Studio: Dan Fienberg & Alan Sepinwall
Category: TV & Film
What It Is
A couple of TV critics discuss the news and content related to television.
Technical Details
This show sadly shuttered last year in October with its 302nd episode proper. A handful of video episodes scattered in there, means that the three hundred episode iTunes archive is a bit shy of the entire run. The whole run is still available in the official RSS feed. Episodes tended to run seventy to ninety minutes or so.
What About It
This isn’t Extra Hot Great, which is a genuinely great television criticism podcast, but its fun. Some people had issues with one or the other of the hosts, but I thought they complemented each other well. Sepinwall was the more good natured of the two, seeming oddly optimistic even when talking about horrible shows; Fienberg was the cranky old man, just shaking his head and tempering even his highest praises with a sarcastic tinge. The show would occasionally do interesting projects. They did a particularly good one in which they watched and discussed great/infamous season finales. Sometimes, their reviews would be pretty vague and across the board, but they’d usually spend at least some time every episode really digging into the latest episodes of a few high profile shows. The show could be fun and it was never dull or annoying. It was particularly good, as a lot of things that feature cranks are, when focused on things that were bad. The year-end “worst television of the past year” episodes were always good for a lot of laughs. The show was produced under the Hitfix banner and its most dedicated fans were devastated to see it go. I wouldn’t call myself a huge fan, but it was an entertaining, educated, often funny discussion about television, news, trends and the shows themselves. It is too bad that they closed up shop.
2 ½ stars.
Essential If
You’re just still jonesing for a good meaty review of the first two hours of Bastard Executioner.
Avoid Like the Plague If
I’d say you didn’t have a television, but then I don’t and you probably don’t either and that’s not even a prerequisite for watching great television anymore, so I don’t have a joke here.
Best Entry Point
It’s pretty easy to scroll through the archive and see what the different episodes focus on. If you spot an episode that spends a lot of time focused on a show that you love and watched, that would be a good place to start. Failing that, it’s the Worst TV of 2014 episode, the last one of those they got to do, since they shut down in October of last year. They spend a good seventy-five minutes blasting awful television to shreds and it’s a joy. The last ten minutes or so they spend on the season finale of Homeland, so skip that unless you’ve seen it or don’t intend to see it. But the body of the episode is gold.