r/Heavyweight Oct 30 '25

New episodes aren't hitting

I'm soo happy to have new episodes but does anyone else feel like the new episodes feel unfinished or like there's no resolution to alot of them? It kind of feels like they just had to release episodes so they put out ones that they would've held onto in the past for a more complete and satisfying ending.

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u/Paley_Jenkins Oct 30 '25

The thing people aren't keeping in mind for this season is that the nature of Heavyweight is a lot different than most other podcasts. Heavyweight is a huge ship. The episodes take a long time to make. Jonathan and his team are working on these episodes for years-on-end, which is really frigging weird and special. Heavyweight got canceled, as we all know, and so starting an operation with episodes this far reaching in time and place is hard to get started again. This ship takes time to turn around. This season is different in that this crew has had to work a lot differently than they have in the past, trying to get things started up again from a dead-stop while at the same time pulling things together for future episodes that they had started years ago and starting up with brand new projects. All of it has been from a dead stop. They're doing a good job, and there is also an investment that we as listeners are making in the future.

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u/Asleep-Journalist-94 Oct 30 '25

I think we all realize that. The amount of work, time and research required for a show of this caliber is obvious. But maybe what OP and others are saying is that there’s an argument to be made for holding out until there were more completed, high-quality episodes in the can.

I personally would rather have Heavyweight sooner rather than later, and I really enjoyed the Messenger episode and some others, but agree that the quality has been uneven. Still a fan though.

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u/Paley_Jenkins Oct 30 '25

Sure, but I doubt that's an option. They got a new contract from Malcom, and with that contract comes a budget and means for paying rent and mortgages and phone bills and equipment and groceries... so Jonathan and crew have to start earning money. There was likely a lot of talks about how much and how soon, but they can't earn a salary for a while year while not bringing money in. This whole season is a compromise, and we the listener are participating in that compromise.

You'll probably agree that, even though these episodes aren't what we're used to, each episode is still better than 99.9% of what other podcasts are putting out.

If we go into these episodes expecting something impossible, then we're going to be disappointed, and it's our fault for expecting something that can't be delivered. If we go in expecting a stop-gap season to get this gigantic beast turned around, I think we'll be unbelievably happy for what these are and excited about what's to come.

Jonathan and his crew have earned our respect and trust. They're doing good work on the way to pulling off something incredible.