Episode Reviews

The podcast episode Harriet Tubman by You’re Dead To Me talks about the life, achievements, and struggles Harriet Tubman went through. It is hosted by Greg Jenner and interviews Historian Dr. Michell Chresfield from the University of Birmingham. My overall thoughts on this podcast are that it does a good job explaining Harriet Tubman's life and has just enough detail to get her story straight. The podcast follows a kind of interview with Dr. Michell Chresfield where she explains Harriets' life and answers the numerous questions Greg Jenner asks her. However, while listening to this podcast it felt as if I was only listening to Greg and Dr. Michell. The third person in this podcast, Desiree Burch who is a comedian, rarely ever talked and when she did, it didn’t add to the conversation. I know that this show incorporates comedians and was trying to stay true to their roots but for a topic as serious as Harriet Tubman, I felt a comedian wasn’t needed. Greg Jenner even says, “Harriet Tubman's life does not start as a comedy, in fact at no point is it a comedy.” Almost no jokes were made in respect of Harriet Tubman so in my opinion, as harsh as it is, Desiree Burch wasn’t needed in this podcast. I think they should have introduced a different person, maybe another historian, rather than a comedian who didn’t participate in this episode. Aside from that, I liked how the information presented was serious, for a comedic history podcast, and got straight to the point. I also learned a lot of new things about Harriet Tubman like how she was a spy during the civil war, or how she had received brain surgery with no anesthetic. This information shocked me because I was surprised that I didn’t know about this before. Lastly, I enjoyed the flow of this podcast and during the full 29 minutes I never once got bored or zoned out. Instead, this podcast was intriguing and kept my attention until the very end.