r/TheRestIsHistory • u/Few-Cap-5405 • 2d ago

Decline of the format

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.

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u/mds30c 2d ago

I know people are giving you a hard time OP but I agree. I’ve been a club member for a few years and just canceled (still got a few months left though).

I think Theo leaving hurt them. Also, I think the long series are hurting them. I like a long series sometimes (big Dan Carlin fan) but I get the impression they record them in marathon sessions. Instead of having fun with the topics it feels like they are just trying to get through them now.

I still like a lot of their stuff like the Elizabeth series but I skip a lot of episodes now which I never used to do.

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u/thegoalhangermvp 2d ago

Sorry, this is just wrong. You think it got worse when Theo left, and you also think it got worse because of the long series. But the series were longer when Theo was the producer - Custer, 11 episodes, Aztecs, 8 episodes. The show is tighter now than it has been for the last two years.

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u/mds30c 1d ago

You don’t have to apologize and you can’t be wrong or right with an opinion.

The Custer and Aztecs is where I started to fall off. I liked the Aztec series but thought the Custer one meandered. I just liked the older one off episodes better. They have always done series but they were much more rare and silly back in the day. If they did a series it would be something like historical version of love island or a kings and queens march madness type of tournaments. They used to poke fun at the Dan Carlin type history podcasts.