{"id":236,"date":"2019-10-07T23:25:22","date_gmt":"2019-10-08T06:25:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/?p=236"},"modified":"2020-10-10T17:20:57","modified_gmt":"2020-10-11T00:20:57","slug":"serial-s2e1-dustwun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/2019\/10\/07\/serial-s2e1-dustwun\/","title":{"rendered":"Serial S2E1: DUSTWUN"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

There\nis something intriguing about the unexplained that we as people just simply\ncrave to understand. Like why exactly Bowe Bergdahl who was stationed in\nAfghanistan inexplicably got up one day without preemptive warning or even\nsigns and wandered off into Taliban controlled territory completely unarmed.\nFor most men, this would have been a death sentence, yet just short of five\nyears later a deal was struck between the US and Taliban for the rescue of\nBergdahl. Five years is longer than any American has ever survived being held\nby the Taliban. The mystery behind his nonsensical decision to put his\nexistence into the hands of the Taliban and the national controversy that\narouse after his liberation is exactly the focus of DUSTWUN, <\/em>episode\n1 of season 2 of the Serial Podcast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DUSTWUN<\/em> brings together\nthe unheard-of journey of Bergdahl through an interwoven masterpiece of\ninterviews, timely music, phone calls, and news audio which is all cohesively\nstrung together into an effective storytelling podcast by the soothing voice of\nour narrator Sarah Koenig. Even though Koenig is the only narrator speaking\ndirectly towards us when relaying Bergdahl\u2019s story we hear the voices of many\nother individuals that were recorded in conversation with one another also.\nThese include clips from an extensive interview between Mark Boal, a filmmaker,\nand Bergdahl himself. A lot of the storyline of DUSTWUN<\/em> comes\nfrom these intervals followed with brief explanations from Koenig giving us a\nbrief recap or intel on what a certain term might mean or even how they came to\nget hold of the interview tapes from Boal. A short example of this narrative\nfeature was when our soldier Bergdahl explained to Boal his goal of creating a\nDUSTWUN to bring military and public attention to the bad leadership of his\nunit. Koenig cuts into this recording to explain to us that a \u201cDUSTWUN stands\nfor duty status whereabouts unknown,\u201d basically \u201cman overboard\u201d for the army.\nKoenig\u2019s timely explanations effectively help us listeners understand unusual\nterms, words, or oddly explained sections of the interview and therefore stay\nintrigued in the podcast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On top\nof the narrative pattern of switching between interview audio clip and narrator\nexplanation this Serial Podcast also effectively exercises timely music as another\nfeature in keeping the story compelling. Serial loves to input music within\nbreaks of the narration almost as audibly starts to new chapters in the story.\nSerial has also carefully chosen music with a tempo that is in line with the\nspeed of the story at a specific break. The pause in narration gives the reader\na moment to think about what has just been said while the mood projected by the\nmusic sets the stage for what exactly Serial expects us to be feeling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another feature was phone calls that were used strategically throughout the storyline but also used to hook us as the very conclusion of the podcast. To close, Koenig plays the beginning of a phone call she had with the Taliban and then cuts it off making us wait till the next episode to hear the rest. This keeps readers compelled to continue listening to the story as it advances in Episode 2.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The story of soldier Bowe Bergdahl walking away from safety into hostile Taliban territory is a mystery that is slowly being explained to us through Serial\u2019s podcast\u00a0DUSTWUN.<\/em>\u00a0It\u2019s a long story that may not be as intriguing to listeners without the thoughtful use of interviews, timely music, and phone calls throughout. All together these various narrative features build a compelling story that keeps listeners engaged and wanting to learn more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wordcount 601<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There is something intriguing about the unexplained that we as people just simply crave to understand. Like why exactly Bowe Bergdahl who was stationed in Afghanistan inexplicably got up one day without preemptive warning or…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[23,16,15],"class_list":["post-236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-engl200c","tag-podcast","tag-serial"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":241,"href":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236\/revisions\/241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}