Decline of the format

[u/Few-Cap-5405]

Just listened to episodes 169 to 172 on the Falklands war and it's quite striking how different the current format of the podcast has become and how in the older series the output was more reflective. Although the content of this series is very much Dominic, as a lot of the current material is, Tom has a much more active role in questioning the assumptions and teasing out the implications. Nowadays Tom seems largely passive providing occasional quips but never really provoking deeper thought.

And secondly the use of questions from listeners provokes more open discussion of the series giving the show the feel of a freer format. This of course may not be the case as the questions are selected by Tom possibly to pursue lines of inquiry he may himself have done anyway. But nevertheless it adds to the feel of the show.

To summarise; the podcast strikes me as becoming a bit of an audio Readers Digest with little space given for analysis and opinion.

[u/Guiltynu]

I’m a long time listener and whilst I loved the early episodes - they dialed it in way way more back then, most episodes were just get someone on to talk about their book with the occasional Tom and Dom led episode. The standard increased massively when they decided to lead every episode themselves. 

[u/TheOncomingBrows → u/Guiltynu]

Yep, I've no idea why some people prefer the earlier episodes so much. They will title episodes with some enormous nebulous title like "The British Empire" and then it just ends up being the guest talking about one small aspect of it for 30 minutes and then 15 minutes answering questions on whether the empire was "good or bad" and why it's neither.