Serial is the podcast that put the medium on the map. It’s the audio broadcast that spawned a thousand others, won a Peabody Award and had the world talking when it debuted in 2014. Jump ahead four years, and it’s back in the news because Adnan Syed, the guy this entire serialised documentary is about, has been granted a retrial in the US state of Maryland. If you weren’t one of the estimated 175m people who downloaded Serial, the crux of the first season is this: the producer of radio programme This American Life Sarah Koenig, and her team were invited to investigate the 1999 disappearance and murder of Baltimore high schooler Hae Min Lee, and the subsequent conviction of Lee’s former boyfriend, Syed, for robbery, her kidnapping and murder. Syed has been incarcerated since February 2000. During the course of the 12 episodes of the first season, Koenig interviewed a host of people involved directly and peripherally with the case, and tackled all kinds of angles relating to the crime...
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