winner & Loser: 👎 Sacramento reporter Melinda Meza

Game Time: 📻 Tube Tunes VI

NOTES

🗒 Full episode notes can be found on the episode 300 page on ExtraHotGreat.com

⚖️ "By the Content of Cousin Pam's Character" on Seven Scribes

🍻 Tara's Vanity Fair piece on Vida

💋 Tara's Vanity Fair kiss-off of the Will & Grace re-finale

🇪🇸 Al's Arde Madrid write-up on MHz Choice

💩 The Diarrhea Song by Michael Scott

🍆 KCRA goes full frontal

📷 Photo: Apple

In an absence of series premieres any of us could manage to get excited about, Dave came up with a new format: the ABCs of TV! With our beloved Joe Reid, we go around the horn, each naming an important TV person, show, feature, or just THING about TV that matches up with each letter of the alphabet. Then, it's on to a Game Time made for cuffing season. Did any of our letter picks line up with yours? Listen and find out!

GUESTS

👤 Joe Reid

TOPICS

Lead Topic: 🔤 The ABCs of TV

Game Time: 🧠 The Story Of Us

NOTES

🗒 Full episode notes can be found on the episode 299 page on ExtraHotGreat.com

🐦 Joe Reid on Twitter

🔫 The A-Team M-24 Assault Rifle toy

🤬 The Wire's "Fuck" scene

⚖️ Tara on the Better Call Saul finale

🕸 Primetimer.com

🐝 This Had Oscar Buzz

🎶 MASTAS on Dubious Heroes