Producing an interesting and worthwhile podcast is difficult to do. This is especially true for podcasts that have many episodes in a series. From episodes one through nine of Serial, the producer has done a wonderful job of maintaining my interest throughout the podcast. Sarah Koenig and her team achieve this by making the podcast conversational through appropriate pauses in her narration, bringing on other experts to provide new perspectives to Adnan’s case, and continuously stressing the fact that it is almost impossible to determine whether Adnan was actually responsible for Hae Min Lee’s murder.
In episodes seven through nine the author makes great use of empty space to create an easy-to-listen podcast. In many parts throughout the podcast, I noticed that the narrator would take long pauses between her speech. These pauses primarily took place after a big fact was revealed or when Koenig transitioned from one main idea to another. In episode eight, there is an eight second moment without dialogue after Koenig has described Jay’s behavior in court. In these eight seconds the listener is brought back to reality and is able to explore the meaning of Jay’s behavior in court before a different topic is introduced. Looking at this from a different perspective, if Koenig had rapidly moved on to the next topic the listener would have been overburdened with information. Therefore, moments without dialogue help the reader absorb and process new information presented to them.
An element that brought new energy to the podcast was Koenig’s collaboration with guest speakers. In episode eight, Sarah teams up with director of the University of Virginia School of Law’s Innocence Project, Dierdre Enright. This guest appearance is significant because Enright is a professional specialized in criminal cases. Her expertise in this area brings a different perspective to old facts from previous episodes. For example, Enright says, while talking to Sarah, that she is concerned about racial profiling taking a role in Adnan’s case, since Adnan is a Muslim from Pakistan. This development influences listeners to believe that Adnan is indeed innocent and that it was malpractice in judicial procedures that got him jail time. Therefore, Enright’s participation in this episode is helpful because she provides new insights into the case and gives Koenig new leads to follow.
Furthermore, by having other professionals on the podcast Koenig shares the workload and is able to explain the more technical aspects of the case. In episode nine, Koenig’s team hires a detective, named Jim Trainum, to get a detective’s perspective on the investigation of Hae Min Lees murder and Jay as a witness. By the end of the episode, Trainum tells Koenig that, in his opinion, Adnan’s criminal case is a pretty sound case and that despite some inconsistencies it doesn’t seem like the detectives jumped to conclusions or missed any key evidence. This insight is meaningful to both the listener and Koenig because it gives evidence why Adnan could be guilty from an unbiased third party. Therefore, Trainum gives a new spin to what seemed to be a shaky case and increases the validity of conclusions made during the trial itself. Despite other people taking a part in the podcast, this podcast retains its identity by having Koenig drive the conversation with her guests instead of these individuals taking over the podcast completely.
Uncertainty of the truth is the major source of suspense that drives the plot of all the episodes in this podcast forward. Koenig uses this to pull in listeners and hold their interest by spinning certain evidence to show that Adnan might be innocent and then using aspects of that same evidence to show that he could be guilty. This is seen in episode 8, when Koenig tries to give a description of Jay, the key witness, based on information she gathers from his friend. Koenig notes some people said that Jay was scary and intimidating while others said that he was goofy and friendly. This dichotomy leaves the reader dumbfounded and unsure of what to make of Jay and the validity of his testimony in Adnan’s case. Therefore, the listener waits eagerly for more evidence to clear things up. The next piece of evidence, however, almost always turns out to be equally as confusing. For example, towards the end of episode nine Koenig makes the point that Adnan can no longer confess to murdering Hae after all the pain he caused his family and friends. This line of reasoning makes sense up until the point when Adnan says, that if he was guilty and actually confessed it would be easier on his family than them thinking he was in jail unjustly. After listening to all this evidence, the listener has some validation for Adnan being guilty and some for him not being guilty. This pattern is present in each episode and drives listeners to tune in week after week to resolve the mystery and suspense.
As the podcast Serial nears its end the producer masterfully builds up the suspense and continues to surprise listeners by providing new perspectives of the case through guest speakers. I am interest to find out how this season of Serial will conclude and whether or not Koenig will decompress all of the points she has built up.
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Hi David!
I remember listening to one of the Serial episodes in class and really enjoying it. I was very excited when I saw that you were doing Serial for your blog posts because I was always curious about the future of the case, but I never listened to more episodes. I am glad that more evidence has been introduced to the case to allow for listener’s to have more knowledge when deciding if they think that Adnan is guilty or not.
Something you mentioned a lot during your post was the use of suspense and how this is used to hook listeners in to future episodes, which I thought was very interesting. My podcast rarely uses suspense because each episode focuses on a new story, but I like when a podcast follows the same story over time to allow for listeners to become attached. I think leaving some questions unanswered for future episodes is a smart way to encourage listeners to want to listen to more and I would choose to use this in a podcast if I was following a story over time. I also enjoy that Serial uses several different guest speakers and professionals because my podcast does this too. I think using a variety of different sources makes the podcast more entertaining because it allows for my opinions to be heard. Using several different professionals also allows for the information to be more trustworthy, which is important if you want people to continue to listen to future episodes. My podcast Court Junkie uses music to set the tone, so I thought it was very interesting that Serial would use silence to do the same thing. I think it’s really cool that the absence of music can also set the tone because I would have never thought to do that. This is why I think it is important to listen to several podcasts because you can learn different techniques for different types of podcasts. I am happy I read your post because it taught me a lot about Serial and different narrative choices. (346)