Extra Hot Great

We all love the series regulars on our favorite shows. But the magic of episodic television is that someone can pop into your life for just an hour, or 22 minutes, or maybe even just one scene, and make an impression that lasts a lifetime. Your co-hosts invited Jeff Drake to join us for a special episode in which we winnowed down our Sweet 16 of one-off TV characters to the one that, in this particular bracket, towers above them all. Listen to find out who the ONE one-off champion turned out to be! GUESTS

Obviously, we couldn't have anyone else come discuss Running Point but Krystal Farmer -- so thank God she agreed, and we went deep on everything from the charms of Kate Hudson to how much of a sport a sports-com should show, plus dumb pro-team fonts and believable sibling energy. Later, we went Around The Dial with Grosse Pointe Garden Society, Futurama on Hulu, and On Call, and Tara schooled us with her A.P. Bio Canon pitch. Éanna Hardwicke won, the Oscars' "In Memoriam" segment lost, and we celebrated the leading ladies of TV in Game Time. It's that that that time again: time to listen to an all-new Extra Hot Great. GUESTS

After Suits became a surprise streaming hit a couple of years back, of course NBCUniversal couldn't resist going back to the well, and that's how we got the spinoff Suits LA. Is it facing contempt charges? Kari Race returns to talk about it. Around The Dial takes us through The Baldwins, Ladies & Gentlemen...50 Years Of SNL Music, Dear Child, America Undercover and A Thousand Blows. Kari makes the case for inducting an episode of Kroll Show into The Canon. Then, after naming the week's Winner and Loser, it's on to a Game Time that could spell doom for some. Take your suit off -- or put another one on -- and listen! GUESTS

The White Lotus is finally back, and so is novelist and Variety columnist Dan D'Addario to talk about a new locale for familiar hateful-richies storylines. We also talked about who we think gets killed, the most and least successful guest storylines, David Lynch, and what happens when a pandemic lark breaks big for premium cable, before going Around The Dial with Cobra Kai, Yellowjackets, and Lorne Michaels. Dan couldn't help but wonder if his And Just Like That... Canon pitch would succeed; Queens won and Ray Romano lost (guess everybody DIDN'T love him back in the day); and a familiar Game Time had us flipping through the PICI-to-English dictionary. Before you pass out at the dinner table, have a listen! GUESTS

Family Feud is a game show that has delighted audiences for decades by challenging teams of related players to guess answers supplied by randomly selected survey subjects. Completely unrelatedly, our latest special episode, Kinfolk Kerfuffle, has contestants trying to match poll answers submitted by our Discord members. Dave presides as chosen family Tara, Sarah, Adam Grosswirth, and Kim Reed take on handpicked tribe Taylor Cole, Dan Cassino, Larra Morris, and Nick Rheinwald-Jones. It's time to play the Feud Kerfuffle! GUESTS

After NBC screwed up Charles Star's booking by dropping The Hunting Party series premiere weeks early, it's fitting (?) that he should, instead, join us for a Prime Video original movie about a scheduling snafu: the Nicholas Stoller-written and -directed You're Cordially Invited, starring Will Ferrell and Reese Witherspoon at war over a wedding venue. Did it leave us wanting to toss rice, or toss our cookies? Listen to find out. Around The Dial takes us to Clean Slate, The Hunting Party (Charles watched it so he might as well warn the community about it), Band Of Brothers, and just a whisper about the imminent third season of Reacher. Sarah pitches "Forks" from The Bear for induction into The Canon. Then, after naming the week's Winner and Loser, it's on to a Game Time that tests our TV and movie knowledge SAT-style. Grab a slice of cake -- hope it's not too dry -- and listen! GUESTS

Sterling K. Brown takes the lead in Paradise, and in the investigation that drives Hulu's new paranoid thriller -- and Rolling Stone's lead TV critic, Alan Sepinwall, is back to discuss both. Do the layered flashbacks work better for this material than for Brown's previous Dan Fogelman project, This Is Us? Does the dumb world-building outweigh the watchable acting? After we talked about how this underground/domed world stacked up against others on TV, we went Around The Dial with Common Side Effects, Mythic Quest, and the latest documentary from the Ken Burns Industrial Complex before Alan carefully constructed a Canon pitch for a Better Call Saul episode. Jennifer Garner won, Don Lemon lost, and what hark through yonder earbud breaks but a Shakespearean Game Time. Pack a bag for Colorado and join us! GUESTS

With Saturday Night Live about to celebrate the 50th anniversary of its series premiere, Peacock has assembled four documentary specials about how the show is made. Do any of them really advance our knowledge about this comedy institution? Omar Gallaga returns to talk about it. Around The Dial takes us through Severance, A.P. Bio, Playing For Peanuts, and Star Wars: Skeleton Crew. Omar pitches the Shōgun episode "Crimson Sky" for induction into The Canon. Then, after naming the week's Winner and Loser, it's on to a Game Time about who stayed standing from series premiere to finale. Finish that bowl of Colon Blow and join us! GUESTS

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! GUESTS

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! GUESTS

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! TOPICS 15s Of Fame:

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! TOPICS Lead Topic:

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! TOPICS The Canon:

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! GUESTS

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! GUESTS

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! GUESTS

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! GUESTS

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! GUESTS

We thought a far-out distraction from current events was the way to go this week -- so we went to a fictional White House with accidental president Mike Brady, via 2002 TV movie The Brady Bunch In The White House. Should you take the tour -- or is this second-generation photocopy of an already-mediocre nostalgia brand not a candidate for your attention? We went Around The Dial with the new season of Abbott Elementary, the Criterion Closet series, and Mad Men before Ari wove together a Canon case for a sixth-season Star Trek: The Next Generation, "Tapestry." Prestige casting won, Amazon lost, and we voted early often for film-adaptation shows in Game Time. It's your patriotic duty to listen now! GUESTS

Prime Video's new unscripted show invites product creators to pitch supposed experts from the business world for the chance to get their wares featured in the Buy It Now store; reality TV expert Andy Dehnart returns to discuss what is essentially "Shark Tank, But Crappier." Around The Dial takes us through Somebody Somewhere's final season, The Summit, Four In A Bed, and Raiders Of The Lost Art. Andy pitches the Dating Around episode "Guru" for induction into The Canon. Then, after naming the week's Winner and Loser, it's on to a Game Time with a lot of love to give. Put down that goop that lets you wash your face without water, and join us! GUESTS