Extra Hot Great: This Week In TV

Netflix's new import is a miniseries set in Franco-era Spain and revolving around a just-returned college grad and his Mexican ballerino friend. How does Lázaro's arrival tear the community apart (with lust)? Will Ellis joins us to talk about it! Around The Dial takes us through Social Distance, The Conners, Selling Sunset, Australia's Next Top Model, and HBO's A West Wing Special. Will presents Naomi Campbell's...

Disney+ and NatGeo decided to remake beloved '80s Mercury-astronauts epic (and earlier Tom Wolfe book) The Right Stuff as a series...and Adam Moussa decided to talk about it with us, a choice he may regret, because the four of us struggled to care. We struggled even to tell various astronauts apart, even, when we weren't wondering why this needed to be made, whether we should recommend For All Mankind instead, and where...

Showtime's latest docuseries is a deep (maybe too deep) dive on L.A. comedy club The Comedy Store, and first-time guest Brandi Brown -- herself a comic -- is joining us to talk about it! Around The Dial takes us through Emily In Paris, Polar Bear's Café, and Paramount's doc I Am Richard Pryor. CoreyAH challenges us to cast the Hallmark Christmas movies of tomorrow, today! Then, after her successful pitch of "Senegal...

We're thrilled Devindra could step over from Engadget and Slashfilm to talk to us about Utopia, Gillian Flynn's reimagining of a belovedly culty UK original. Sarah was less thrilled by the show itself, which she's probably bailing on after only two episodes, but the rest of the panel had good things to say about the story, the acting (especially John Cusack), and how fundamentally weird it is that Amazon chose to releas...

Fox's newest soap opera places Kim Cattrall at the head of a televangelist family that -- and you're never going to believe this -- are not as polished and pious as they appear on TV. First-time guest Meredith Haggerty joins us to discuss whether this is a good use of La Cattrall's many talents! Around The Dial takes us through Sing On!, Just Shoot Me!, and Netflix's videogame docs-series High Score. Lauren presents...

Reality-TV vet Andy Dehnart has seen a LOT of unscripted crap in his decades in the field, so we're glad he brought his expertise to our discussion of this unprecedented time in the genre's history: the home-shot, socially-distanced versions/spin-offs of some of our old "favorites," plus some new DIY unscripted stuff tailored to pandemic "set" safety. We talked about the challenges facing reality competition...

Netflix's latest space drama takes a mother, played by Hilary Swank, to Mars, to try to balance work and family; Inkoo Kang of THR joins us to talk about it! Around The Dial takes us through The Boys, 90 Day Fiancé, and For All Mankind. We ponder whether The X-Files's "Humbug" should burrow into The Canon; then after naming the week's Winner and Loser, it's on to a Game Time that reads us all for filth. Put ...

We're off this week but we've glued together three listener-suggested topics from our Patreon supporter bonus podcast Extra Extra Hot Great.

SERIES STARTER KITS

THE CAN'TNON

Podcaster and Lifetime-movie-ologist Brandon is going deep on not just Ruthless Realtor (we would give you a plot summary, but it's...that, with a dash of Bad Ronald) but the evolution of Lifetime movies and the cultural anxieties they reflect; whether we'd ghost a weirdo who brought us a brisket; and why nobody seems to get a second take, or any direction. Then we staged an Around The Dial with stops at Love In The Time Of...

TV Guide senior editor Malcolm Venable is here to talk about Lovecraft Country, HBO's series imagining of Matt Ruff's novel -- and why everything from the show's look and feel to the acting to Jonathan Majors's believable charisma drew us in. Then we drove our woody wagon Around The Dial with stops at Ted Lasso, Little Voice, and The Great Heist before Rebecca's Extra Credit tasked us with casting reality-compet...

Before they were the original co-hosts of The Great British Bake Off, Mel Giedroyc and Sue Perkins were comedy partners, and their new project Hitmen, imported from Sky to Peacock, returns them to their roots. Did it slay us? We'll talk about it! Around The Dial takes us through An American Pickle, Hard Knocks, and Star Trek: Lower Decks. For his Extra Credit, Taylor Cole -- inspired by The Great -- asks us to create our own he...

Production Note: Uploaded new version to restore 15 seconds of missing Tara audio at 13:10.

Production Note 2: Reports of weirdness limited to certain apps (Pocket Casts being one). Sent out a fresh mp3 to hopefully clear the cobwebs. Sorry if you got some random screeching.

The latest British Commonwealth addition to HBOMax's library is the BAFTA-nominated Frayed, and Christina Tucker joins us to discuss whether its riches-to-ra...

Production Note: Uploaded new version to restore 15 seconds of missing Tara audio at 13:10.

The latest British Commonwealth addition to HBOMax's library is the BAFTA-nominated Frayed, and Christina Tucker joins us to discuss whether its riches-to-rags protagonist is as compelling as the world its star-creator, Sarah Kendall, has built around her. Around The Dial takes us through Immigration Nation, Coroner, Desert Hearts...

Apparently TBS is not just for "very funny" shows anymore, as we learned from the premiere of Lost Resort, a new series with the bones of a reality show and the shredded guts of untreated trauma. The Verge's TV and film critic Joshua Rivera joins us to discuss what entertainment value its producers think the show has, and whether they are right. Around The Dial takes us through Married At First Sight; Hannibal; Twin Pea...

Production Note: We uploaded a new version because the host misrendered the episode this morning -- creating a file with just an ad.

The But Why Tho? podcast's Kate Sánchez is here to help the panel figure out why Killer Camp -- the CW's horror-trope competitive-reality show -- and others like it don't quite work. Is it because horror-movie tropes and American-summer-camp tropes clash (especially as embodied by a bunch o...

Production Note: Friday July 17, uploaded new version to (possibly) address a couple of reports of older iOS issues with this episode.

When is a movie fair game as a topic on a TV topic? When it premieres on a streaming service, of course! First-time guest Alanna Bennett takes a break from writing Roswell, New Mexico to join us to talk about the latest Lonely Island Classic. Around The Dial takes us through Little Voice, the origina...

Esteemed recent guests Stephanie Green, Dan Cassino, and Richard Lawson each picked out an episode for your three panelists to watch for Episode 310's Forcening. First into the breach was David T. Cole, ordered by Stephanie to watch a fourth-season Real Housewives Of Potomac episode involving purse-smacking, (alleged) sausage-sucking, and how long after the stated start time one should arrive at a party -- and we also discussed...

Production Note: The intro clip was cut off in the original upload. It has been corrected and replaced.

Rachel McAdams and Will Ferrell play enthusiastic but perhaps slightly self-deluded aspiring Icelandic pop stars in Netflix's new film Eurovision Song Contest: The Story Of Fire Saga, so who better than Eurovision devotee Mark Blankenship to join us to talk about it? Around The Dial takes us to Search Party, Hot Mess House, Pe...

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'r...