Some (hopefully) constructive criticism on this episode, mostly involving prep:
- Maybe others will disagree, but I find it a bit offensive and xenophobic to not even attempt to pronounce some parts of names and instead talk about how weird/hard to pronounce they are. People are often understanding if you get it wrong (people screw up names in professional news all the time), especially if it's a name from a language you aren't fluent in. It's worth trying at least, and much better than going on a tangent on how hard that name is to pronounce. This may not always be possible, but some research on pronunciations wouldn't hurt either.
- I kind of cringed at the homeschool jokes. Collin explained why being homeschooled worked really well for him, and I got the sense that this was not acknowledged at all when the jokes were made, making it seem like a personal attack. It was also kind of beaten to death.
- Not so much a critique on the show, but stuff said about Worlds 2015 at the end was quite uninformed and unbased, and it just irked me after everything before this. Brazil is a relatively new community that is growing incredibly fast (among other South American communities), with several 100+ person competitions every year, so saying that this competition is being hosted in a cuber-remote location (can't remember the exact wording used) isn't exactly true. It's definitely no Europe/West Asia/North America, but if we don't hold competitions in new locations, how can we truly expect to be a world organization?
I feel like most of this could have been better with more prep before recording. Personally, I'd like to see really good shows less frequently than rushed ones every week.
EDIT: From a style point too, I feel like this show needs an "anchor," in a sense, with the others providing color commentary. Andrew and Thom definitely had defined roles, with Andrew taking the lead on all the stories they went through, Thom providing more of the color to the discussion. I often feel like this show has three Andrews more often than not, and as a listener, it kind of feels like the same person talking to me the whole time.