Extra Hot Great: This Week In TV – Details, episodes & analysis

As August continues letting us down in the TV premiere department, we take a look back -- waaaaaaaaay back, to 1974, when Dark Shadows creator Dan Curtis slapped his name on a TV movie version of Dracula written by Richard "I Am Legend" Matheson and starring Jack "One-Armed Pushups" Palance. Since we've previously subjected Nick Rheinwald-Jones to other Dracula adaptations, it falls to him to return and discuss it with us. Around The Dial spins around to Emily In Paris, Mastermind, the comedy specials of James Acaster, We Are Lady Parts, and Everwood. Nick makes his pitch for the S03 finale of The Bear to be inducted into The Canon. Finally, after naming the week's Winner and Loser, we end on a Game Time that comes to us in triplicate. Wash your neck and join us!

GUESTS

👤 Nick Rheinwald-Jones

TOPICS

Lead Topic: 🧛🏻‍♂️ Dan Curtis's Dracula

Around The Dial: 🥖 Emily In Paris

Around The Dial: 🧠 Mastermind

Around The Dial: 🤣 James Acaster's comedy specials

Around The Dial: 👛 We Are Lady Parts

Around The Dial: 🪵 Everwood

The Canon: 🧸 The Bear S03.E10: Forever

Winner & Loser: 👍 ₖₑₗₗᵧ ᵣₑᵢₗₗᵧ

Winner & Loser: 👎 Good Omens

Game Time: ☘️ Three Of Those

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NOTES

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

🦋 Nick Rheinwald-Jones on Bluesky

⚰️ Dan Curtis's Dracula on JustWatch

🎧 The Demi, Myself & I podcast

🦢 Sarah's review of Feud: Capote vs. The Swans at Best Evidence

🥨 Shappy Pretzel

The USA Network is apparently making original shows...that should be streaming shows, like The Anonymous, which throws The Traitors, Big Brother, and a number of other alliance-based reality shows into a blender. Kari Race is back to discuss whether it's a concoction worth drinking, given all the AI dad jokes, dead air, and inappropriate cliffhangers in the first three episodes. Then we went Around The Dial with Taskmaster NZ, Guy Montgomery's Guy Mont-Spelling Bee, and Homicide: LOTS. Mr. Throwback won (a timeslot), Teresa Giudice lost (again), and Tube Tunes got stuck in our heads again during Non-Regulation Game Time. Take a break from screaming at a pizza slice and have a listen!

GUESTS

👤 Kari Race

TOPICS

Lead Topic: 🫥 The Anonymous

Lead Topic: 🥝 Taskmaster New Zealand

Lead Topic: 🔤 Guy Montgomery's Guy Mont-Spelling Bee

Lead Topic: 🔫 Homicide: Life On The Street

Lead Topic: 🤥 Would I Lie To You S17.E09

Lead Topic: 👍 Mr. Throwback

Lead Topic: 👎 Teresa Giudice

Lead Topic: 🎶 Tube Tunes XIV

SUPPORT THE SHOW

🔥 Join the EHG Club for bonus episodes, no ads, community Discord and more!

🛍️ Shop our merch store!

NOTES

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

📻 Listen to more Kari Race at Charlie's '80s Attic

💄 Listen To Sassy

🔫 Alan Sepinwall's Homicide episode recs at Rolling Stone

🏆 EHG 207's Homicide Canon

📈 EEHG 163's post-Homicide power rankings

🏀 EEHG 310 on Mr. Throwback

🌴 Again With Again With This

📷 Photo: Rico Torres / USA Network

The Boys has returned for its fourth (and, as we just learned last week, penultimate) season; Andrew Cunningham joins us to discuss whether it's hammering too hard with its takes on current events and political personages. Around The Dial takes us through RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars, the series finale of Star Trek: Discovery, The Simpsons, Brats, and Hotel Cocaine. Sarah pitches the ER episode "Love's Labor Lost" for induction into The Canon. Then, after naming the week's Winner and Loser, it's on to a Game Time that takes us around the world in a day. Find us on Voughtify and listen!

GUESTS

👤 Andrew Cunningham

TOPICS

Lead Topic: 🦹 The Boys

Around The Dial: 🏁 RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars

Around The Dial: 🚀 Star Trek: Discovery

Around The Dial: 🌝 The Simpsons

Around The Dial: 🎬 Brats

Around The Dial: 🍚 Hotel Cocaine

The Canon: 🏥 ER S01.E19: Love's Labor Lost

Winner & Loser: 👍 Homicide: Life On The Street

Winner & Loser: 👎 Joey Graziadei

Game Time: 🌍 Country Of Origin

SUPPORT THE SHOW

🔥 Join the EHG Club for bonus episodes, no ads, community Discord and more!

🛍️ Shop our merch store!

NOTES

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

🦋 Andrew Cunningham on Bluesky

🦹 Tara's review of The Boys S04 at Cracked.com

🚥 Tara's review of Hannah Einbinder: Everything Must Go at Cracked.com

🌝 "The Simpsons Is Good Again" at Vulture

✂️ The Sharp Objects episode of the Overdue podcast

🎶 The Mark And Sarah Talk About Songs podcast on Patreon

🏥 Our past ER coverage

📷 Photo: Jasper Savage / Prime Video

CLUB-ONLY NOTES

🔥 EHG Club Perk Links & How-To

💬 Get On Our Community Discord

Everything old continues to be new again as NBC brings its late '80s/early '90s time travel series Quantum Leap back for a new generation; Vulture TV critic Kathryn VanArendonk joins us to discuss whether we wish we could travel back to stop it from happening. Around The Dial takes us through Los Espookys, Reservation Dogs, Halt And Catch Fire, and Journeyman. For the long-awaited return of Will Dave Hate This?, Sarah and Tara try to predict the titular Dave's reaction to the Marvel special Werewolf By Night. Laura F. uses an Extra Credit getting us to split up TV marriages, and couple up the new singletons with other TV characters. Kathryn presents the Station Eleven episode "Dr. Chaudhary" for admission into the Canon. Then after naming the week's Winner and Loser, it's on to a Game Time that jumps around, jumps up, and gets down. Leap into a comfy chair and join us!

GUESTS

👤 Kathryn VanArendonk

TOPICS

Lead Topic: 🦘 Quantum Leap (2022)

Around The Dial: 👻 Los Espookys

Around The Dial: 🐶 Reservation Dogs

Around The Dial: 💾 Halt And Catch Fire

Around The Dial: ⏰ Journeyman

Will Dave Hate This?: 🐺 Werewolf By Night

Extra Credit: ❤️‍🩹 Another Sad Divorce Statistic

The Canon: 🧑‍🚀 Station Eleven S01.E09: Dr. Chaudhary

Winner & Loser: 👍 Grimm

Winner & Loser: 👎 NY1 Meteorologist Erick Adame

Game Time: 🤯 Quantum Leaping

NOTES

🗒 Full episode notes can be found on the episode 425 page on ExtraHotGreat.com

🐦 Kathryn VanArendonk on Twitter

🎙 Kathryn's 2019 interview with Scott Bakula about the original Quantum Leap

💄 The Listen To Sassy podcast on Patreon

👤 Kathryn's Kate Beaton profile at Vulture

🦤 The Vulture Festival

👋 Kathryn and Jesse David Fox's conversation about Welcome To Wrexham at Vulture

✍️ Kathryn at Vulture

📚 Exhibit B. Books

📷 Photo: Ron Batzdorff / NBC

Forty-two years after Paul Schrader's American Gigolo pioneered the sex-worker neo-noir micro-genre, Showtime's limited series of the same name is trying it again -- and returning guest Sarah Baker joins us to talk about tone problems; weird directing choices; pervasive misogyny that's even more tiresome than usual; MVP Rosie O'Donnell; and whether Jon Bernthal should have gotten better writing to work with. We went Around The Dial with Monarch, The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Animal Kingdom, Cobra Kai, Severance, Big Brother, and Rings Of Power before Baker screwed up her courage and asked the Canon to PEN15's first-season episode, "Dance." Lee Jung-jae won, Dick Wolf lost (while John Oliver won), and a non-regulation Game Time about TV sex work was NOT considered especially heinous. Slow that disco standard way down for extra poignancy; it's an all-new Extra Hot Great.

GUESTS

👤 Sarah Baker

TOPICS

Lead Topic: 🕺 American Gigolo

Around The Dial: 👑 Monarch

Around The Dial: 💼 The Dick Van Dyke Show

Around The Dial: 👒 The Mary Tyler Moore Show

Around The Dial: 🐷 Animal Kingdom

Around The Dial: 🐍 Cobra Kai

I Am Not A Crackpot: 🍕 Cobra Kai Locations

Around The Dial: 💍 The Rings Of Power

The Canon: 🍆 PEN15 S01.E10: Dance

Winner & Loser: 👍 Lee Jung-jae

Winner & Loser: 👎 Dick Wolf

Game Time: ☎️ Call Them

NOTES

🗒 Full episode notes can be found on the episode 424 page on ExtraHotGreat.com

🎙 Tara's Rosie O'Donnell interview at Vanity Fair

👀 Watch Sarah Baker in The Kominsky Method on Netflix

🎞 Kominsky's third-season trailer

🧭 The Great North on Hulu

🌳 Central Park on AppleTV+

🪫 Tara's Mark Proksch interview at VF

❌ Tara's Decider piece about current primetime soaps, ALL of which ended up getting cancelled

🤰 Tara's The Handmaid's Tale S05 review at VF

🎶 The #LilithFair40 season finale on MASTAS

💄 Listen To Sassy

📷 Photo: Warrick Page / Showtime

It's the first week of September -- traditionally the time when students go back to school (and if your district is one of those cess pools that call kids back in early August: get yourself on the school board and FIX IT). So in recognition of the moment, we've chosen 27 TV educators to face each other in the Thunderdome and, per usual, fight to the death. Do magic users and telepaths have an advantage over literal murderers? Listen and find out which one ends up triumphantly covered in the blood of all their foes, and is probably coming up with a very important lesson all about it.

TOPICS

Lead Topic: 🧑‍🏫 TV Teacher Thunderdome

NOTES

🗒 Full episode notes can be found on the episode 423 page on ExtraHotGreat.com

After co-creating The Americans, where have Joel Fields and Joe Weisberg gone next? Back to FX...on Hulu, with the psychological thriller The Patient, and first-time guest Patrick Monahan is joining us to talk about it! Around The Dial takes us through Star Trek: Lower Decks, For All Mankind, Industry and Mike. Tara pitches the Regular Show episode "That's My Television!" for induction into the Canon. Then it's on to the week's Winner and Loser, and the eleventh (can you even believe it) round of Tube Tunes. Get on the couch or chair -- whatever makes you feel most comfortable -- and listen!

GUESTS

👤 Patrick Monahan

TOPICS

Lead Topic: 🔗 The Patient

Around The Dial: 🚂 Star Trek: Lower Decks

Around The Dial: 🌙 For All Mankind

Around The Dial: 🏦 Industry

Around The Dial: 🥊 Mike

The Canon: 🦝 Regular Show S04.E18: That’s My Television

Winner & Loser: 👍 Dads getting hit in the nuts

Winner & Loser: 👎 NBC

Game Time: 📻 Tube Tunes XI

NOTES

🗒 Full episode notes can be found on the episode 422 page on ExtraHotGreat.com

🐦 Patrick Monahan on Twitter

🤒 Alan Sepinwall's review of The Patient at RollingStone.com (subscription required)

⚾️ Tara's essay on A League Of Their Own at Defector

🐝 Tara on the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast, discussing A Walk On The Moon

🤹‍♀️ Tara moderating the "Dangerous Women" panel at the 2022 ATX TV Festival

🥧 The What A Time To Be Alive! podcast

🧛🏻‍♂️ The Not You, Guillermo podcast

📸 Patty on Instagram

🥊 Sarah's review of Mike at the Best Evidence newsletter

☠️ Sarah discussing I Just Killed My Dad on the Crime Seen podcast

📸 Photo: Frank Ockenfells / FX

Our resident (reluctant) GoT expert Jeff Drake is back to talk about HBO's ponderous, poorly wigged prequel to Game Of Thrones, House Of The Dragon -- who it's for, why it's so murkily lit, when it's going to get out of the administrative world-building weeds and get interesting, and which actors are making us long for the upcoming time jump. After that, we jumped into Around The Dial with She-Hulk: Attorney At Law, Bluey's third season, and Untold: The Girlfriend Who Didn't Exist, and Erica challenged us to drop Jeff "the Dude" Bridges into existing shows. The gang slipped and slid towards the Canon in a twelfth-season It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia pitch; Paul Rudd won, and arranged TV marriages lost; and Game Time had us contemplating the shows that just keep draggin' on. The old gods have spoken: listen to the latest Extra Hot Great!

GUESTS

👤 Jeff Drake

TOPICS

Lead Topic: 🐲 House Of The Dragon

Around The Dial: ⚖️ She-Hulk: Attorney At Law

Around The Dial: 🐶 Bluey

Around The Dial: 🦈 Zig & Sharko

Around The Dial: 🫥 Untold

Extra Credit: 🌉 An Infinite Number Of Bridges

The Canon: 🔔 It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia S12.E02: The Gang Goes To A Water Park

Winner & Loser: 👍 Only Murders In The Building

Winner & Loser: 👎 Love Is Blind

Game Time: 👴🏼 House Of The Draggin'

NOTES

🗒 Full episode notes can be found on the episode 421 page on ExtraHotGreat.com

🦆 Jeff Drake's show Central Park

🤬 Jeff's podcast 9 Chickweed Rage is now up!

🚓 The Hot Fuzz gif

🤢 "Inside Hollywood's Visual Effects Crisis" at Defector

🎙 Tara's interview with Stefani Robinson at Vanity Fair

👑 The top 50 King Of Queens episodes at Vulture

📚 15% off selected items at Exhibit B. Books

📷 Photo: Ollie Upton / HBO

Beloved baseball movie in which there is no crying A League Of Their Own is the latest film to get a series reboot -- with a bunch of twists -- on Amazon Prime. We talked to Yahoo! Sports's Liz Roscher about the casting, the bifurcated stories, whether the baseball holds up, what happened to the Rockford Peaches' manager (and to Candy Bar Guy #1), and all that 2022 dialogue rattling around 1943. Is it a homer, or a whiff? We also went Around The Dial with Never Have I Ever, Drag Race's international entries, the Better Call Saul series finale, and a This Fool follow-up before Liz tasked herself with getting a Series 7 ep of Taskmaster into the Canon. The state of New Jersey was a winner, the surveillance state was a loser, and we rolled ourselves a nice fat Game Time about S04.E20s. Should you put that mustard on a hot dog, or your face? Only one way to find out -- with an all-new Extra Hot Great.

GUESTS

👤 Liz Roscher

TOPICS

Lead Topic: ⚾️ A League Of Their Own

Around The Dial: 🙅🏽‍♀️ Never Have I Ever

Around The Dial: 🏁 International Drag Race

Around The Dial: 🤳 Better Call Saul

Around The Dial: 😜 This Fool

The Canon: 💌 Taskmaster S07.E04 Ollie

Winner & Loser: 👍 Weird NJ

Winner & Loser: 👎 Wanda Sykes

Game Time: 🗓 Watch TV Every Day

NOTES

🗒 Full episode notes can be found on the episode 420 page on ExtraHotGreat.com

🏒 Liz Roscher at Yahoo! Sports

🐦 Liz on Twitter

🔔 The Good Phight podcast

🙅🏽‍♀️ Tara's Poorna Jagannathan interview at Vanity Fair

🗣 Tara's Seth Meyers interview at VF

🌴 Again With This podcast

🐧 The raven t-shirt on Threadless

📷 Photo: Nicola Goode / Amazon

Netflix is the latest platform to turn a Neil Gaiman property into a series with The Sandman. How does this one go? First-time guest Ilan Muskat is here to talk about it! Around The Dial takes us through Season 3 of Harley Quinn; Season 2 of Girls5Eva; the TV movie Helter Skelter; and the ILM doc Light & Magic. Keira cashes in her Extra Credit to make us turn unexpected TV properties into videogames. Then after naming the week's Winner and Loser, it's on to a Game Time that hits some real lows and highs. Stay wide awake and listen!

GUESTS

👤 Ilan Muskat

TOPICS

Lead Topic: ✨ The Sandman

Around The Dial: 🦇 Harley Quinn

Around The Dial: 🎶 Girls5Eva

Around The Dial: 😳 Helter Skelter

Around The Dial: 🚀 Light & Magic

Extra Credit: 🕹 TV games

Winner & Loser: 👍 Jeremy Allen White

Winner & Loser: 👎 HBO Max subscribers

Game Time: 🔫 Nonac Hunting

NOTES

🗒 Full episode notes can be found on the episode 419 page on ExtraHotGreat.com

🐦 Ilan Muskat on Twitter

🪶 Tara's Reservation Dogs S02 review at VanityFair.com

🤕 The Captive by Fiona King Foster at Bookshop.org

😇 Scoundrel by Sarah Weinman at Exhibit B. Books

👂 "The Weird, Analog Delights Of Foley Sound Effects" at NewYorker.com

📰 The Best Evidence newsletter

🏰 The Team Fortress 2 character intro videos on YouTube

📷 Photo: Netflix