I listened to every episode of Theory of Everything but needed more. This show is smart and funny. Walker is brilliant. TMI's special correspondent Chris is my favorite.
I was referred to this podcast by a friend, we both love Radiolab, and I am completely unimpressed. Gave it 3 random episodes, found it to be rambling, disorganized and poorly edited.
The best thing that can be said about TMI is that Benjamin Walker chooses interesting topics. Unfortunately, Mr. Walker has never heard Voltaire's warning that the secret to being a bore is to tell everything, and that's just what Walker does here. The podcasts are overlong, poorly edited, rambling, and, in the end, very dull. The sad thing is that his guests are intelligent authorities on the topic in question, but he lets them drone on and on. If Walker would stop trying to fill an hour, and shoot for 15 minutes, at most, he could up with some compelling storytelling.
Benjamen Walker's voice is original and quirky. Fans of his NPR program "The Theory of Everything" and Walker's earlier "Your Radio Nightlight" from Boston will not be disappointed. His programs are produced with loving care and attention to detail. I never know what to expect from Benjamen Walker, but I'm never disappointed. I look forward to every podcast.
I only wish the radio show and podcast would appear more regularly.
This show is great -- sort of a younger, happier, more upbeat Joe Frank -- like if Joe smoked weed and ate sweet snacks and had a decent love life and his show was positive or irreverent rather than "deep" or "important". This show is neither of those things and benefits from its apparent shallowness. It's fun and entertaining without being cloying or "hipster" -- (though TMILY was darnded close). But the real problem (if there is one) is the output schedule -- Benjamin, where are you? Did you go to the Carolinas or something --? You don't get to do that -- you have a show to turn out man. Stop putting this off -- you'll just continue to feel unfulfilled until you upload a new show, and, at the same time wish you spent more time or did a better job anyway. So just go for it -- crank them out. You can't make a masterpiece (theater) unless you're willing to make crap. We will let you do crappy shows in your search for the sublime ones.
This show strikes me a slightly schizophrenic. I've subscribled to this show, and I do listen to it, and mostly enjoy it. But it's really hit or miss. Some of the shows are just fantastic, but sometimes it's just barely focused rambling.
I am a podcast fiend and have been listening to podcasts for a few years now. I thought I had discovered most of the outstanding ones. TMI is perfectly paced--gives you time to mull over the interesting and sometimes bizarre conversations. A podcast for curious people who like to play with concepts.
BWalker knows how to tell a story. Funny and poignant. listened through the entire backlog and it was totally worth it. It's stonier than This American Life, and there are some episodes that are slightly too far out there for my taste, but when it's good, it's the best.
Like excellent literature, this excellent show appeals to the audience's intelligence: instead of feeding you predigested content, it lets you wonder where fact ends and fiction begins and takes you into an exploration of the gray areas - so much more exciting than the black-and-white beaten paths.
Add to that a great rythm and background music, a perfect balance between recurring segments and individual stories... Too much of any other information, but this one I can never get enough of, and it's the healthiest of all addictions.
This is just about as good as it gets. If you like Radiolab, This American Life, The Moth, or anything by Joe Frank then you'll love TMI. Fabulous production, great music, and strange recurring characters all contribute to the show's most amazing feat: teetering on a knife edge balanced between fiction and fact. You get to be the judge but nobody, maybe not even Benjamin Walker, is going to tell you if you're right.
I have to speak up about how great this show is. Sincerely, I get really excited every time a new episode arrives. I want everyone to know about how great it is, but then again I don't. Because then Benjamen will get hired as a writer for a late night show- or maybe a satellite radio host- and then he would have so much money that he could buy all manner of photography books and spend what little free time his new career allows him gazing at photos and not recording this show anymore. That is not what I want. For any of us.
I came across TMI by way of 99% Invisible, and I'm completely hooked! The mix of stories and music is almost hypnotic, I've never heard anything quite like it. My only complaint is that I wish I could get a track listing of the music in each episode. Other than that, it's perfection!
I dont remember how I found out about TMI but Im glad I did. Some podcasts roll in and out of my susbscribe list but TMI will stay forever. I cant wait for a new episode to show up for me to gobble up on my train ride to work. Little do the other commuters know that I am enjoying one of the best radio programs of this century. I do tell every other podcast consumer about TMI it would be a shame to keep all the goodness to myself.
It's an explosion of nutty ideas and odd characters and Ben's neuroses. It's chock full of guests talking for much too long about things that are important until it's drilled into your cortex. Most of all it's the sweet sweet flow of words and music - BW's stretches out over a full hour like no other radio/podcast host can. Airs on FMU @ 6 Eastern but tasty to digest late at night through headphones in podcast form.
Benjamen is single handedly doing the best radio reporting there is about the internet and about our Philip K. Dickensian info-glut age. TMI is funny and fictional at turns -- it's also angry, brainy, cutting edge and deeply dialed-in. Way more people should be hearing this show. It's important listening.
TMI is consistently impressive and I listen immediately when each new episode comes out, but I must single out a recent episode called Geronimo IKEA, all about the operation to kill Osama Bin Laden. It was a perfect example of how to create a radio show. The story flow, subtle signposts, call backs, blend of fiction and nonfiction, synergy of the pieces, all worked together to create the best hour of radio I've heard all year.
It's more WFMU than NPR, but Walker gets great guests and is a fantastic interviewer and storyteller. A bit of a Joe Frank influence as well, if you like that kind of confessional storytelling, maybe-fiction/maybe-documentary thing (which I do). He also covers topic that might be considered to marginal or obscure for a typical NPR show, but are nonetheless riveting and deserving of airtime. A great show -- there's nothing else like it out there!
Very interesting program. He speaks with a kinda strange, slow, pleading affect, but the content is more than engaging enough to counteract this particular aesthetic distraction. I approve.
There are those shows that entertain, engage, think and then there are those that require us to question, reconsider and grow. Fortunately TMI does all of that. Mr. Walker's ability to hone the momentary and extract the human constant in everything, hidden deep inside each of us, is only seconded by his astonishing humility and desire for truth. This podcast has literally dissolved the fear of intellectual inferiority in myself and in those who I have shared it with. This sort of dialogue is rare today and just as precious now as it ever was. Thank you for your work... And everyone should download this podcast!
-m+d-
I listen to risk, this American life, radiolab, moth, and Paul f tompcast. This show is really good. The production quality is great, the topics are really interesting and over all it's what I really like entertaining and I am learning at the same time.
Thanks for the podcast!
scattered (seemingly), eccentric, really good. Used to listen to Benjamin Walkers T.O.E. (theory of everything) on alt npr, until that got canned. There was a long gap before I found this podcast, and was very thankful to have more of Benjamins style of show to listen to. I was on a steady diet of T.O.E, This American Life, Ze Frank, Moth, and Radiolab when I first started subscribing to podcasts, and was well satisfied (back log of shows to catch up on). If you like any of those you might dig this.
I'm addicted, all of the content is great and makes me think. I retell a lot of what I heard and suggest this podcast. Even read "either or" My only complaint is I'm always sad when I check every day for a new episode and don't see one..please release more!
I'm really enjoying this podcast. I like the interviews and the way the interviews circle around the topic of the podcast until you get why they are included. I also love the way commentary is sometimes interspersed into the podcast in several sections. The variety of topics and the fact that each podcast is centered on a particular topic does kind of remind me of TAL. And the music is just amazing, probably the best combination of talk and music I have ever heard. Give it a try!
This is a delightful program packed with interesting information and historical facts ad oddities. Delivered in a very personal, charming and friendly manner. Enjoyed it thoroughly! Keep up the good work Steve!!!!!
I find this podcast to be incredibly compelling and super fun to listen to. Benjamen Walker's collections of stories and interviews on a given theme contradict each other and often are unexpected, but that is what makes it a great podcast. It's an adventure every week.
This podcast can't be accurately described in words, so I will just throw a few out there and hope it helps someone decide to listen... Fascinating, intriguing, ridiculous, brilliant, postmodern, intelligently unintelligible, awesome, bipolar, memetic... All of these things and more. I'm in love.
I like this show - very interesting perspectives and stories. I enjoy the wit and insight into many circumstances surrounding life. I did feel compelled to comment further on the supposed "Christian" in "Something Will Happen, Soon" from March 16, 2010. While a Orthodox Christian myself, I don't adhere to the "end-of-the-world" beliefs of the woman portrayed. While humorous, and representative of a certain segment of Christians who likely don't know a lot about what they believe, not all Christians think in such a stereo-typed fashion.
I was enjoying this podcast very much until it condoned making the Internet less anonymous. In a world were freedom of speech is becoming more and more inhibited, I find it important that the Internet remain the way it is forever.
Any person, place, thing, or entity that condones Internet regulation is no friend of mine and that now includes this podcast.
I gave this a listen because someone said if you like "This American Life", you'll like this. I don't think they have ever heard TAL, because this is nothing like it at all! This is incoherent ramblings that I found unlistenable. There's no theme, or cohesiveness, it's like you walked in a conversation among old friends and they don't acknowledge that you're there or clue you in to what their talking about. And the music? I didn't find that great either. TAL or RISK! podcasts, The Moth are much better stories and storytelling. Skip this, you'll be doing yourself a favor!
this is a great podcast, if u take the time to listen the stories are very well put together and the backround music sets the perfect mood I feel like each storie has an important message that really connects with me. I also love the randomness of some of the stories, it's almost as if ur letting people see inside the minds of others, I listen right before bed it allows my mind to wander and think differently but clearly.
the interviews are interesting, the music is good, it is imaginative, artful, and yet it is somehow disorienting to listen to. it seems full of contradictions. i cannot decide if some of the stories or interviews are real or just sprinkled with BS. i can't define what is so compelling about this show but besides being well produced there is something special about it that makes it unique from anything i've ever heard.
TMI is obssesive voyeurism…with sort of a purpose. Walker just lets people talk, and usually end up saying more than they realize or meant to (TMI!). The icing on this tasty cake are the host's own manic-depressive obssesive-compulsive audio essays.
For extra fun, listen to an episode without knowing it's title (Walker never says the title until the end of each episode) and try to guess what the theme is that ties all that week's stories together.
