Man, I wish I could’ve gotten into that. I listened to four episodes and I enjoyed their investigations, insight, and expertise—all things I don’t hold against Serial and Sarah for sort of lacking, but which are a very welcome addition.
And yet the format was grating; every episode felt like 15 minutes of fascinating new information and theories, and then 45 minutes of repetition. Like the one with the theory about the detectives leading Jay’s statements with knocking on the table and pointing out evidence to steer his interviews? I get that it’s a pretty serious accusation to introduce, that the detectives are essentially fabricating a testimony to fit the narrative they’ve already decided on. But I felt like they explained it and laid their theory out pretty well in the first third of the episode, and then just ran in circles with “gosh, it sure sounds like that’s what’s going on, but I can’t believe that’s really what’s happening, but gosh it sure sounds like that’s what’s going on…”
It’s been a few months since I listened, I know nobody was actually talking like that, but I just couldn’t hang with it. I need a podcast about this podcast about a podcast that just provides concise summaries.
I wish I could agree with you, but that was pretty much the exact opposite of my experience. Most of the episodes actually have a reasonably detectable arc that continuously build pretty well throughout the episode.
I will say that the quality of the production and the way the information is presented in the episodes improves throughout the series. They were clearly learning while doing, and it seems like they had folks who were more experienced with podcasting lend them help and advice that was taken to heart and implemented as things went along.
If you’ve been following the undisclosed team on twitter over the last few days, there were some fantastic lunch and dinner table periscopes of them recounting and discussing their impressions of the case. Unfortunately these all expired after 24 hours! These were much more informal and riotous than the actual undisclosed episodes – impressions and jokes all around.
It’s weird to listen to Sarah’s updates now if you have been following the case generally because it’s evident Sarah hasn’t kept up with it at all. She’s missing huge things aspects and then getting hung up on some others which have been talked about basically settled.
For example, when the prosecutor was saying that the only way Asia would have used terms like ‘central booking’ was if Adnan had told her to write that letter or whatever, Sarah was surprised when the defense attorney showed newspaper and news stories using those exact terms. But that argument about the letters has been settled by a long time – there were numerous news stories that used all those terms and facts. In fact it even goes further, some of the facts Asia could have supposedly only known from Adnan or whataever like the car was discovered near Leakin Park were incorrect - the car was not discovered near there - but that false information was reported in the news.
The prosecutor’s idea that Asia conspired with Adnan to create a false alibi and backdates a letter for some reason and everything… and then did absolutely nothing for a decade before deciding to resume the conspiring? WTF?
It’s really too bad the periscopes expire because the accounts from the court room were super interesting.
There are a couple of periscopes archived on youtube which are from an interview with a reporter though, not as interesting as the ones from the team itself but still okay:
I don’t think it’s ever really presented in a way that’s as compelling and dramatic as Serial was, even later on but…well, that’s not the point of Undisclosed, and one has to remember that two of the three hosts are lawyers and a lot of the subject matter is legal in nature. They’re decent at boiling it down for the lay person but it lends a certain dryness. And the flip side is that the more I listened to Undisclosed the more frustrated I got in retrospect with some of the things that Koenig decided to focus on.
To go back to the current season briefly, I’m finding Bergdahl’s story the least interesting part so far—there were only two things he could have been (coward, or moron with hero complex), and he’s definitely one of them (the latter).
Much more interesting to me are the little war stories we get from other folks from Bergdahl’s company. This week’s bit about the trip up to the plateau, and being stranded there for five days, is a good example. All of my favorite military histories (A Time of Trumpets, Six Frigates, Pacific Crucible, and others) are told mainly from the perspective of the man on the ground, and I haven’t run across many good Afghanistan/Iraq sources for the same sort of thing.
Cross ex today was pretty huge for Syed. Apparently an FBI special investigator told the judge that he now feels that the cell tower records original given to the defense team by the prosecutors in the first trial were “manipulated”.
It’s not Serial, but last week’s “This American Life” episode “Anatomy of Doubt” is a fantastic true crime story about two police investigations that I would recommend to everyone.
Edit: Oh yeah, and it’s worth sticking around all the way to the very end. The last couple of minutes are still kind of blowing my mind.
I’m really loving season 2. Especially the latest episode. Hearing the details of what really went down over the last 5-6 years in terms of potential diplomacy and lost opportunities is fascinating.
Since this happened during the interregnum, worth noting that Adnan Syed has been granted a retrial. I’m reposting a couple of things I had to say afterwards, absent the context of the posts I was replying to (since I don’t think it’s appropriate to repost someone else’s posts).
Re: Adnan’s innocence or guilt:
I’m pretty convinced he’s innocent. As far as I can tell there’s only one compelling reason to believe he’s guilty, and that’s Jay’s testimony. The cell tower data and various circumstantial things were used to corroborate Jay’s story, but wouldn’t be anything like enough to even arrest him otherwise, I don’t think. And Jay’s testimony has changed so much and is so illogical and difficult to believe that the only reason I ever found it persuasive was the fact that he provided the location of Hae’s car and the lack of any reason to lie. But among many other things, Undisclosed provided reasonable arguments towards both of those points that don’t involve Jay himself committing the murder (which doesn’t seem likely for a variety of reasons).
It’s certainly possible that there is or was something that directly ties him to the crime beyond the fact that he used to date her, but you’d think that if they’d ever found anything of the sort the police would have used that to convict him instead of going with the flimsy-ass case they did.
Re: revelations in the Undisclosed podcast:
They suggested that Hae’s car had actually been moved, based on details in photographs. And their scenario for Jay was that he was being paid a fairly substantial reward anonymously through a Crimestoppers tip line. They suggested that audible tapping noises in taped interviews were the police coaching him, and that most of the details were being provided to him, including the location of the car. The reason it changes so much is partly Jay not having a great memory and partly new details coming up from ongoing investigation.
There’s quite a bit more to it than I’ve paraphrased here, including other similar cases where that police department in general and the detectives on Adnan’s case in particular had been demonstrated to be using similarly unethical tactics, etc. Not conclusive by any means, but it’s a scenario that provides Jay with a reasonable motive (cash money, which he apparently wanted to use to buy…a bike, I think it was? Something like that) and a way of knowing key details - details which matched the police version of events but not necessarily the facts. It’s been a while since I listened to those episodes. But that’s the gist, I think.
For Serial fans: there’s a new podcast called “In The Dark” about a Minnesota case of child abduction that was never solved even though the apparent kidnapper and killer was still living in the community. I’m only on episode 2, so I’m not sure where this is going to end up (they’ve released 3 of a planned 8 episodes), but I’m pretty into it so far.
It’s pretty dark, and it might be triggering for anyone freaked out about child abuse and/or police malpractice, but it’s worth checking out.
Ha, amazing. Read Charmtrap’s post as I was in the middle of episode 2 of In The Dark, and it is indeed very, very good, and very chilling. The matter-of-fact details behind the kidnapping are just heartbreaking and also scary as hell.
That case was in the newspaper last week nationally, since, well, spoiler I guess the killer confessed. I hadn’t heard of the case, and it was utterly horrifying. Hits all the more hard as a parent of two young kids, including a son going on 11.
Spoiler tags appreciated, but in this case they’re not that necessary. The podcast tells you that info in the first few moments of the first episode.
It’s an interesting procedural though on how this crime could have gone unsolved for 27 years, especially given that pieces of the puzzle were set out in front of them if they’d only have looked hard at them.
The other interesting thing is that it was this case as much as any other that influenced American thoughts on parenting and even federal legislative action. Because of this case, we have sex offender registries. And this case helped–along with a few others–to convince parenting groups and police departments around the country to warn parents off letting their kids play outside after dark.
From what I recall they were working on a third season concurrently with two but given the way they had to slow down season two it might be that we have to wait a while for three. I don’t think the subject was known.
I also wonder how successful season 2 was for them. I absolutely loved it, but it wasn’t really a dramatic blockbuster case that got them massive hype and coverage. Hopefully that doesn’t put their future at risk.
I haven’t heard any of Season 2 yet. Did they have a fundraiser episode near the end of Season 2 like they did near the end of Season 1 where they asked people to contribute to make the next season happen?
In terms of downloads, Season 2 did better than Season 1 as of the season finale.
[quote]
According to the show’s reps, the Bergdahl story is far ahead of the download pace of Syed.[/quote]
Unfortunately, that doesn’t tell us how it did/is doing afterwards. The first season did massively well after it ended. Word-of-mouth got a lot of latecomers to check Syed’s story.
In terms of impact, I don’t think anyone can say season 1 didn’t completely overshadow season 2. The critical ratings were higher. The cultural effect was immediate. And to cap it off, season1 actually impacted the case being examined.
