Glenn Mitchell was a radio host on KERA in Dallas for many years. Then he died. Very sad. All talk shows are only as good as the person talking, and Glenn was very good. Easy to listen to and very smart. His death left a bit of a void. So KERA spent a couple of weeks trying to figure out what to put in the spot where his show had been. At first they just had The Talk Show, which didn’t work out too well as the person (or was it persons?) they got to replace Glenn couldn’t quite do it. They decided to get rid of The Talk Show.
Then they made what I think was a pretty huge blunder. They ran The Infinite Mind in the time slot for about a week. Now I think The Infinite Mind is just about the best radio program going right now. It is profound and deep and silly and ponderous all at the same time. Listening to this show makes you think, about who and what we are and what our place in the universe is. This show ranks right up their with This American Life as far as great radio on NPR goes.
So what was the blunder, if I love The Infinite Mind so much? KERA cranked out their own show to fill the spot and called it Think. Now maybe if they had called this rather boring and very standard talk show anything but Think, I wouldn’t have been so disappointed by it. As it is, I had a week of incredible, thought provoking radio to compare the new show to, and it didn’t compare well.
I used to listen to Glenn Mitchell, and I love listening to The Infinite Mind, but I don’t bother with Think anymore.
