Serial Podcast

It’s worthwhile if you found Adnan’s case interesting (and/or appalling) in Serial and want more information about it, with the caveats triggercut presents above.

BTW, the tapes with Cristina Gutierrez speaking aired on Episode 10 when she’s talking to the judge, I found her to be sounding not “natural”, but rather “very ill”. Her voice is raspy and she sounds like someone who is not very healthy.

Also, to add to the extraordinariness of Adnan’s case is this: Gutierrez was apparently winning a handy acquittal for him in the original case when she got so stubborn about some point of order that she incited the judge to question her honestly out loud…which resulted in a mistrial. It was just a weird, random outburst between her and the judge, but the jury overheard. After the mistrial was declared and the jury dismissed, a poll of jurors found that the state hadn’t proven its case to many, if any of them.

Her performance as his attorney in the second trial was terrible. Tons of things that she shouldn’t have missed that she did.

Thanks! I’ll probably check out the podcast.

So there’s a one man podcast called Serial Dynasty I never bothered to check out before, but he recently got an interview with the mysterious ‘neighbor boy’ from Serial and it’s pretty fascinating!

Thanks for that. Neighbor Boy seems like a very cool, grounded dude who happens to be hilarious.

Speaking of Neighbor Boy, or “Mr. E” as he’s known on Serial Dynasty…

Colin Miller ‏@EvidenceProf Sep 3
Listened to new @SerialDynasty. If Mr. E was honest & accurate, this could be a gamechanger, as I’ll explain on @undisclosedpod on Monday.

Just an aside … saw a new podcast mentioned at AV Club called Limetown. It is a fictional Serial-like podcast about the mysterious disappearance of a town full of people. It is really well done and there are two episodes available to listen to. Hopefully they can keep it going.

While we’re mentioning new podcasts, Adam Buxton (of Adam & Joe and Bug fame) has a new one. The first episode was pretty low-key, just a chat with Louis Theroux about the ethics of hotel breakfast buffets, but he’s got very good form.

Maxim is saying that Serial Season 2 is about Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl. Deadline says that Mark Boal, who is developing a film about it with Kathryn Bigelow, will also be involved with Serial.

that ought to be a pretty fascinating story. Looking forward to it.

I’m not sure I like the idea of Serial doing season 2 on Bergdahl. What made season 1 so good was the fact that the story was essentially dead until they dug it up. Listening to all the contradictory evidence, testimony, and Sarah Koenig’s investigative stumbles in a murder that took place over a decade ago is what made it so compelling. Bergdahl’s story is ongoing. He hasn’t even gotten past the preliminary phases of his trial. I think it could be good, but I feel like it’s going to have a very different flavor from the show I followed the first go around.

If I were Koenig, I don’t know that I would be interested in doing another “cold case” type of thing though. Season 1 was riveting for lots of reasons, but one of the major themes was that it’s really hard for people to remember with any degree of clarity something that happened more than a month or two back. Finding another case to re-illustrate that point wouldn’t add too much to the discussion and would simply cement Serial as being “that old murder show”.

I get that. I just wish they weren’t going to a case that’s not even really started.

This is really well produced and it seems pretty interesting…

…but man. First episode, July 29. Second episode, September 13. Each episode is less than a half hour.

If they don’t step it up, I think I’m out. This is what pre-production is all about.

Adnan Syed’s motion to reopen on post-conviction relief was granted.

I don’t think that’s a grant of a new trial yet. I think instead that it’s a chance for his new attorneys to show that his previous lawyer failed to present alibi witnesses or challenge the cell tower evidence in cross ex, especially now that the State’s main cell tower expert in the original trial has stated that he would recant his testimony had he seen the smoking gun AT&T cover page.

I hadn’t heard any news about this, but I woke up this morning to find that the first episode of Serial Season 2 downloaded in Overcast. Whoo!

[EDIT] I take it back. It’s showing as a failed download. An Episode named DUSTWUN with an appropriate description (about Pfc. Bergdahl) seems to want to download. It’s 2 hours long! So something is not right…

[EDIT 2] still won’t download, but here’s the description:
01: DUSTWUN
DEC 10 ⋅ SERIAL
In the middle of the night, Pfc. Bowe Bergdahl grabs a notebook, snacks, water, some cash. Then he quietly slips off a remote U.S. Army outpost in eastern Afghanistan and into the dark, open desert. About 20 minutes later, it occurs to him: he’s in over his head.

[EDIT 3]ok, it’s streaming now. 43 minutes long. Still sponsored by Mailkimp [emoji13]

Man, I am disappointed they went with the Bergdahl story.

Bergdahl is a dumbass. His version of events hews pretty closely to what I gathered from other sources. He was an idiot that deluded himself into thinking he could be some heroic whistleblower, and the Taliban had other ideas. It’s just not a very compelling story to me.

I’ll continue to listen because it’s Sarah Koenig and some of the different perspectives could be interesting, but the overall story holds no fascination for me.

Already bored. Haven’t quite finished episode 2 yet, maybe there’s some big hook at the end, but right now this is nothing like season one. This is basically Koenig summarizing a story I could read about somewhere else if I was interested, and making some naive observations about the military. I mean, I guess it’s cool that she can just call up the Taliban and talk to them on the phone, but to what end? They did or did not dance for Bergdahl in a vineyard? It feels like there’s nothing of consequence to uncover about this, strange as the overall tale may be.

I guess the lack of posts here says it all. Think I’m done with Serial for now. Maybe I’ll catch up on a long drive someday later, but nobody’s talking about it (anywhere, not just here); there’s no reason to keep current.

I checked out after episode two as well. Loved the first season, but this hasn’t held my attention at all.