This fall's best new podcast is called Serial and it's the first podcast series I've ever listened to that can objectively be described as suspenseful. It's a WBEZ production, and it's basically like This American Life if TAL went in super-deep on one story. Which makes sense, because it's the same staff working in a slightly different format (Ira Glass is even listed as an editorial advisor).


This first season is a true life murder mystery where host Sarah Koenig tries to figure out whether a man was wrongly convicted of killing his ex-girlfriend. Not every season will be a murder mystery but this one is and this one is very good. Here are the first two episodes:


You can download the series for free on iTunes. Or on the Serial website. Or you could just listen to those Soundcloud links I embedded. Serial is going to be interesting no matter how you choose to enjoy it.

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