I recently stumbled across this podcast and almost powered through the 6 most recent episodes.
The Good:
Overall it could be a fantastic show, the topics are imaginatively widespread, each episode feels like the male host spent years researching each subject (with the historical tie in to the subject often providing decades/centuries of context before even touching the main topic!), and besides tuning in to learn about all kinds of things — I have to admit I'm also bewitched to be learning a handful of new words and concepts in really cool and unexpected points along the way!
The Bad:
Not too much to say here besides volume and ad placement could be better; the sound quality is quite good for this level of podcast but the male host's voice can often wander between a bit too quiet to a bit too loud but this could easily be fixed if they compressed the sound before uploading, though, my sound player has this after effect and some headphones have it on the listener side. Other not quite perfect thing is ad placement, sometimes cutting in mid-idea/sentance/word; would be nice if the hosts consider better points to drop off the user for 1-4 mins. Last tiny bad thing, the male host can get opinionated/soap-boxy at times, but it's honestly more neutral than bad. I've often found him to have a healthy amount of self awareness and calls out the things he is opinion heavy towards or isn't confident about. With those transparent disclaimers it's quite easy to know what may be discounted and I feel like those more personal moments make it feel more engaging vs a list of facts. So that last point is neutral for me.
The Ugly:
In the caution of not wanting to come across mean, but in the spirit of being straightforward: the listener SHOULD enjoy the podcast to the extent that they enjoy a reasonably well informed history of everything, however, the listener ACTUALLY enjoys the podcast to the extent they're enamored with the female host's personality. Her style of contribution is exactly defined by interpreting & detracting. Her interruptions are often sporadic, repetitive, and curt... such interruptions can detract into dozens of seconds to several minutes, and they often consist of her inside jokes, entirely unrelated adhd-like real time unfiltered thoughts, and trailing mental languishings. One tiny example is the point where I quit the podcast: while the male host was going thru the absurdity and ingenuity of early 1900s Coups in Thailand, she kinda seized the episode by staggering back and forth over her own ramblings whether she thinks it's cool to call a part of the military —Defense Daddies— versus —Department of Daddy Defense; besides pulling the listener out of the storytelling and disorienting the pace and direction of the conversation, her regular interruptions feel a bit self centered and make the listener feel like they're a rather uncomfortable third wheel in the two hosts conversation. In the most recent episodes I listened to, I personally had the feeling that, the female host kinda wielded the power of when and how her interruptions would conclude while the male host patiently waited at arms length until the interruption would tire itself out, and kinda makes the listener feel an uncomfortable third wheel like tension to witness... In this particular example that made me quit the podcast, this interruption ended when the female host was prodding the male host to say 'Defense Daddies' in a way that amused her, but after some of the male host's rejected attempts, he made great haste of resuming the podcast during awkwardly unsatisfied lull in the female host's feedback.
In Conclusion:
It's unfortunate since it doesn't have to be this way, EG: British Scandal — one of my favorite podcasts — wherein a male and female host trade off leading each season, while the other contributes fantastic banter, some hilarious witticism, or simply tries to front run listener questions by preemptively posing them to each other. Juxtaposed to this podcast, the male host contributes the planning and leading of every episode, while the female host (appearing to be entirely devoid of any understanding that listeners are choosing to tune into this podcast among the excessive choices abundant today) contributes excessive interruptions & distractions that are completely unrelated at best and are seizing/uncomfortable at worst. While sad that I won't be going thru the several hundred episode back-catalogue, the male host appears to have a solo YouTube channel I'm excited to go dive into!
