What We Watched On Our Winter Vacation

Dave: [0:22] This is the Extra Extra Hot Great Podcast, episode 334 for the January 11th, 2024 weekend. I am intense four-day diarrhea and vomiting bout David T. Cole, and I'm here with roasted chestnut Sarah D. Bunting. Sarah: [0:42] That's what he said. Dave: [0:44] And snow blindness survivor, Tara Ariano. Tara: [0:47] Who said that? Welcome to Extra Extra Hot Great for the first non-pre-taped time in 2025. We're so happy you're all here. We're so grateful for your support and just want to remind you that even though the holiday gifting season is over. People have birthdays all the time. So if you want to introduce your friends or enemies to the wonder that is our bonus episodes, you can now gift them a gift subscription to go to extrahotgreat.com slash club Tara: [1:27] for more information on how to do that, because more people need to hear us, in my opinion, especially when we're talking about our lead topic, which is what we all watched on our winter vacation. Hopefully it was invisible to you, but we were off for five and a half weeks. And during that time, some of us read books, not this guy. The rest of us watch a lot of TV and a lot of movies, but we're going to be focusing on TV because that is our remit and just give you some highlights and possibly lowlights of what we checked out on our break. Dave: [2:00] Both of you know, I cannot read a word. Tara: [2:04] Fist. We got to do a PSA tiny canon at some point because that one would be in there for sure. But I digress. Who wants to begin telling us about what we watched on our winter vacation? Dave: [2:15] Well, it shouldn't be Sarah, because Sarah read books. Tara: [2:18] So she doesn't have that many TV shows. Dave: [2:20] Oh, I don't like TV. Sarah: [2:21] I like books. I watched some shows. I also listened to some books. That's bullshit. I watched some movies. I napped. No one cares about that. Let's get to the TV. Why don't I start? Dave: [2:30] Sarah will start, even though she's the bookie book. Sarah: [2:33] Yeah, I am the egghead. We watched, as a family, A Man on the Inside... Which is the new Ted Danson joint from Michael Shore. I also watched and reviewed The Mole Agent, which is the documentary that it's based on. And it's very directly based. And also sort of equal in schmaltz levels. We watched the whole of A Man on the Inside. It's not that long. Ted Danson is delightful. It can be a little intense, I would say, if you have or have had an aging parent and you're sort of facing any of the issues with that. But I liked it. I thought it was good. And I thought it was good that it was short because it couldn't do that. Like we verged too far into sweet, like Parks and Recce thing that that creative team can do. Tara: [3:30] Yeah, I loved it. I really thought it was great. I agree that it didn't have time to like sort of ooze into too much schmaltz, although the subject matter sort of lends itself to that. But it also lends itself to having a bit of an edge because this is sort of about loneliness and mortality and all of those things that no one wants to think about their aging relatives experiencing, but that I think the show had a very clear eye on and that it was extremely well cast and sort of addressed, like even hinted at some of the the lighter stuff that we sort of hear articles about now or hear stories about now about like seniors experiencing a second adolescence when they pass a certain age and there was a little of that where it's like oh these you know some of these people are swingers, some of them are like marrying and divorcing each other multiple times they're having pot-fueled pizza parties late into the night the episode where he wakes up and has a pizza on his back was one of my favorite moments. I know. So I thought it did well and that the mystery was like satisfying and not preposterous. Like they didn't try to make it a real crime story. It was just what it was. I won't say more. And I liked the generational friendships and the intergenerational friendships. Sarah: [4:51] Yeah, I liked those two. I thought those were cast well. And I would recommend the documentary as well. It's only an hour and a half. There are certain things that are different, but the things that are the same are very funny. Like just the head of the PI agency who IRL is a guy just sort of looking despairingly at these men as they try to operate WhatsApp phone. And he's like, yeah, he's like, I see you. And he's like, that's wonderful, but you have to call me. And the, you know, the guy's like, but why? Cause you're right here. And he's like, okay, let's, let's step back to what we're all doing here. And then the Ted Danson character, IRL, was like one of two men on the entire property for the documentary. And the way they set up the documentary so that it wouldn't tip off any of the full-time residents was very elegant. So, yeah, I'd recommend that, too. It's called The Mole Agent, and that's on Netflix as well. Tara: [5:56] Excellent. Dave? Dave: [5:57] All right. Well, how about I start at the bottom of my list and then you can alphabetically and you can start from the top and we'll meet in those M's. Tara: [6:04] Sounds good. Dave: [6:05] Okay. My first show and probably my favorite show overall that I watched during my winter vacation is the second season of Wolf Hall. Ooh. Wolf Hall. Sarah: [6:16] Okay. Dave: [6:18] Wolf Hall is not about wolves. It's about Thomas Cromwell and Henry VIII. Henry VIII played by Damian Lewis. Sarah, everybody's favorite homeland. Sarah: [6:26] Oh, okay. Dave: [6:27] Hangar honor. Sarah: [6:28] Oh, too soon. Somehow. Dave: [6:32] Mark Rylance plays Thomas Cromwell to great effect. About three minutes into the second season, I'm like, all right, we got to start like counting how many seconds of this show are people taking off and putting on their hats. Because every time you meet somebody that is either higher in the pecking order than you, or, you know, as a woman, you're a man, you have to take off your hat. And then some of them hats under their hats now. It's just a lot of hats. So if you're into, you know, Tudor era hats, this is going to be your jam. The actual story is very engaging. They're telling a story, Like, what if Thomas Cromwell, like, wasn't a complete shithead as he is in a historical record? You know, he isn't just like me, me, me. What if he actually had some, like, underlying values that shaped the way he did things? It's sort of like the crux of the novel this is based on. So it's not quite as one-sided betrayal of Thomas Cromwell as you usually get when you're reading about him in history. So it's interesting in that regard. and I was bemused that Claire Foy as Anne Boleyn comes back for about two minutes at the beginning of the first episode to get her head chopped off. Tara: [7:43] Spoiler! Dave: [7:44] She's doing... Tara: [7:44] Not really. Dave: [7:45] She's just like trying to get as many queens under her belt. But I really enjoyed Wolf Hall. You know, it's not... There's no big... It's not like Rome or it's something like that. You're not going to get big battle scenes. All that kind of stuff happens off camera. All you get is what happens at court and you follow Cromwell around. but it is super engaging. And there is like, obviously an historical outcome to this, but some episodes, the way they're crafted, genuinely create a sense of urgency and suspense that I was very much into, even though I knew what happened. Of course, heartily recommend Wolf Hall. This is the second one, like years, like nine years later or something like that. But you can stick them all together now and watch the whole thing. Tara: [8:23] We flew to England to watch it. It's not coming to masterpiece in the US until March. So if you have the capacity to fly to England as well. I highly recommend it, but I also love this. The ways that Mark Rylance finds to use his physicality, to great effect even like he's so intimidating even though like a lot of the actors that they've hired that they've cast to be his antagonists are taller he's still like you know the like quiet strength behind the throne that's his whole his whole job yeah there's a moment in the first episode of this season where someone is trying to like loom over him and intimidate him and he just like grabs him and shoves him out of the way it's so good it's a super fun of me literal palace intrigue story some of it got a little bit repetitive in the middle there's there's one scene in particular they keep going back to it's like we know like this whole season is only six episodes long we remember there's. Dave: [9:20] A conceit that i never enjoy that's in this which is the person that is not no longer with us but. Tara: [9:26] It's in the show yeah as. Dave: [9:28] Imagined by another character having dialogue talking to him stuff. Tara: [9:31] Yeah i. Dave: [9:32] Wish they could have done that somehow else but otherwise I really enjoy it. Tara: [9:36] Yep, it's great. All right, well, next from the bottom of my list is Star Trek Lower Decks. It's fifth and final season ended in December. Tara: [9:45] And they did a really fun thing. This is the animated show on Paramount+. So far, only comedy in the Trek world, although Tawny Newsome, who voices Beckett Mariner, is coming back. And she co-created a new comedy in the Star Trek universe with Justin Simeon, who's the director of Dear White People. This one, their show that is coming is, and I definitely think we should talk about it whenever it premieres, but it's set on like a resort planet in the Star Trek universe where the employees find out that their stories are being broadcast throughout the galaxy. So it's like, what if Vanderpump Rules breaks? But a mockumentary, but in Star Trek, which all of that sounds incredible. Tara: [10:28] Anyway, as I wrote for Cracked, Lower Decks, you know, had its dips, but it was, again, so well cast, a lot of really great voice talent. I don't think this new comedy show would happen if Lower Decks hadn't sort of made the Star Trek world safe for a comedic take. I'm glad that it existed, even if that were the only reason it would be worth it, but it's also a very funny show in its own right and this the the kind of arc of the last season was a multiverse story where they run into different versions of themselves from other universes and it's a very smart way to sort of address that happening in the trek the larger trek world and i just thought it was great i i will miss the show i'm sure we'll come back to it and watch it through again there's a couple episodes we'll skip the one with the the. Dave: [11:15] Owl the owl people. Tara: [11:17] Yeah yeah yes oh. Dave: [11:19] And the little droid thing. Tara: [11:21] Yes yes this voiced by keather donahue did not need to be in more than one episode but it was but other than that yeah a really funny show if you're an adult animation fan check it out it's on paramount plus and just a side note if you are a adult animation fan season five of harley quinn is coming this month too so keep an eye out for that on max back to you sarah. Sarah: [11:45] Black Doves, the spy show with Keira Knightley and Ben Whishaw, who a lot of the time, you know, watching these things on the couch with my actor husband. It's his birthday today as we're recording this. Tara: [11:59] Happy birthday, Dan. Sarah: [12:01] Often I'll feel like I am impressed by acting, but I can kind of feel from the left hand cushion that he's like not having it, but he's not going to say anything. But he always is impressed by ben wishaw which who isn't i just thought it was great it was perfect holiday viewing like it's set at christmas time but that's not why it just was like exactly the right length it's only six episodes we were sort of like parceling them out and i was like where are they gonna go from here after episode five because i thought there were like eight episodes. And Dan's like, oh, no, the next one's the end. And I was like, oh, smart. Thank you. It had me on its side even more because it decided to be the right length. I mean, even that was probably like an episode or two too long, but who cares? A number of other reviewers sort of said that it was like perfectly pleasing and engaging while you were watching it. And then it just dribbled out of your ear right after that. But there's a place for TV like that. It was handsome to look at. I always forget Karen Knightley is good in addition to being hot. So that was pleasing. There's a lot in there that's not credible about the setup of the government. But, you know, I want to see Sarah Lancashire and everything. And if they're not going to give me more Julia, then this will do just fine. I think this got renewed. Tara: [13:28] Yeah, it did. Sarah: [13:28] Didn't it? Okay, so not necessary, but also not mad. This was in that day of the jackal vein of like, I don't really buy it, but I'm having a good time. Dave: [13:39] Yeah. I think the best exemplar of that is that there's a whole bunch of hit men from different sides of the equation and they all sort of like coalesce into like the dirty dozen, like in a blink of an eye, which doesn't make any sense. But when they're together, it's really fun. And I'm like, okay, I don't think, I think one of them would have shot the other when they could have by now, but okay, let's just roll with it. And it's actually. Sarah: [14:02] It works. Dave: [14:03] Within its own universe. Sarah: [14:04] And the sort of initial adversarial hit men and then the one whose partner is replaced that partnership is something that you don't usually see in any genre but they didn't sort of underline it too much they just were like well here are these characters and ben wish i was like you know hit man with a heart character like I mean, I bought it. He had great chemistry with his love interest. I mean, I thought it was great. Dave: [14:34] Yeah. Sarah: [14:34] Perfect. Perfectly done. Dave: [14:35] I would have chopped the last episode off and stuck the meat of it into the fifth episode. I thought the last episode was a lot of Lord of the Rings. Sarah: [14:43] A lot of explaining. Yeah, I agree. Dave: [14:45] Other than that, though, very enjoyable. Tara: [14:47] Yes, it is. And it also is, I mean, it sort of has in common if you're a fan of the spy genre. It's funnier than I was expecting. it's more in the it's like slow horses in that way where it's like the action works and the humor works as well i mean speaking of shows that keep going back to the same scene over and over again like how many fucking times do we see her with her lever it's like yeah did they only fuck once because you keep showing the exact same flashback like did you only have andrew koji for the day and you shot all of his scenes and that's why you keep reusing them that was weird Is it because. Sarah: [15:20] He's not very good or convincing? Tara: [15:23] Hey, that's my man. Watch it. I love that. Sarah: [15:28] Yeah, just didn't feel that he met the rest of the production at its level. But look what happened to him. Tara: [15:36] Right. Not as good in this role as he is as Assam in Warrior. I'll say that. But it was fun. I'm not mad that there's going to be more, but I hope it would be nice if they tightened it up a little bit. Sarah: [15:47] Yeah. Dave: [15:48] Okay, my next show from the bottom up is Squid Game Season 2. Dave: [15:53] More of the same, although it takes two episodes to get to the actual Squid Games, which we all knew was coming. They had to make the, what is he doing in between appearance in the Squid Games part a little more engaging than they actually did. It was just like, I got a lot of money now. I'm training some people and trying to find the guy in the subway that recruits people. That was like two episodes. So I'm like, Jesus Christ, actually, is there, is there no squid games in here? Because like, really, I just want to watch the scripted version of Survivor where people die. And that's what I'm here for, right? Like, I don't remember really any of the plot of season one. I know it was like an overarching rich billionaire villainy aspect to it, but like, who cares? Like, I just want to see the games and how people react to them. And it was like episode three before you get there. And then if you've seen it, you already know, like, this is really one half of a season. And they're just calling the first half of season two, season two, and the second half, season three, for reasons. Who knows? I mean, ultimately, it doesn't matter. But such a weird, like, no, no, no, it's season three. Like, no, it's not. You've already done it. Like, you've filmed most of this already. Anyways, I will say the one episode that I was like, finally, somebody put this on screen. There's an episode. This is a spoiler if you haven't watched it yet, where the contestants get guns. And they're basically trying to raid the administrator's office way up in the, you know, the tower or perhaps the bowels of the building they're in. Who knows what's actually happening? Dave: [17:21] And they actually show realistic bullet economics. Dave: [17:26] Like bullets are at a premium because they managed to get one gun and then they managed to get another gun and then like a kind of like gum on gum for a bit. But they only have like whatever was left in the magazine until they figure out that there's other magazines in the pink dude's pockets. Then they have to like backtrack and get them. And, you know, they all have to go from automatic to single fire in order to conserve. And they're like very careful with their shots. And I can't remember the last time I've seen that in a show like this. Like, sure, you'll see it like in a Western or something like that. That's a classic, you know, you only got six bullets. But in this sort of show, usually they're like, they've shot one million rounds so far. and there's no way they had more than 60 rounds in their magazine. So I will say I was like, finally. And like a lot of that episode like centered around finding more ammunition. Sarah: [18:15] Yeah, realistic ammo strat is refreshing. Dave: [18:18] Yeah, I will give a kudos for that. Overall, like Black Doves, I'll forget about it as soon as I finish it. And when season three comes around, I'll just watch it to see what creative ways they figure out to kill people. And then I'll be done with that one too. But the overarching, you know, what is this sinister organization all about? Like, it just falls flat again. So you know why you're watching Squid Game. So skip the first two episodes if you haven't watched it yet. Tara: [18:42] Yeah, I would say there was not a twist that I didn't see coming from a mile away other than the one person that we learn is a sniper. That I was not expecting. Dave: [18:53] Right. Right. Tara: [18:54] But everything else, it's like, yeah, duh, of course. And I also was like, when we got to the end, it's like, this is not the end. It's like, call it part A and part B. This like Netflix does this all the time. I'm sure they've already shot it. Dave: [19:07] It's probably some very esoteric tax credit reason why it's season three and not to be. Tara: [19:11] But here we are. But it was. Yeah, it was. It really gives you televisual blue balls. So keep that in mind. Dave: [19:19] Indeed. Tara: [19:19] I forgot I was supposed to be starting from the top of my list. So now I will do that. Next on mine is Queen of Villains, which is the show, Dave mentioned it when we did our fall TV preview. This is the one that's set in the world of Japanese women's wrestling in the 80s. Tara: [19:38] It was very entertaining. After the first episode, I was like, eh, and then Dave was still interested, so I was like, all right, I'll watch another one, and then it picked up from there. But obviously, this is not a setting that I know anything about. Some of it maps on to Glow, which is set in roughly the same time period. This one starts, I think, earlier. So it was very interesting to see, assuming this is accurate, and if it's not, I guess I don't really care about how these personalities are cast, what other backgrounds they have, where they come from, what skills they need to have to just get in the door, what skills then are taught once they are. And they get around a lot of story, I'll say, gaps that you would expect to be filled by saying the organization only has three rules, which is no drinking, no smoking and no boyfriends. And then you would think, OK, so all of these women athletes are who are living in a dorm together, apparently unsupervised, like aren't having sex with each other. But it is a shockingly unhorny show. There's like no there's no sex in it at all. If you have kids who want to watch Japanese women wrestle with subtitles on, it's totally safe. They will be fine. I mean, it's violent, but it's not like more violent than the WWE. Tara: [20:55] And I thought the wrestling matches were shot well, but I, Dave pointed out at a certain point, like they haven't really shown us how much of this is choreography and how much of this is real fighting. And that was frustrating because that's an important part of the story that you're telling, you would think. But they do sort of gloss over that. Dave: [21:15] Yeah, it's almost as if they wrote it before like wrestling admitted that it was all scripted, even though we all knew it was sort of like that. Like they were towing the line there. Tara: [21:25] Yeah. Dave: [21:25] The reason why I stuck with it after episode one, I do agree that like it's following the journey of this like shy girl who becomes like the first true legendary heel of Japanese women's wrestling, right? Yes. Tara: [21:41] Doesn't break character out of the ring either. Dave: [21:44] Right. But we don't see that character until after the halfway mark of this series. Tara: [21:51] Yeah. Dave: [21:51] So the first episode covers a lot of early years ground, and it is slow. But what kept me in the game was the setting, really. Like, it was fascinating how the differences in Japanese wrestling culture versus American wrestling culture. Because, like, it starts, the whole series starts off with this tag team called Beauty Pair. Love it. pair, not only like the stars of this organization, but they're also sort of like magazine idols and they have their own multimedia program where they do songs and videos. Tara: [22:23] Yeah, they have a pop career. Dave: [22:24] There's pop interludes in the wrestling matches as well, so it's much more of a show than you would have gotten an equivalent sort of thing in America at the time. On top of that, it's just the I don't know anything about Japan of it all right like when they're eating at home when they're doing all this stuff that stuff is still like I don't know a lot about it interesting to me and that kept me in the game and there's like this whole at home stuff that's happening with her shitty father and their house that's made out of foam and they're breaking people through walls every other episode through the same wall in two different episodes yeah yeah so it's it's not as winky as glow it is more of a bio and it is more stayed that i than you would expect at times yeah but i was still like wanted to watch all the way through i wouldn't i would say it's like a solid d plus kind of i agree yeah yeah. Tara: [23:18] We did finish it. Dave: [23:18] Yeah um. Tara: [23:19] I'll just say since it's related and it's also you know a streaming movie i while we were on our break i also watched cassandro which is on Prime Video. It stars Gael Garcia Bernal. He's a real guy who was a Mexican wrestler and he played an exotico, which is basically in the Lucha Libre tradition. These are like the super queenie characters and they're only meant to go in there to be like swan around and act, you know, gay and get beaten. And he was gay in real life and he was like, I'm going to be the first exotico that wins. And he was. And it's a, I mean, spoiler, not really. That's why they made a movie about him, but he's great. And then Roberta Kalindrez is also in it as his trainer and she is wonderful. So it was really fun. It's like a tight two hours. So I recommend that as well. It's on Prime Video. Back to Sarah. Sarah: [24:10] This entry will be quick. Cold case, colon, who killed Sean Benet Ramsey? Spoiler, they do not tell you. As far as I know, I didn't even finish it. Dave: [24:20] I was about to do that thing for Cold Case, but I just realized it's probably not the same Cold Case. Tara: [24:24] It's not. Dave: [24:25] Don't. Sarah: [24:28] Yeah. That's Joe Berlinger reading the reviews of this, which uniformly were like, what are we doing here, Joe? I mean, you know, it's competently made. I reviewed it on Best Evidence. We can link to that in the show notes. But I mean, we don't have to because you don't have to watch this. The thing is that it's like a three parter and it's got the standard build and kind of the teaser trailer for itself at the top. And you're kind of like you're Joe Berlinger. Like you're on the rush more of true crime documentary filmmakers. Like why can't you use the extraordinary access that you have in this documentary and all the access to like footage that we actually haven't seen a million times about this case to set up from a different angle or do something different? I get that he always has a million things on the go at any given time, but I also just feel like if you're going to continue giving interviews about how you don't consider what you do true crime, that it's like, all right, then redefine the genre. You've done it before. Or so, yeah, it was just a wasted opportunity. Again, it's not like actively bad. Most of these things aren't actively bad, but to just settle for like something that you know people are going to be playing phone games during, it's like, well, then why even bother doing it? Sarah: [25:57] Like, do you of all people need the money? I don't feel like you do. Like, you don't have to be avant-garde about it. just like care a little more about how many other properties there have been on this case. So yeah, that case is not going to be uncolded as long as we're alive, I don't feel. So, you know, good luck to everybody, but that's not a good use of your time, listener. Dave: [26:23] All right. My next one is, well, the next one alphabetically is Skeleton Crew, but since it ends next week, I'll try to stick it in next week's episode somewhere now that I can talk about the whole series. But so far, I'm enjoying it. So the next one after that is Rivals, which was, I think, maybe the first show we watched on our winter vacation time. Tara: [26:39] I think that's right. Dave: [26:39] Yes. So Rivals is the sexy 80s franchise. What do they call when you win a spot on the air in Britain? Tara: [26:49] License? Dave: [26:50] Yeah, maybe. Whatever it is. Tara: [26:51] I don't know. Dave: [26:52] There's non-BBC companies in the ether that are trying to get licenses for airtime. And David Tennant is the jackass who runs one of them. And then he hires a lot of other jackasses to host the shows on Jackass' network. And then those jackasses get jackassed out of the jackass network and start their own jackass campaign. So now we have two jackass networks trying to get the same license. And that's sort of like the overall arc of the season. But it's just one of those delicious British soaps. It doesn't make a lot of sense that that many people could backstab that many other people in that quick succession without something actually truly falling apart. But that's not why we're watching We're watching because it is basically a turbo soap. It's like three seasons of 80s plot put into like six episodes of this. So we were talking earlier about Black Doves where we're like, you know, I wish they could have cut one episode, made a little shorter as a little flab. Like there is no flab on the show. It just like keeps going, going, going, going, going. There's always like a twist and there's always some character fucking over another character. And if you're into that sort of stuff, I mean, this show provided in spades. Tara: [28:07] Yeah, it's based on a novel by Jilly Cooper, who is like Britain's, I mean, I guess Britain's, Jackie Collins is also Jackie Collins because she was, you know, she was English. But she's like, you know, wrote. Sarah: [28:20] Danielle Steele, maybe? Tara: [28:21] Yes, exactly. She wrote Beach Reads. And so it's based on that source material. And Dave is right. It is very tight. But it also, because it is such a, like, dynasty type of show, we got to the end of it as like, no, I want more. Or like a really, you know, I wanted 25 episodes like you used to get of those soaps because like so much of the fun of it is all of these bitches like bitching each other out all the time. And I'm sure they could have found other ways to do it. But at the same time. Dave: [28:51] Yeah, but I think if you had like a double order, if it was 12 episodes, it might've felt like too much. You might've been overwhelmed by it if you were like been watching it. Tara: [28:58] Maybe. Dave: [28:58] I know what you're saying. Tara: [28:59] Yeah. Dave: [29:00] That it was so fun and it had, it nailed its pacing and the characters are, you know sexy and doing sexy things and backstabbing everybody that all works yeah so you wanted more at the end of it but i think it actually might have been the perfect kind of length. Tara: [29:14] That's true it's eight episodes not six. Dave: [29:16] But yes you're right. Tara: [29:17] Unlike Queen of Phyllis, this is not appropriate for your children. There is fucking in every episode. Like the premiere ends with just a montage of all of the different pairs of characters having sex. Dave: [29:29] The premiere starts with an airplane bathroom scene. Tara: [29:32] Yes, it does. But there also is a pretty, like, you know, prestigy British actress that you've seen in other things, including humans. Heard of them. Dave: [29:41] Heard of them. Tara: [29:42] Who, like, when it comes time for her to have her sexy and she shows her tits. We actually see them. And I was like, oh, my God, I can't believe she actually went topless. Dave was like, it's probably AI. I was like, AI just saw her boobs. Sarah: [29:59] It's that kind of a show. Tara: [30:00] It's super trashy. Dave: [30:01] I didn't actually think it was AI. Sarah: [30:03] Oh, are they? No, no, he's just kidding. Oh, I love it. Tara: [30:05] But it was great. It's super fun. And it, in that way, pushes the envelope even further. It gives you what you would get. This is why you read books like that, because they have a lot of sex scenes that are like super trashy. And now someone has put them on screen and I was here for it. Dave: [30:20] And all the leads are doing great work too. Tara: [30:22] For sure. Dave: [30:24] Inhabiting their characters. And these characters are an asshole in a different sort of way. Tara: [30:27] Yeah. Dave: [30:27] David Tedd is your, you know, megalomaniac media conglomerate guy. Tara: [30:31] So good. Dave: [30:32] And then like, I don't know the actor's names, but the guy that's in parliament is fantastic. You know, one of the lords of the house or whatever. Tara: [30:39] Yeah, the one who looks like yassified Stephen Mangan. Dave: [30:41] Yes. And then the talk show host guy with that tabulous 70s, early 80s mustache. Tara: [30:47] Yes, that's Adrian Peterson. Dave: [30:50] Maybe? Tara: [30:50] It's Adrian something who was Coldark. Dave: [30:52] Handsome devil, that guy. Tara: [30:53] Mm-hmm, yeah. Dave: [30:54] But they're all great. I mean, usually that show is not my jam, but it's incredible, incredibly watchable. Tara: [31:00] Yeah, I mean, it scratched the same itch for you, I think, as Downton Abbey did. Dave: [31:03] Kind of. It sort of is modern, dirty Downton Abbey. Tara: [31:06] You're right. Dave: [31:07] Yep. All right, Sarah. Sarah: [31:09] My next one, I talked about on the main show this week, so I won't repeat myself. But what I failed to mention on the main show about Everwood, because I did not know this at the time, I did post it on the Discord. And if you're not on our Discord, get there. We have a good time. There's a true crime crossover with Everwood. The abducted in plain sight subject, Jan Broberg, is in Everwood as Patch Abbott's and later Andy Brown and Patch Abbott's nurse, Louise. She's not credited that way. I only figured it out because I was looking on the IMDb at an episode for another reason. And it was like, oh, she was credited then as Jan B. Felt. But it's Jan Broberg. And I was like, oh, wild. And also, Excellent. What a weird crossover. I finished Everwood. I did a lot of knitting and that meant a lot of Everwood. If you have not listened to the main episode, get a season and a half in and then once Madison comes in and then leaves, just leave also. Leave with her. Sarah: [32:15] We also watched a little more Frasier as a family. We were watching so many fucking spy shows that we didn't make that much progress, but we're deep in the heart of they're trying to Elaine Bennis Daphne's pregnancy, like behind a bunch of counters and platters and shit. And then they're also hanging a light on her being, quote, fat, which is like, I mean, the rest of the show is still solid, but this in particular is like, oh, God, poor Ms. Moon. So, yeah, we're eventually going to get to the end of that show, but we paused to watch dramas. Dave? Dave: [32:53] All right, so my next one, bottom up, is Old Man Season 2, comma, The... Less old man dogs in season two, but otherwise I thought season two was pretty solid storytelling. Although you can see the big twist coming from 2000 miles away. Tara: [33:09] Yep. Dave: [33:09] They don't show it on camera. There's a good reason. And that reason is, yep, there it is. It hasn't been renewed, but they do end season two on a note where it is, you know, okay. You're not going to be TV blue balled going into the non-existent series three. Jeff Bridges, great. John Lithgow, great. Ali Shawkat, fantastic. I thought it was a really strong cast. Although once in a while they do botch it, this show has some of the best compositing I've seen in a while on TV where a lot of Calabasas is subbing in for Afghanistan in a way that for the most part works, except for a couple over-ambitious shots here and there. But it is mostly located, the story takes place in Afghanistan and there's a village that a whole bunch of people from different factions want to control because there's a mineral resource nearby and like all this crazy shit happens because of that. And it's just like a good CIA-tinged sort of thriller of that sort. Would I watch the season three if it came along? Sure. Am I like crestfallen that there's none? No. I mean, it just felt like a good ending point for the show. So, but overall, I would recommend it. If you enjoyed season one, I think season two will get you as well. Yes. Tara: [34:25] And to be clear, it hasn't only not been renewed. It has been canceled. Dave: [34:28] Oh, yes. Sorry. Tara: [34:30] I'll just do a quick roundup of a bunch of different comedy specials that I watched. We watched your friend Nate Bargetsy, his latest on Netflix. Pretty good. Not as funny to me as his previous ones have been. And there's one bit where he's talking about how his wife controls their lives, basically. In a positive way, it's been. But he can't be trusted to deal with money or whatever. And so if a charity mugger confronts him, he will just sign up for whatever. And there was in this particular story, it was for to donate for an environmental cause. And then he found out after he had finished doing it that it was a monthly seventy five dollar charge. And he's like, I just put my wife's email because she's going to get us out of that immediately. And it's like, OK, that's a good joke when you're playing a club. It's a little distasteful when you're performing in the middle of a fucking stadium to like what looked like 10,000 people at least. Like, you know, there's some jokes you can't do when you're at this level, in my opinion. Tara: [35:29] But overall, it was good. I watched Joe Mandy chill. This one is on Hulu. He is going to be not for everyone. But yeah, I thought it was super funny. He had a huge amount of material about because he's like a psycho basketball fan. So he talked a lot about the basketball player, Anthony Edwards, not to be confused with the actor who does not play in the NBA, to my knowledge. Tara: [35:51] Yeah, he covers a lot of different topics. super, super funny. That one is on Hulu. Tara: [35:55] And I think probably the best one that I watched was Anthony Jeselnik, Bones et al., speaking of not for everyone, him. It's a very dark material, but it's so well-crafted. And I'm going to also recommend our friend Catherine's interview with him on Vulture and in New York Magazine, which was spectacular and really got into his process and how stupid he thinks the whole cancel culture debate is and all of that. So he tells really dark jokes. And so you might think that means he's a terrible person. But unlike a lot of comics, he's not. He's on the right side of the issues. He's just coming at it from the angriest possible. Dave: [36:31] Right. Tara: [36:31] Side. Dave: [36:31] He had a good thing about Joe Rogan. Tara: [36:33] Yes, he did. Dave: [36:34] In there, too, that I thought was like, obviously, they've crossed paths and they're sort of friends, but he obviously does not enjoy his brand. Tara: [36:40] No, he thinks he's a fucking idiot. Dave: [36:42] Yeah. Tara: [36:42] So, yeah. If you want a comic to do an hour of material, including about how Joe Rogan's a fucking idiot, bones and all. Go ahead and recommend that one. Back to you, Sarah. Sarah: [36:53] I watched the first couple seasons of Grantchester. Absolutely excellent crafting in front of it. material. This is the crime-solving vicar from the middle of the last century. Dave: [37:06] How many of those does England have? Sarah: [37:09] So many. Dave: [37:11] What percentage of the clergy are detectives? Sarah: [37:14] Yeah, I mean, and every possible extremely British occupation that's like Sherlock impersonator, but also real detective, like vicar. Whatever. So, I mean, England should be completely denuded of living citizens at this point everyone is either a detective or dead or both okay. Sarah: [37:36] I was suggesting to dan that we like go to england like literally to visit it and he's like but we'll be killed immediately or have to solve one of us will have to solve the other one's murder i was like i think if we don't go on a hike or a, rent a rowboat. We're probably okay. But anyway, it's fine. Their decision to set at least the early seasons in the late 50s, early 60s seem premised around, one, the lead character, Detective Vicar Guy, being into jazz, which is unfortunate, and two, wanting to subtract cell phones and the internet from detecting to create more obstacles. And also, I guess they had a lot of outfits left over from the Bleschley Circle, which that was bad. That was code-breaking detectives. So just bring that show back. We already have this show. It's fine. Like Midsommar Murders, there have been approximately 31,000 seasons. So if you like it, you're all set for like a year and a half of viewing. I think season 18 is coming to PBS this spring. Anyway, that's where you can find it, pbs.org. Dave: [38:52] What is worse, a vicar who is into jazz or the one that we watched, and I don't remember the title, it was like Father Ted or Vicar Brown or something like that. Tara: [39:03] Father Ted, it's a different show. Dave: [39:04] Or the detective that's into bell ringing, which I remember was a plot point in that episode. So what's worse, jazz or bell ringing i. Sarah: [39:13] Think bell ringing because in this case it's like early sort of like big band jazz you have you don't have that much like fusion tootling it's just like a bunch of people jizzing at each other about miles davis and then occasionally a character who is my stand-in being like no one cares. Dave: [39:33] Fair enough. Sarah: [39:34] But in a British accent and while wearing gloves during the day. Tara: [39:36] Yes. Dave: [39:37] All right. I have a few that can go really fast as I go from bottom up because we've already talked about them at length. But I will mention Junior Taskmaster is now over. And that was a surprising success because on paper, you're like, I don't know. This is a 50-50. Kids, will it work? But they did a good job just like ever so tweaking the formula to make it kid-friendly, but still not like a kid's show. So it's still the show itself, as an adult, has a lot to offer. I will say I was sorry that the sassy Scottish girl didn't win because I was rooting for her. Tara: [40:08] She was my favorite. Dave: [40:08] She was my favorite. Going Dutch, we talked about last week. Tara, do you need another type five on why you gave it a good review? Tara: [40:15] No. Dave: [40:15] Okay. And Ghosts, we have picked up and are watching now. We picked up from the canon submission last week that Caroline did. Sarah: [40:24] Original Ghosts. This week, that is. UK Ghosts. Yes. Dave: [40:27] And we're moving ahead from there. I will say the next episode right after that canon episode is a burglary episode that I thought was also really good. Tara: [40:34] Yes. Dave: [40:35] That was a really good one as well. So thumbs up on Ghost. I don't know if we'll go back and try season one again. Tara: [40:40] We could just start at the beginning of season two. Dave: [40:42] Yeah. And the next up then is Fisk season three. This is an Australian show that is through Method still or is it Netflixable? Tara: [40:51] It's coming down to Netflix, but season three is too new. So it is not there yet. We flew to Australia to watch it. Dave: [40:57] But it is out there. We're coming. I would say season three is probably the weakest of the seasons that we watched. Tara: [41:02] I would agree. Dave: [41:03] Yeah. But it still got stuff on tap that was pretty funny. The next door neighbor feud was good. Tara: [41:10] It's good. And, you know, Sam Campbell shows up. Dave: [41:13] Playing an absolute idiot. So, you know. Dave: [41:15] That's nice. Everybody, it's time to empty your list. Tara, what else you got? Tara: [41:20] Cunk on Life, we heard a clip up top. This is just a special, it's a little over an hour, I believe, just covering human life in all its facets. And there is still a lot of very funny stuff. When my mate Paul got his first mention, I did throw my arms in the air. Tara: [41:38] Joy, because it took a while and I was concerned that my mate Paul would not get an appearance, but he did. Including the expert that she's talking to coming back with and what does paul do for a living we were talking about this when we were out with alan seppenwall this week and dave said he thought it was not great and you know i it's still it's funny but it's not as memorable i mean when you start with kunk on earth like that's so those five episodes are so chunky yeah i mean it there's nothing in this new special that's on the level of like that i think dave played the clip at the time of kunk telling the story of like, imagine being in this medieval hall, blah, blah, blah. And then Gandalf comes in, like the whole story that she does. There's nothing on that level in this. It feels a little rushed and a little perfunctory. But at the same time, it's like, she's already covered so much of this ground. Even when you go back into the kunk filmography after you've watched kunk on life for kunk on Shakespeare, a lot of that is also in kunk on earth you know what i mean so you know this is if you're a kunk fan you gotta watch it and you won't be bored but it's not it's not the best of kunkery yeah i would agree okay sarah. Sarah: [42:51] I've got two more true crime things that were promising and then ended up being kind of eh one is a jailbreak colon love on the run which was like number one on netflix's watched list for like weeks at the end of the autumn it's about the casey white escape which was aided by a aided by a ceo whose last name was also white no relation obviously it's directed by dan abrams yes that one from live pd this is a captivating story but if you followed it when it was happening you don't need to watch this and also it's dan abrams so it's through the lens of like this is a story about law enforcement fucking up and then fixing the fuck up which is not exactly accurate and also law enforcement took a while to fix a fuck up that involved an escaped prisoner who is no shit six foot ten three hundred and fifty pounds like how do you not catch that guy, I mean, yeah, you need a taser and a butterfly net, but how can you not find that guy? Tara: [44:00] No, this guy has his own congressman. Just call the congressman and ask where he is. Sarah: [44:04] Yeah. Go to the Starbucks in his cargo pants and ask if you could talk to him. This is not that difficult. Anyway, if you don't know the story, it's like it's well enough done. But I would just like go to the Wikipedia entry for Casey White's escape. Anyway. Dave: [44:20] I'm imagining the guy from Happy Gilmore, the giant guy, you know. Tara: [44:24] His jaws. Sarah: [44:25] Or I just kept thinking of the guy in the credits of Police Squad, who like you only ever see is like the bottom of his chin. That it was like, okay, if someone like that is on CCTV footage, maybe go to there and get him with a harpoon. Anyway, whatever. Sarah: [44:44] The other one was making Manson. I mean, what is there left to say about this guy? Like, actually, this project had the potential to say something new about Manson and about our understanding of the case, but it dragged it out over three episodes, again, when it could have just been 100 minutes. It wasn't all that transparent as far as, like, timeline and which recordings it was using. It had access to a lot of case figures, but it is distracting how much one guy is going to have to be played by Vince Vaughn and how a Manson girl is going to have to be played by Matchinamek. I don't not recommend it. There's not nothing there, but like old heads on a case like this are just going to be frustrated by how long it takes to get where it's going. Sarah: [45:34] And the rest of my list is Slow Horses. We finally started it. I Regret Nothing. A Certain Young Man in This House got the books. Florida's Birthday. So I'm interested to see how those stack up. Dave: [45:46] I sent you my favorite emoji that I made, or sticker, that I made last month, or last year when season four, or whatever, Ron, right now, came out of Jackson Lamb eating ice cream. So hopefully you can steal it. If I give you the sticker, you can copy it over to yours, because it's an evergreen sticker. Sarah: [46:05] I yeah i. Dave: [46:07] Think i love about slower horses the show the most is that uh gary oldman just said i just kind of want to play this character into retirement like i could retire after they finally stop making me play this character because i just love playing this character and i'm like yes do that. Sarah: [46:18] Yeah it had been on the list capital l for a long time but then i was um stuck in a fog bank while i was driving out to jersey and was listening to wait wait don't tell me which gary oldman cheerfully went on they gave him a category called the slowest horses of all which involved like um professional hobby horse competitions or whatever the fuck internationally he got every single question wrong and was laughing hysterically the whole time and i was like wow what a good sport and also really like okay and that bumped it up the list and then we finished black doves rolled right into slough house and Sarah: [46:58] no regrets it's really good show yep and the last one on my list is you not you but you the show this is definitely me being a stubborn completist i should have quit at the end of season three because it was like some things happened and some people were killed off that i was like uh-huh yep i am content i should not keep going yep with this but um out of, I don't know, loyalty to our friend who writes on the show. Sarah: [47:27] And I was like, well, maybe it'll be good in season four and it's fine, but it's just like well past the sell by. So now I'm kind of like, we're going to see this through. I believe season five is coming pretty soon and is going to be the last one and that'll be fine. But there's some good like, oh, half of the Call the Midwife team is you know just rolling through this show that is now set in london fine good with it including uh one of the stars of ghosts uk so yeah that's what i did i also listened to a bunch of fairly dull histories of uh european war theaters and i knitted a lot of shit and that's where we are on my list all right. Dave: [48:11] All right, I'll finish this off. I've got two shows left on my list that we watched over our winter vacation. First one that we made three quarters of the way through the first episode was Creature Commandos, the very first thing project of the new DC universe by James Gunn. And like all of James Gunn's projects for me, it's either like it's extremely hit or miss and usually miss. I enjoyed Guardians of the Galaxy number one just fine, but kind of everything after that was like, it's a lot James Gunn it's a lot I. Tara: [48:41] Don't even think we got that far. Dave: [48:42] Yeah I. Tara: [48:43] Think it was like a third. Dave: [48:44] No on that one and then the last one is The Agency the Showtime remake of the French show The Agency. Tara: [48:52] I think it's Les Jules. Dave: [48:55] I was translating it for our listeners I see this one, Fassbender is the lead character we got Jeffrey Wright in there as his boss it's fine it's a little cold like I feel like The whole vibe of it is very CIA dance number-y, if that makes any sense. It's more of the mechanics. Sarah: [49:18] Oh, like the footprints on the ground? Dave: [49:20] Yeah, it's more of the mechanics of the ground game a lot of the time. And that's fine in a movie, but when that is the main gist of a lot of what's going on episode by episode, it doesn't really end up firing in all cylinders. It's engaging in its own way, but I've heard so many raves about the original that I kind of feel like I just stopped watching this one and just switch over and restart the French one and see what they're doing differently. Because this one just is falling a little flat for me. Just surprised because everything about it screams money and talent, but didn't really get there on screen. Sarah: [49:55] I was informed by a French national in my circle that that's probably the play. It's just a bail on this one. Dave: [50:04] Okay. Sarah: [50:05] She started with the agency and then went back to L'Agencie, or however it's pronounced. Sorry, Mademoiselle Caroline. And yeah, she had no regrets. Then again, she doesn't require subtitles for this, and neither does her husband. So your mileage may vary, or as they say in France, vary. Dave: [50:24] And that is what we watched on our winter vacations. Dave: [50:38] And now it's time for a little segment with the best theme in the universe we call Ask E-H-G! All right, as promised on Discord and perhaps social, we knew that segment we just did was probably going to go an hour and we're just under an hour. So what we're doing for Ask EHG this week is just catching up on all our Ask Ask EHG judgments from over the winter vacation. And the next week we'll be back with a new batch of your questions for us. So Tara stepped in as the mega judge. Everything on the docket, Tara will be the judge for. So get ready. We've got like five episodes to go through. Tara, take it away. Tara: [51:30] Because we have so many, I'm going to keep the runners up to a minimum. So let's start with the answers to the question posed in Extra Extra Hot Great 328 came from Surprising Trombone Music, who writes, What upcoming show is most giving you should have been or should stay a movie vibes? And Sarah, you had an answer for this one. Sarah: [51:51] I do and unsurprisingly it's from the world of true crime that scamanda joint on abc that's coming up the end of this month seems like it should probably just have been hulu documentary or stayed a podcast it was pulled off the october schedule and just now is coming back i think that was not because of any like retooling or oh shit this sucks reasons or anything like that. But it could have been and they could have just moved it into a feature. But Hulu slash ABC News features don't work like that. They're not features. They're five or six parts. So I guess we'll see. I hope I'm wrong. Tara: [52:32] We have a runner up and with an EEE wrote, whatever prime target ends up being, it's blurbed as a math whiz who discovers a conspiracy and can control computers or something. It would be way better as a Michael Mann movie instead of another show nobody watches on Apple TV Plus. And wow, is that a correct assessment? That is definitely how it reads. But the winner for this one is Mandrake, who wrote, this one got my The Good Lord Byrd Memorial Award for quickest I switched from I cannot wait to watch this movie to I will never watch this series. Mandrake is referring to the madness and included a pasted in a blurb from, I think, Metacritic drama. Coleman Domingo heads the cast of a fast paced conspiracy thriller in which he plays a political consultant turned on air pundit who suddenly finds himself out of his element and in a fight for his life when he witnesses a murder of a white supremacist in the Poconos Woods and is framed for the crime. And we did watch this trailer and I was like, wow, is this ever not the kind of thing I want to watch at this point in history? Like all respect to Coleman Domingo, who we found out this week is going to be playing the host in Edgar Wright's remake of The Running Man. Sarah: [53:50] But wow, I love that. Dave: [53:54] Yeah. But shouldn't they pay tribute to Family Feud and there should be Steve Harvey? Tara: [53:58] That would be great. Sarah: [54:00] That would be great. Dave: [54:01] Also, can you take a murder seriously if it happened in the Poconos? I know I can't. Tara: [54:07] All right, moving on to Extra Extra Hot Grade 329. In that one, Seacant asked, a la episode MVP slash LVP, who are each of your ultimate winner and loser of the year? There were a lot of good answers here, but Darren Glass is the winner by default because I think he was the only one whose winner and loser were both from TV. Darren wrote, MVP, NBC Olympics, folks. I know this isn't a very sportsy group. He's referring to us on the Discord, which probably. But I have to give props to the people at NBC slash Peacock who finally figured out how to use the technology to give a great viewing experience, whether you wanted prepackaged curated bits or live events or many live events at once on the Gold Zone or even Colin Jost. Lvp it's gotta be hbo really gaining no traction in the zeitgeist or quality with either house of the dragon or dune i wanted both to be good or even just interesting but alas i mean i agree with him i didn't care about either of those myself but i think it got there with the penguin i mean penguin feels like a buzzy thing that is already getting awards attention but yes i'm sure it was a lot cheaper than those other two things and right but. Dave: [55:18] Also hbo gets stuck in the mud that That is HBO Max slash Max slash Zazlawfing. Sarah: [55:26] Zazlawf. Tara: [55:26] Yes. Sarah: [55:27] Yeah. It does. He would have been my LVP for the year. Dave: [55:30] Sure. Tara: [55:30] The Penguin was supposed to be a Max original, and at the last minute they decided, maybe we should put this on real TV, and it seems like it paid off. Hmm. Extra, extra hot, great, 3.30. Our question was from DPOV16, who wrote, I've recently been diving deep into Philip Seymour Hoffman's filmography, which made me miss him even more. It had me thinking about which TV series over the past decade he coulda, shoulda, woulda been in. And Randy wrote, Justified! He woulda made a great season-long villain, maybe a fixer that mining companies hired to deal with rumblings of a class-action lawsuit, who is obviously not above a little murder now and then to get the job done. And I did have to check that it was still on air a decade ago. Made it under the wire. Yes, I love that. I can totally see it. But our winner for this one is Grizzly Claire, who writes, I think you should leave. Sure, he'd be great as the implacable straight man forced to deal with a spiraling Robinson, but I'd also love to see him go whole hog into his somewhat rarer goofy doofus mode. I agree. I don't think he gets enough credit for his comedy work, including a real junky shit like lunk came poly but like his role in even in boogie nights other than the you know how it ends uh is mostly very comedic and i thought i agree with her it would have been fun to get to see him do comedy more. Dave: [56:50] You know what would have been good sorry because i thought of one they had a character from the original star trek appear and i think in strange new worlds the character mud i forget if he had a first name but anyways yeah i think it was rain wilson that played him in the new show But that would have been a good Hoffman thing, because the problem with Reign is he carries so much office baggage that it's hard not to scrutinize his portrayal in your mind. But I think that character is a bit of a doof, but also sort of slyly evil as well. And I think that would have played into Hoffman very well. Tara: [57:23] Yeah. All right, moving on. In Extra Extra Hot Great 332, our question was from Dr. Calhoun, who wrote, Apparently I'm old because I've started putting on episodes of Barnaby Jones in the background while I do other things. Imagine my surprise when the bad guy in season one, episode four, just drops the N-word. What's something they said or did in an episode of a TV show that you can't believe they did and would never get away with now? Research at wrote, During COVID lockdown, I started watching Hamilton, Ontario's own CHCH TV. Shout out chch i used to have a t-shirt because we played reach for the top on it uh which aired nothing but old series during the day i was super excited to get to watch green acres it's in its entirety okay but not before there were no fewer than four episodes which contained lovable con man mr haney saying the racial slur and she has edited it but it starts with a w and ends with a k and is you know you can figure it out after the first there's b in the middle after the first two instances, CHCH finally started airing a content warning at the beginning of the episode, presumably the first on the channel. Honestly, probably. But our winner for this one is Eric Without a K, who wrote, MASH season one had a number of doctors in the cast who disappeared fairly quickly, including a black surgeon known as Racial Slur Jones. This is the one that starts with an S and ends with an ER. Tara: [58:49] I was shocked to read this. I didn't know that one. Wow, that is a choice, but also a choice too. Dave: [58:55] That was the character from the movie. Tara: [58:57] Yeah, okay. I guess I forgot that from the movie. Dave: [58:59] Or book or whatever. Sarah: [59:00] Rough one. Dave: [59:02] No, I'm not justifying it. Tara: [59:03] I'm just saying it's not that TV show invention. Dave: [59:05] Yeah. Tara: [59:05] Yes, I got it. And finally. Dave: [59:09] Wait a second. We should go to your house. Yes, let's go to my house. Naps. Sarah: [59:16] Name? I don't know your name. Barnaby Jones. Tara: [59:23] Barnaby Jones. People let me tell you about my new best friend. Sarah: [59:28] Barnaby, Nap. Tara: [59:36] I wish we could take a nap, but we have to wrap it up. We're moving on to Extra Extra Hot Great 333 in which Dr. Calhoun wrote, I recently was amazed to see that Chicago Fire is on for 13 seasons. What show are you shocked was on as long as it was or is? Sarah, you had an answer for this one as well. Sarah: [59:57] I do. I would say Grey's Anatomy, but I'm not all that shocked by that at this point, because it is now a soap that is no longer dependent on specific actors, I guess. But SVU, I have to say, I am surprised that it managed to get through the Danny Pino era in one piece, but it not only sort of clawed him back from sucking unremittingly, but it kind of just like now the inertia principle is in play, I guess. It's like, it'll just go until it doesn't anymore, which is fine. But I have to say, 10 years ago in season 16, I would not have guessed. I was like, this shit is toast. But it's not. Tara: [1:00:43] No. All right, moving on to the listeners. JoJo Lemon wrote, Chopped on the Food Network just finished its 59th season. And I'm sure there will be a 60th starting up any day now. Its first season was in 2009, which means an average of nearly four seasons a year. That truly is crazy. But I had to give this one to Euro underscore Trash to wrote, I found out recently that the British reality show Come Dine With Me will have been running for 20 years on At The Time They Wrote This Friday. For those unfamiliar, it is a program in which five people host dinner parties for each other on supposedly successive nights, and after each dinner, the four guests rate the evening out of 10. Tara: [1:01:27] The twist is that not one of them appears to have ever practiced making their dishes beforehand and in some cases seem not to understand how their own kitchen works. Somehow, out of a population of between 60 and 70 million people, they have still not managed to run out of dum-dums willing to show their entire ass on international television for a measly thousand quid. Even more shocking is that, as far as I can tell, nobody has thought to make a porn parody based on that title. Incredible answer. This does sound like that instant hotel show that we watched for the Cannes when Stephanie was just here. And sort of, there's one, there's a wedding version of this too that I've watched at my sister's house in the past. So it's a good format, clearly adaptable to a lot of other formats or a lot of settings. But anyway, great answers. So to recap, our winners are Eurotrashed, Eric Without a K, Grizzly Claire, Darren Glass, and Mandrake. All of you contact Dave. Through Discord. Through Discord and get your stickers. And thanks to everybody who answered all of these many, many questions during our break. We love you all. Sarah: [1:02:37] Mm-hmm. Dave: [1:02:39] It is time for the Tiny Canon. This week, I am presenting something for a new. Dave: [1:02:44] Canon category. It is the Tiny News Canon, kind of a broad category. A lot of different ideas can go into the news canon. But this week, I am bringing you a scene from the Mary Tyler Moore Show, Season 5, Episode 13, A Girl Like Mary. In this episode, Lou Grant, that's the boss, decides he wants a female anchor person. that's a lot like Mary, but is in fact not Mary, because Mary doesn't do a very good job at it. One of the talents that additions is the station's resident sort of happy homemaker show host, Sue Ann Nivens, who is played by Betty White. I think that's probably all the background you need. So here is her addition for The Anchor Position. Good morning, you. Oh, good morning, Sue Ann. Sarah: [1:03:40] Doing. Just cue me and then stick a sock in it. Good morning, everybody. And action. Tara: [1:04:00] Massive mudslides wreak havoc. Late last evening, huge mudslides in south-central Alaska buried the picturesque little village of Nornsk, long. Sarah: [1:04:35] Victims plucked gagging from the slime were treated at the high school gym, stunningly decorated for that night's prom, the theme of which is. Tara: [1:05:05] Ping. And now, back to Ted. Dave: [1:05:14] As you can imagine the smash there to ted's face uh very confused and that's pretty much the end of the scene so that is sue ann's anchor edition from the mary tyler moore show i'm putting it up contention for the tiny news canon i will say the other thing that you don't really get a sense of well actually you do get a sense of in the audio there is that i am i truly believe this was the first and only take of that because that studio laugh seemed genuine it didn't seem like a sweet laugh track. So I think everybody there was hearing that for the first time and that's the one that got to air and those laughs are genuine because they seemed too well-timed for sweetening, which is always sort of phase in and phase out and all that sort of stuff. So who wants to go first to talk about this submission? Sarah: [1:05:55] I'll go first. I loved watching this. I loved the utter tonal control that Betty White had of this, Just going back and forth between that very sonorous, here's an account of the tragedy, and then immediately going into a perky comment or a perkyly written detail about the scene. Plucked gagging from the slime is an all-timer. I will be using that daily going forward. It's also like this isn't really pertinent to the canonicalosity of it, but just sort of the forecasting forward of elements of Rose Nyland in everything from her somewhat pigeon-esque walk to these little like farming details and 4-H-E details that she puts into her audition are just sort of interesting and fun. Dave: [1:06:52] But her character as a whole on the show is much more Rose. Tara: [1:06:57] No, she's much more Blanche. Dave: [1:06:59] Blanche. Sorry, that's about who I met. I just forgot. Her character in the show is much more Blanche-coded in a very Tyler Moore show, which is fun. Sarah: [1:07:05] And I think she may have, I forget this bit of trivia, but I think she may have auditioned for Blanche as well. Dave: [1:07:13] Oh, yeah. Sarah: [1:07:13] Yeah, I just thought that this was really fantastic. Like Dave said, I do think that this probably was the first take and had to be because you can't ask her to do that again. And you can't ask Ted Knight to not break more than once. So I thought that was, I thought that was great. And I'm extra excited for like all the other entries that we could add to this canon slash no knack. Jeff Daniels, we're keeping the same warmer on for you. But yeah, this was, this was fantastic. not just because of what it was, which was delightful, but because of all the other sort of cultural things that it nods to. Don't ask me how I know that Ted Knight had a novelty album and that one of the songs was I'm in love with Barbara Walters and it's the worst fucking earwig on earth. And ever since seeing his face that ends this scene, I have had that stuck in my head again for like the last two days, but I'll rally somehow past that. Tara. Tara: [1:08:19] Yeah, this was great. We just watched this recently and I laughed again as much, I think, as I did the very first time we watched it. One of my peeves is how bad actors are at acting like news anchors. Not when they're like, you know, playing a character, particularly in a scene. But if if someone is like just in the background of a scripted show reading a news report like they always put too much mustard on it, like, no, they're supposed to be bland. You could watch something recently where the news anchor had both like palms on the desk, like looking angry and urgent. It's like that would never happen. Even on Fox News, they don't do that. So this was a very funny twist on how you can be bad at reading. Than it is, but that is completely perfect for Sue Ann's character. She, you know, I've been vocal on this podcast in the past about hating Betty White, and I, you know, it was never about her. It was always that in her later years, they turned her into, you know, rap and granny. That's what bothered me. It always felt condescending. Tara: [1:09:24] And so getting to, and you know, I had no problem with her on Golden Girls at all. And I certainly have not had a problem with her in this role either as we've been going through the series she like it has such a great handle on this like cheerful villain could have put that in our mix when we did that episode on uh mark one because she is she's like a thorn in the side to the news team and totally like arrogant and confident you know very much proto martha stewart honestly like hosting this home making show and then for her to get so faced in this audition that even the likes of Ted Baxter has to look at her like, Bitch, what are you doing? It's like so funny. Like her performance is good enough. And then his like just the face is enough of a capper on it. Sarah: [1:10:15] It's it's so perfect. Tara: [1:10:16] It's gorgeous. Excellent choice, Dave. Dave: [1:10:18] All right. So let's put this to the official vote. Sarah, what do you say for this for the tiny news canon? Sarah: [1:10:25] I say yay. Tara: [1:10:28] Yay for me as well. Dave: [1:10:29] All right. So that means Sue Ann's Anchor Edition from the Mary Tyler Moore Show, you hereby inducted into the Extra Hot Great Tiny News Cannon. Dave: [1:10:41] Americans love a winner. Yep. And will not tolerate a loser. Nope. It is time to discuss who are the not-quite-winners and not-quite-losers of the week. I will go first with our first not-quite-winner. It is House of the Dragon and not getting like a ton of accolades. And it seems to be like Game of Thrones early season methadone for people that just can't give up the Game of Thrones thing and admit that it's not that great. It is the most pirated TV show of 2024, which is sort of like the People's Choice Awards, I think, in a way. Techie People's Choice Awards. Those who know, stealing the show. I think it's kind of a worthy award. And not quite lose over the week. I'm going with the Friday Night Lights reboot, which we talked about. And we were wondering whether it was like a reboot or a revival or what exactly was going on. So I guess that has some connection to the original because they are trying to get Taylor Kitsch for an episode and he was hooming and hawing about it. But if he like did come back, And it was just like for one episode to like be this like cursory bridge in between the two. I would like to believe he would teach them something like, what is football? And then like, then he leaves. Something that dumb. That's what I'm hoping for. Tara: [1:11:54] But to your point, this does answer it. This will be a sequel of some kind. Dave: [1:11:59] Yeah, it sounds like it's somewhere else. It's not even the same town. He is like going somewhere. He's getting gas in this town. And somebody like noticed him was like, hey, weren't you so-and-so from the championship something or other teams? He's like, yeah, that was the day he's playing football. And then he explains what football is to that guy, too. So he gets two football explanations in the pilot episode. I'm watching. Tara: [1:12:21] I'm not. No. Dave: [1:12:22] Sarah? Sarah: [1:12:23] No, I'm not watching that either. My not quite winner is Paramount+. The streamer is using its forthcoming Jean-Bene Ramsey series to launch an anthology on unsolved crimes. I do not have a ton of hope, given that this is the parent company that made the Jean Benet show like 10 years ago that had, what's his face, from Real Crime Profile, Jim, someone will correct me, putting a wig on a skull and then wanging it with a flashlight. That was really a moment of television, and it set the get people to respect true crime movement back like half a century. Anyway, great job. Clemente, Jim Clemente. Great job, Jim Clemente. Speaking of losers, a not quite loser, not unrelated, Ruby Frankie, who is soon to be the subject of a docuseries at Hulu. Ironically, this one is like a winner for viewers, and the winner, the not quite winner, is a loser for viewers. Sarah: [1:13:24] But yeah, this sort of like, how did such a sort of B minus person charisma-wise form a cult? And it's like, well, that's kind of how it always is. But people's fascination with that and how it happens and how it cannot happen to them as a function of watching shit like this. Evergreen, licensed to print docuseries money. And Hulu has a pretty good ear for these things. So I'm looking forward to that one. Dave: [1:13:53] This name rings a bell. Is this the Mormon mom gone wrong? Tara: [1:13:57] Yes. Dave: [1:13:57] All right. Sarah: [1:13:58] Yes. Played by Heather Locklear, as we discussed in a recent Again With Again With This. Tara: [1:14:03] Yes. I'll put a link to that one in the show notes if anyone wants to join the Patreon and hear our discussion about that. Yeah. I'm not going to read her daughter's memoir. No offense, but I definitely will watch the show. Sorry. My not quite winner of the week is Project Runway. I mean, it's sort of like at this point, loser-rific because it keeps getting punted from one network to another. It was at Bravo, then it was at Lifetime, then it went back to Bravo. Now it's going to freeform for season 21. And that feels like a real downgrade to sharing space with the network that's also bringing a scam goddess. But anyway, why it is a winner is that they've gotten back Heidi Klum. So I guess loser is next in fashion if she's doing this. She probably can't do that anymore, I assume, although no one's talked about that in quite a while, the Amazon show she did with Tim Gunn. No mention of Tim Gunn, and I hope that holds because I don't need to see him on TV anymore. Sorry. He just really did not see well the last time I saw him. Sarah: [1:15:11] Yeah. Tara: [1:15:12] Speaking of not being well, Denise Richards is one of the stars of season two of Special Forces World's Toughest Test, which we talked about when its first season was on, because we wanted Brian Austin Green to fall in a crevasse and die. Sarah: [1:15:28] As far as I know he didn't. Tara: [1:15:30] But what did unfortunately happen to Denise Richards is that she ruptured her breast implants during shooting, and I guess it is the world's toughest test, and I'm not going to doubt it anymore. Fucking yikes. Sarah: [1:15:44] Ow. Tara: [1:15:45] Yeah. Yikes. Tara: [1:15:53] We welcome in our grandpas who need to know you've missed almost 90 minutes of show. Dave: [1:15:59] It's a big one. Tara: [1:16:00] This extra credit topic comes to us from Erica. She has called it back on my theater bullshit and writes, along the lines of the stage production of the West Wing episode, Hartsfield Landing in 2020, pick a TV episode to present as a stage play. Money is no object. What venue do you use? For example, Broadway Theater, Amphitheater in Republic Park, Middle School Auditorium. How elaborate do you go? And what, if any, adaptations do you make to the script? Also, you need to replace one actor. Which do you choose and with whom do you recast the role? Sarah D. Bunting, the only playwright amongst us, why don't you start us off? Sarah: [1:16:39] Yeah, and I shortcutted a lot of things in that instance by just making it monologues. I decided to go with Girls, Season 2, Episode 5, One Man's Trash, as an off-Broadway one act. That is the episode where Hannah, played by Lena Dunham, goes to the brownstone of rich Dr. Joshua, Patrick Wilson, to apologize for dumping Cafe Grumpy's trash in his cans. They end up having a bottle episode sex fest for two days that ends when Hannah's self-absorption finally re-erupts. Joshua realizes he's made a terrible mistake, and that's kind of that. But I've remembered this episode for a very long time. I had to recap it at that time, and I remember when it aired feeling like this is the best the show is ever going to be and the most I'm ever going to like it, and I was correct about that and quit soon after that. There actually isn't a ton of plot here, but I have always been struck by the episode's ability to capture the desire that some of us had in our 20s to just step into someone else's life for a day or two. And also that bittersweet feeling of leaving a world of two situation. Sarah: [1:17:50] Knowing that it's for the last time. I don't know if it's possible to recreate that feeling or that like very New York light, which they shot it in New York, but lighting designers are extremely smart and talented. I'm sure there is at least one who could figure out how to do that. Hannah and Joshua have a handful of conversations that could be teased out further. Sarah: [1:18:12] She could have a monologue on the fact that he's separated slash technically still married, but isn't really willing to dig into that with her. A few of their interior monologues could and would have to be made exterior-exterior. Sarah: [1:18:27] Probably a way to do flashbacks of a sort to other scenes from the show's overall story. There is enough boning in this that it doesn't play all that well. I mean, okay, Frankie and Johnny at the Claire de Lune, but there's only so many seats that are going to be close enough for it to be effective. Maybe you shoot that in advance and then rear project it onto a screen at the back of the stage. And as for who's getting swapped out, I don't need Lena Dunham on my screen anymore. Tara: [1:18:59] What? Sarah: [1:19:00] So I'm going to tag in Sophie Nellis, who plays young Shauna on Yellow Jackets and who I think is well-situated, looks kind of similar, but also has conveyed a particular brand of smug youth narcissism in Yellow Jackets that I think she could probably fairly easily translate to this character. So that is my answer. I got surprisingly into my own theater bullshit for this one. So thanks, Erica. Tara: [1:19:30] I will always remember this episode because at the time, people on Twitter being shitty in general, but also about girls and about women's bodies and about Lena Dunham. There were a lot of tweets about like, someone who looks like Patrick Wilson would never fuck someone who looks like her and his wife got on Twitter the wonderful Dagmara Diminchik and was like um his wife he lives with a size 12 woman and they get along just fine so everyone fuck off I mean it was more eloquent than that but she was basically like clapping back at the haters and I was reminded of it when I interviewed her a couple years ago when she was in we own this city that that had happened and that she is rad so shout out to her I love her she is Yes. Sarah: [1:20:14] Love that whole household. Tara: [1:20:16] My episode is going to be one that I actually have submitted for the canon. It's going to be Glow Season 2, Episode 7, Nothing Shattered. This is the one after Debbie breaks Ruth's leg in the ring. So we don't have to try to stage any live wrestling. That's not part of it. It doesn't have to get into a Rocky the Musical place. It basically takes place in two hospital rooms, like Ruth's actual room and then the waiting room. The climax is a huge, meaty fight for the co-leads where they get out all their issues. And it truly presents, I think, the full range of human emotion, like the pain, regret, the sadness, the anger, all of it. And I'm going to stage it at the Lyceum Theater on Broadway because as of this month, Betty Gilpin already works there in O'Mary. Sarah: [1:21:04] Oh, there you go. Tara: [1:21:05] She's taking over the titular role from Cola Scola. As for how I would adapt it, I don't think we need to see the part where Ruth gets driven to the hospital in Melrose's limo. And there's also a montage in the middle of the episode where, you know, the other wrestlers are like goofing around to try to distract Ruth in her hospital bed while she's waiting for this and that. You know, you could cut down the number of bits they do and just expand them to be, you know, little scenelets. But obviously you can't, you know, really do a montage on the stage. As for the one actor that I'm going to replace, Every role in the regular cast of this show is perfectly cast, and I am not taking questions. That is just a fact. So if I have to choose someone, now the Doctor is going to be played by Jeremy Shamos from season three of Only Murders in the Building, and also from Broadway, just because. He kind of looks like the Doctor on this episode a little bit. That's mine. Dave? Dave: [1:22:02] Mine's a little off model for the directions, only because I'm dealing with an animated show. So I sort of have to recast everybody because the actors in the animation are like drawings. Tara: [1:22:13] Got it. Dave: [1:22:13] And we can't put them in real life. So I'm going to adapt the canonized Bluey episode Camping that Catherine brought to us a few months ago. It'll be at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park. That's where they do Shakespeare in the Park because you camp outside and that theater is also outside. Maybe we can have some real campfires in this production. Tara: [1:22:32] Fun. Dave: [1:22:32] So for the cast, I went with accent country of origin casting. So here's my rundown. Bandit, that's Bluey's dad. That's Hugh Jackman. Tara: [1:22:41] Love it. Dave: [1:22:42] Chili, that's his mom. That's Cate Blanchett. Bluey herself is Margot Robbie. Tara: [1:22:51] She fucking wishes, but go on. Dave: [1:22:54] Bingo, that's her sister, is Miranda Otto because Bingo is a red healer and she has red hair. And Muffin who I believe is their cousin Bluey and Bingo's cousin mm-hmm, We only ever hear in the show's last minute, just so this will be an offstage performance. But I'm bringing in Mel Gibson because everyone hates Muffin and everyone hates Mel Gibson. Sarah: [1:23:17] Gorgeous. Dave: [1:23:18] And then you'll remember the character that was introduced in the camping is Jean-Luc, the Canadian blue Labrador that Louis makes friends with. And they plant that seed and get chased around by Bandit and all that. But so Jean-Luc will be played by Guillaume Sear from The Sticky. He was a Quebecois security guard guarding our maple syrup reserves. Tara: [1:23:46] Yes. Dave: [1:23:47] I thought he was great. So he'll play Jean-Luc. And then my final cast is I'm replacing the symbol of passage, the time tree in the cartoon. So if you don't remember in the cartoon, all of it takes place on a weekend camping trip. But Jean-Luc's family leaves without notice and Bluey's sad. And then we skip forward 10 years and we're shown the tree planted from the, you know, whatever the lemon seed or whatever they had. It grows. So the tree rises as a lump from a trap door in the stage floor. And it's a person, but they're all lumpy. And then they slowly stand up to show, you know, that the tree is growing. The passage of time has now occurred 10 years later. That, of course, is Brad Garrett. Dave: [1:24:34] Ow, my back. Oh, I almost got through the whole episode without a spasm. Oh my God, that hurts so much. I'm going to leave that in so you know what I've been dealing with. Tara: [1:24:42] He's playing hurt. Dave: [1:24:42] Bad news for Dave's back lately. Anyways, that is it for another episode of Extra, Extra Hot Great. Re-reviewed what we watched over our winter vacation before catching up on all the Ask, Ask, ESG answers from said winter vacation. This just in, Dave got Sue Ann's new anchor audition into the tiny news canon We celebrated those who weren't quite the best and worst of the week and wrap it all up with a look at what episodes of TV we want to turn into plays. Next up, it's that not ER reboot, The Pit, with two Ts. The extra T is for extra pit. Remember, we're listening. I am David T. Cole, and on behalf of Tara Arrieta. Tara: [1:25:27] Find me with the other apple-cheeked housewives. Dave: [1:25:30] And Sarah D. Bunting. Sarah: [1:25:32] I'm in love with Barbara Walters Thanks for listening. Dave: [1:25:37] And we'll see you next time right here on Extra Extra Hot Great.