The Teaching Company was founded in 1990 and their early courses were recorded by professors sound like they're actually addressing a classroom full of students. They sounded natural and were easy to listen to. Around the 2010s, they began "doing business as" The Great Courses. Around the same time, something else changed. More and more, the lecturers began to sound flat and mechanical. Instead of flowing naturally, it sounds as if they're reading off cue cards. It's so much the case that I have to assume it was a conscious, deliberate decision by the company. Why they would want that is beyond me, unless they just are taking a "Wonder Bread" approach of appealing to the broadest market by creating a bland product.
Also, Deepak Chopra teaching on The Nature of Reality?
Are you kidding me?