Great suggestion.
All these replies are helpful. Thanks. 
Here are the ones I’ve really liked:
I discovered that even if you link in your post to the page the course is on, clicking on the link takes you to the Great Courses home page.
Eh? Not true for me at all.
Interesting. When I click on any/each/all of the links above in this thread, including the ones I posted, I go to the Great Courses home page, not the course page. <scratches head>
I want to recommend Professor Marc Zender’s course “Writing and Civilization: From Ancient Worlds to Modernity”. It is about writing systems in general, with some emphasis (a third or so) on deciphering ancient writing systems. It is pretty good and covers such things as Chinese and Japanese scripts; decipherments of Egyptian, Linear B, and Mayan scripts; and even touches on Tengwar and what scripts might look like in the future. I took one of his Mayan hieroglyphics classes in person as well and he is a great teacher.
We’ve been going through their art courses. They are very good – the people involved are adapting their college level courses for the series. The Dutch Masters: The Age of Rembrandt was fascinating, and Richard Brettell has a nice series of them on various topics (his Museum Masterpieces: The Louvre got us hooked).
I’ve listened to somewhere over 40 of the courses. It’s a great way to pass the time in the car and livelier than a audiobook. But the courses are like the Mississippi River. A mile wide and a foot deep.The only bad one I ran into was one of formal logic, which was mind-numbing and dangerous to listen to while driving. For argumentation Professor David Zarefsky has a course I listen to at least once a year. Pick what looks like it will interest you.
Any thoughts on Bill Messenger?
I’d never really looked into these before coming across this thread, but I just took a look and it turns out that Elements of Jazz – one of the few courses I’d be interested in – is currently on sale for $16. (Thanks, ThelmaLou!) I might just give it a shot.
I’m currently listening to “The Story of Human Language” by John McWhorter, which I’m finding fascinating.
Since this is restarted, I’ll suggest anyone interested check their local library. The regional libraries (larger than the branch libraries) in Fairfax County, VA have a some of these available.
I’ve also borrowed a lot of these from my local library.
A tip for those in Rochester, NY. The best selections are in the Central Library (but it’s split into sections in the old and new buildings) and the Brighton and Winton branches.
Since this was my thread, I’ll check back in.
I tried three different courses and found all three of them boring, poorly organized, and pretty useless. I don’t remember what they were now… one was on romantic poets, a very interesting topic, but it was deadly. Another one was a history subject.
A better thing is to find a book on the subject you like and get the audio book. The content has been edited, organized, compacted, and it is read by a professional actor without the tics, ahems, coughs, and distracting repetition of a Real Teacher. Not to mention it will be WAAAAY cheaper than a Great Courses course.
I know many love these courses and have had wonderful experiences with them. I don’t and I didn’t. YMMV.
There are some of them that are way overrated, and about which I would agree with your criticisms. I’m sorry you got some duds. Did you buy them directly from the Teaching Company? If so, do you know about their return/exchange policy?
I didn’t know about that. Thanks. I got downloads, not disks.
I picked only ones that got rave reviews but <shrug> stuff happens.
Fair enough. I’ll admit there are times when I find a particular individual’s speaking style distracting me from the material he’s presenting.
One of the worst? Harold Bloom. Highly respected author. Terrible speaker. He just drones on and on. Occasionally, to emphasize a point, he drones louder.