More Proof the Serial Podcast is Amazing
So I keep talking, and talking, about the new Serial podcast and you aren’t listening. You know how I know you aren’t listening? Because I have yet to get a single email vowing your first born to be named after me. I have received ZERO house deeds in the mail. None. Right? So yeah, you aren’t listening to it. The show investigates on a real case — that of Adnan Syed, who has been in prison for almost 15 years for the murder of his girlfriend in 1999, when he was 17. Did he do it? Was it a conspiracy? Was the defense attorney asleep at the switch? Etc. etc.
To just get a glimpse of how brilliant this podcast is, take a peek at this flow of the events being argued on the hours that surrounded the murder:
Reminds me of some of the flows I’ve done on Primer, or even Inception. But this flow is a matter of life and death. I’ve heard that it is like True Crime, but not a fictional story. Which seems to make it all the better for it. But what it lacks in fiction, it will overwhelm you with stress because it is 100% clear that no one (not even the shows creator and producer Sarah Koenig) knows where this thing is going to end. So far we are seven shows in and I come and go on whether or not I think Adnan is guilty or not depending on the day.
It really cannot be stated often, or clearly, enough… you have to listen to SERIAL. Serial is such a good podcast, that it will drop into your normal TV lineup and overtake your favorite television show. When there is a new episode to listen to it will even overtake sleep, eating, and even all other biological functions. It is basically a drug in audio form. Don’t believe me? Everyone is talking about it. I’ve listed a few of the more outspoken reviews of Serial below:
The Guardian – “Are you listening to Serial yet? You have to start listening to Serial. Please. It’s a podcast from the makers of This American Life, it’s been going since October, there are seven episodes to catch up on (start from the beginning, listen in order) and… I’m obsessed. I need you all to start listening so that we can form some kind of Serial support group.”
NBC News – “There’s a shrimp sale at the Crab Crib” is not a line you would expect to find interjected in an exhaustive investigative story about the murder of a beautiful, athletic, studious high school senior.”
But there it was, perfectly placed in last week’s episode of “Serial,” the podcast spinoff of “This American Life” that in five weeks has earned its spot as one of the year’s most innovative and riveting storytelling ventures.
The Verge – “In the off-chance you’re not already listening to the podcast Serial, this is a PSA: you should start. Not only is the weekly series a gripping true-crime mystery, it’s showing that podcasts can be appointment-listening in a way previously reserved for television.”
The Atlantic – “After five episodes, the worst thing that can be said about Serial, a new podcast led by This American Life producer Sarah Koenig, is that the next episode isn’t yet online. It will post Thursday. I will listen immediately. If the rest of the inaugural season’s episodes were released together, like House of Cards, I’d consume them in one sitting, foregoing sunshine, sleep, and human contact until all episodes were exhausted. That’s how I binge-watched much of The Wire, The Sopranos, and Breaking Bad. At the time, I never imagined I’d ever binge-listen to radio.”
NPR – “There have been other documentaries about crimes, to be sure, that hesitate to draw firm conclusions about the truth. But the very nature of this — serial — encourages you to see its similarities to familiar narrative forms of storytelling that would be expected to end in a way that was intentional and structured, where there is an authorial control over events. And while the uncertainties of the underlying story don’t mean that the episodes and the series aren’t structured (just the opposite, really), they’re not structured in the way people wanted the end of Lost or True Detective or Fargo to be structured. There is a chance, a good chance, everychance, that this story is going to end in frustration and discomfort, maybe in near equipoise, and it will be nonsensical to blame for that writers who didn’t know what they were doing.”
Vulture – “It’s so funny, that is what everyone keeps saying, and to be honest, it’s driving me crazy. I do not know how this is all going to turn out. I just read a piece on Slate that insisted I have some tricks up my sleeve and am manipulating the audience in some way, and that really couldn’t [be] farther from the truth.”
Reddit – Oh my holy holiness. Just one big pile of frenzied sleuthing by pretty much all of the internets.
Buzzfeed – “Does the streaker know more than what he told investigators? A. No! He’s just a guy who had to take a leak. B. Yes! There’s no way he found Hae’s body by coincidence. C. Wait, who’s the streaker?”
The Daily Dot – “Admit it: The podcast Serial has taken over every aspect of your waking life. You hum the interstitial music when you’re on the train. You’ve withheld sex from your significant other until they catch up to where you are on the podcast. You have an ongoing chat called “Serial Box” with your coworkers, where you raise your suspicions about the neighbor boy and make fun of the MailChimp ads that play before every episode. And you’ve definitely, at more than one point, tweeted the hashtag #FreeAdnan.”
The Gist – “Sarah Koenig from theSerial podcast gives us the tiniest clues about where this phenomenal who-done-it series is headed.”
I just can’t even tell you how good this podcast is. So just do me a huge favor, and take an enormous weight off my shoulders and listen. Then comment, so I know that there is one less non-listener in the world. Good? Great.
And just be cause I love you all – this is a spoof episode of Serial – that you just won’t understand or appreciate without having listened to the show:
