I'm not alone in raving about this particular offering, but if for some reason you ARE a person who likes podcasts and you have not yet checked out
Serial, you really need to do so right away. I'm aware that raving about an NPR-related podcast like this is squarely in the
The first spin-off from the consistently good, rightly beloved
This American Life, Serial has been buffed to a high sheen by one of my favorite
TAL personalities, Sarah Koenig, as well as the paragon of men, Ira Glass, and it's really wonderful. It is a discussion of a fifteen-year old murder case, and one of the strengths of the writing and the format of the story line is that it continues to raise valid questions for both the defense and the prosecution of Adnan Syed. I am up-to-date, and while I do have an opinion (a strong one!) on the case now, I do occasionally waver in my certitude as Koenig unspools what she's learned in digging deeper into the murder of Hae Min Lee.
The only downside I can think of for picking it up right away is that they are still in production, so there will be no chance to binge-watch these. In fact, the
Serial site has a statement up currently in the face of what I can only assume were strenuous calls to release all the episodes at once for binge-consumption:
We’ve been getting lots of questions about why we’re only releasing one episode per week instead of the entire season all at once for those of you inclined to binge-listen. The reason is: We're still making them. As I write this, in fact, Sarah is re-writing Episode 5.
I guess you could say we didn’t get all our work done ahead of time. We’re reporting this story as we write it. We’re still pinning down information, doing interviews, following leads. So when you listen each week, the truth is that you’re actually not all that far behind us.
I sympathize. If all the episodes had gone up on iTunes all at once,
Orange Is the New Black style, I would have made it to the end already. I love it, and I really need some people I know to watch it so I can ~talk~ about it.
Anyone seen it? What have you thought so far?
If you haven't tried it yet, you can find it
here.
