Honestly “high school lecture” is relatively hardcore as far as podcasts are concerned.
The only history podcasts I’ve listened to before this are The Dollop and Mike Duncan’s A History of Rome which isn’t too much more detailed but is at least a lot more straight forward and fact-based.
I don’t think I can stomach that, but that at least sounds “hardcore” in some aesthetic sense at least.
My impression is that history buffs more familiar with Dan Carlin aren’t big fans either. I think the main complaint is that he takes one theory or interpretation and presents it as if it’s the only one.
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That is pretty spot on. He also has a tendancy to pass off personal opinion as fact. That being said I don’t like the dude, don’t like his style (its not hardcore its shoe-gaze at best) but he gets people interested in history so that is something I guess.
I never managed to get though one episode. It felt so rambling, and very information-sparse.
I was trying to be polite but yeah dude is a a shit lecture who loves the sound of his own voice. Shit I have the same degree and don’t spout off on shit that isn’t related to what I studied. Just really boring.
And very poorly organized. He ends WWI part one with discussion of the seizure of Belgium but doesn’t explain it’s strategic importance until part way through part two.
Almost like he did a bad job writing some cobbled together notes…
I started listening to this one when it started. Opening Arguments. It is a legal podcast doing analysis of the law from a lawyer with help from interviewer Thomas Smith.
It was fairly legal analysis in the abstract until the election and now it is hard hitting current affairs analysis of things. It was the first place where I heard about the genius of the Stormy Daniels lawsuit and the impeachable position that it is putting Trump in.
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Adnan from serial won his appeal to get a new trial. Prosecutors could still appeal to the state supreme court. Anyone know the likelihood of that? Help me Obi HungryJoebi, you’re my only hope.
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Even if he gets it, I’d be surprised if he was successful. Despite all the new attention to the case, the evidence was pretty conclusive.
Side note - the two best investigative journalists The Intercept had(and to this date, the best two who have ever worked there) ended up leaving their jobs because of Adnan’s case.
They investigated, they examined the evidence at length, looked at everything they could to prove his innocence, and found that he was pretty definitely guilty. To which, Scahill and Greenwald threw massive tantrums, delayed coverage for unnecessary “Editorial reviews” (despite not being meant to have any editorial control or input on the story) against the EIC’s objections at the time, and proceeded to make life hell for those two journalists until they left.
All because Greenwald and Scahill didn’t like conclusions they came to - in fact, Scahill apparently threw a full-on, paper-chucking, foot-stomping tantrum over it, and Greenwald to this day still takes the opportunity to make bitter jabs at Vargas-cooper and Silverstein when they come up, and apparently, even sometimes when they don’t, just apropos of fuck all.
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Quis journalistet ipsos journalii?
Churba, that’s quis.
Bringing up The Adventure Zone in this thread again: man, this show gets so much better than it has any right to be. What started as just a cute fun DnD podcast got built into a frankly amazing story with real weight and themes and brilliant narrative structure. I just shotgunned the last few episodes of their main campaign yesterday and was frankly a mess of emotions, like vocally sobbing in several places. It’s really something. And somehow they got there from taco wizards and fantasy wiener jokes?? WTH. That takes some next level talent. Can’t wait to start on the next mini arcs.
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I love the McElroy boys but for some reason I just cannot get into TAZ, or at least the main arc. I seriously don’t know what it is but I just could not get into it. I really liked their short campaigns they’ve been doing a lot better, like I am thrilled that they are continuing Amnesty.
I don’t blame you honestly. Like when I say “started as a cute fun DnD podcast”, I do mean it didn’t have as much true substance at the beginning beyond the comedy. Some intriguing elements and mysteries, but still mainly the comedy was the focus. And if the comedy ends up not being your jam, then there’s not much there to enjoy, esp. since some of the earlier comedy is less sensitive than what the McElroys ended up adopting later in their careers.
How far did you get into the main arc? I’d say it starts getting significantly stronger around mid-to-late Petals to the Metal, and truly great by The Crystal Kingdom and Eleventh Hour arcs.
I got… most of the way through Crystal Kingdom? My wife LOVES it and we were on a really long road trip so we listened to a ton of it, and frankly I was bored for most of it. There were funny spots and I could see that it was -good- it just didn’t click for me.
What really makes TaZ so surprising is the story of how it started. One of them joked on an episode of MBMBAM that they should make an episode where they play DnD with their dad, and the absolute madlads actually did it. It was never meant to be an full spinoff.
Yeah I’m a fucking huge McElroy fan but I can’t imagine mainlining TaZ. Biweekly was a good schedule for it.
Hahaha, as someone who just mainlined it all in a few weeks, I might’ve just had a good environment for it maybe. I thankfully have a job where I have long stretches of work that’s just mindless enough to let me take in all the key parts of a podcast, but mentally engaging enough that I can tune out parts of the podcast that might be less interesting, like time spent on dice rolls and damage calculations and such. Could just be a difference in taste too! Ether way, I don’t blame anyone who doesn’t enjoy it as much. I do genuinely feel like the heights it reaches in the latter parts are sublime though.
Oh yeah I think its just taste in the end. Like I said, Commitment, Dust and especially Amnesty really did it for me.
The Far Meridian is an audio drama about an agoraphobic woman named Peri who lives alone in a lighthouse that teleports to a different location every day. She’s searching for her lost brother, and she finds strange and quirky characters everywhere she goes.
Every episode is 10-20 minutes in length, and there’s only 14 so far. You can burn through this in a few hours.
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