Extra Hot Great: This Week In TV

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Sharp TV arguments, faster than prestige can posture.

The gist

Extra Hot Great treats television like a competitive sport, a group text, and a craft seminar happening at once. Episodes move from verdict-heavy reviews into side arguments, recurring games, winners and losers, and extremely specific complaints about pacing, casting, tone, and TV history.

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About Extra Hot Great: This Week In TV

Extra Hot Great is television criticism with elbows. The show gathers a rotating panel around current TV, older oddities, and recurring competitive segments, then lets the argument do the organizing. Recent episodes cover The Testaments, For All Mankind, Paradise, Rooster, R.J. Decker, DTF St. Louis, Taskmaster, Hacks, and a once-a-year trip through a week of 1996 television. The range is part of the point. A Hulu dystopia, an Apple space drama, a private-eye premise, and a sweeps-era TV movie can all become material for the same rapid, opinionated machine. The first move is often a verdict. Then the panel starts kicking the tires. Structure matters here. So do casting, worldbuilding, pacing, ad-break constraints, supporting performances, production logic, joke density, and whether a premise can survive contact with its own ambitions. The show is funny because the jokes come from actual viewing, not from floating above the material. It can praise hard. It can also get impatient fast. The panel’s best mode is skeptical affection: television is worth caring about, which is exactly why sloppy symbolism, prestige self-importance, and undercooked narrative shortcuts get treated roughly. Recurring features give the episodes a recognizable rhythm, including The Canon, Winners and Losers of the Week, and Game Time. Guest voices widen the table, with critics, writers, newsletterers, and recurring friends bringing their own obsessions. Alison Herman appears as a TV critic. David J. Roth brings writer, editor, and Defector co-owner perspective. Robert Crud appears when an English-instructor angle is useful. Kim Reed, Allison Lewis, Jessica Morgan, and Adam Sternberg show up in recent episodes as familiar contributors with their own lanes. The result is not a recap show. It is a weekly argument about what TV is doing, what it thinks it is doing, and why the difference is often the funniest part.

Made for: For TV obsessives who like criticism with jokes, memory, and actual craft vocabulary. Best for listeners who already enjoy spoilers, side references, recurring segments, and panel banter that moves quickly.

What sets it apart: Extra Hot Great combines verdict-first reviewing with long-running segment structure, competitive trivia, and unusually granular TV literacy. It treats a new streaming drama, a cult comedy, and a sweeps artifact as equally worthy of argument.

In their own words

Join Tara Ariano, Sarah D. Bunting, David T. Cole and their valued guests each week for discussion of what's new on TV plus our hall of fame roundtable segment called The Canon, listen as we appoint Winners and Losers Of The Week and of course our ultra competitive TV trivia quiz: Game Time.

As heard by us

Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026

Extra Hot Great pairs exacting television criticism with comic group chemistry and a sharp eye for the production choices behind the screen.

Extra Hot Great turns television criticism into a quick-witted group conversation, with David T. Cole, Sarah D. Bunting, and Tara Ariano moving from a sustained discussion of one series to sharp recommendations, objections, and games.

Read our full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

A TV roundtable where Muppets, Gilead, and bear semen can all test your critical bandwidth.

Press play if you want

sharp company for deciding whether a buzzy series deserves your remaining screen time
criticism that moves from character stakes to industry mechanics without losing the joke

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

new TV reviewsTV history weeksThe Canon roundtableWinners and Losers of the WeekGame Time triviastreaming versus broadcast structurecult shows and prestige TVcasting and performance notes

Talks about

TV & Film

Best episodes of Extra Hot Great: This Week In TV

Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.

Does The Audacity Have Any Of Its Own?Apr 15, 2026

A brisk, TV-literate gripe session that keeps finding better angles.

Extra Hot Grape spends the week doing what it does best: turning podcast-business chatter, Taskmaster talk, and oddly specific grievances into a sharp, entertaining hang.

Studying The TestamentsApr 8, 2026

A brisk Extra Hot Great hour that centers The Testaments and keeps its energy up in Around the Dial and the game.

This Extra Hot Great episode gives The Testaments most of the spotlight, with Alison Herman back on the panel as the hosts revisit Gilead through the spinoff's focus on commander's daughters and the show's setup.

Is For All Mankind Getting Old?Apr 1, 2026

A skeptical, lively check-in on For All Mankind season five's Mars setup.

Episode 608 of Extra Hawkray takes on For All Mankind season five, with the story now in 2012 on Mars after the season four uprising. The panel lingers on the unionized colony, spouses and kids living there, and Kelly Baldwin's son Alex, now played by Sean Kaufman, one of four…

600: Going Backstage With The Muppet ShowFeb 4, 2026

A Muppet-centered episode that stays lively because the panel keeps the reverence in check.

Extra Hot Great spends the week on The Muppet Show's new special, a Seth Rogen executive-produced revival tied to the series' 50th anniversary. It drops on Disney Plus and also airs on ABC, with Adam Grossworth joining the panel.

594: Gone Fishing With JohnDec 24, 2025

A loose, argumentative hangout that finds its anchor in a CSI cold-open digression.

This episode of Extra Extra Hot Great spends much of its time on Fishing with John, built around John Lurie moving through each installment with a celebrity friend or acquaintance.

586: Clowning Around With It: Welcome To DerryOct 29, 2025

A horror kickoff that keeps sliding into sharper TV detours.

Extra Hot Great starts with Welcome to Derry, then uses it as a way into broader TV talk instead of keeping things boxed into one recap. That loose shape suits the hosts, who move through jokes, doubts, and production notes without much fuss.

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About Extra Hot Great: This Week In TV

In their own words

As heard by us

Why you'd press play

Talks about

Best episodes of Extra Hot Great: This Week In TV

Podcasts like Extra Hot Great: This Week In TV

Episodes

Should Cupertino Get Another Round Of Funding?

Love Is A Battlefield In War

Pressing Our Luck With American Horror Story

Ducking And Covering With Line Of Fire

High Value Target Misses The Mark

Ferrying You To Widow's Bay

The Extra Hot Great Fall 2026 TV Preview

Putting Heads Together On Blood Sacrifice

Lanterns Has A Nice Ring To It

Should Anna Pigeon Take A Hike?

Coming Of Age At Sterling Point

Did We Go Mad For Furious?

Teed Off At The Hawk

Are We Ready To Homestead At The New Little House On The Prairie?

Commercial Pitchman Draft II

Is Deep Space Nine's Baseball Episode A Home Run?

Cashing Out Of Million Dollar Nannies

Making The Grade With Never Change!

Interview With The Vampire Rocks Out

In Soviet Russia Star City Space Shows You

Issuing A Silver Alert For The Boroughs

Having Fun Out Of The Sun For The Summer TV Preview

Listener Game Time Returns

Lake Diving, Squid Battling, And Avocado Peeling

Sitting Center Court For Running Point

Is Beef Season 2 A Prime Cut?

Does The Audacity Have Any Of Its Own?

Studying The Testaments

Is For All Mankind Getting Old?

Giving The Gift Of 1980 Commercials

606: Staying Up For The Late Shift

605: Is Rooster A Cock-A-Doodle Doo Or A Cock-A-Doodle Don't?

604: Investigating R.J. Decker

603: A Little More Conversation About Paradise

602: Did We Love Love Story?

601: Did The 'Burbs Make Us Stir-Crazy?

600: Going Backstage With The Muppet Show

599: Sharing Our Recollections About Memory Of A Killer

598: Should You Enroll In Starfleet Academy?

597: Charting A New Season Of The Pitt

596: Would You Rather IV: Would You Dan Rather?

595: The TV Superhero Bracket

594: Gone Fishing With John

593: Soft Rye, Snorkel Parkas, And The Most Important Person Ever To Hail From Toledo

592: Mullendash III

591: 2025 Guest Thought Experiments

590: Did Our Latest Meal At The Bear Give Us Gas?

589: Did We Find The Beauty In The Beast In Me?

588: Are We Of One Mind About Pluribus?

587: Did We Love I Love LA?

586: Clowning Around With It: Welcome To Derry

585: Did Boston Blue Knock Our Sox Off?

584: Breaking Down The Chair Company

583: Having A Grave Discussion About Monster: The Ed Gein Story

582: Is Chad Powers A Winner?

581: Giving You The Lowdown On The Lowdown

580: Is It Time To Hit Snooze On The Morning Show?

Putting Out The Paper

This Week In Historical TV: September 4-10, 1991

Going Long On Long Story Short

Making Heads Or Tails Of The Twisted Tale Of Amanda Knox

Should You Plot A Course For Alien: Earth?

Gassing On About The King Of The Hill Revival

Is Hitmakers Out Of Tune?

Bringing Honesty To Billy Joel: And So It Goes

Is Too Much Not Enough, Or Just Right?

Bradying Down To The ER Draft

Should You Sign On To With Love, Meghan?

We Cover The Waterfront

Telling The Truth About We Were Liars

Burning Through The 2025 Summer TV Preview