Season 1 (2014)
The first season of Serial was both culturally popular and critically well received. Serial was ranked at No. 1 on iTunes even before it debuted, leading iTunes rankings for over three months, well after the first season ended.[1][54] It also broke records as the fastest podcast ever to reach 5 million downloads at Apple's iTunes store.[55] David Carr in The New York Times called Serial "Podcasting's first breakout hit."[56] The Guardian characterized it as a "new genre of audio storytelling".[57]
Introducing a PBS NewsHour segment about Serial, Judy Woodruff noted that it is "an unexpected phenomenon", and Hari Sreenivasan mentioned it has "five million downloads on iTunes, far more than any other podcast in history".[58]
Calling the characters "rich and intriguing", The Daily Californian noted similarities to the film The Thin Blue Line (1988), and described the podcast as "gripping" and the story as "thrilling", while applauding the series for giving "listeners a unique opportunity to humanize the players".[59]
Slate's reviewer pointed out that Serial is not escapist and went on to note: "Someone in the show is not telling the truth about something very sinister. That's the narrative tension that makes Serial not only compelling but also unlike anything I can remember watching or reading before."[36] The Baltimore Sun commented on the inherently riveting subject matter and noted that the top-notch reporting and podcast format yield "a novel twist on the investigative long-form piece".[35]
A critique from the journalism community was more qualified. First noting that some people believe there is a "podcast renaissance", the reviewer from Harvard's Nieman Journalism Lab observed that even though podcasts are not new, they are not yet mainstream.[48]
Not all critiques of the podcasting format have been as equivocal. PopMatters observed that podcasting is a new distribution model, very different from television as a distribution model because it gives users access to media and the freedom to listen to episodes of a long-form story while doing other things. The reviewer applauded the focus on long-form journalism and added, "Suddenly you feel like the full promise of podcasting has just been unleashed. That long-form narrative nonfiction is really the way to best leverage the potential of podcasting as a distribution model."[60]
Multiple reviews have commented on the addictive nature of Serial.[61][62][63][64] A review in New York Magazine linked fans' feelings about the possibility of an ambiguous ending with their psychological need for closure.[65] Reddit hosts a Serial subreddit site.[66][67] Slate is also "following the story closely" and presents a podcast discussion of Serial every week following the latest release.[68]
Several reviews have criticized the ethics of Serial, notably the decision to start broadcasting without the reporting having been finished.[69][70] Critics said the "live investigation" format invited listeners to do their own sleuthing, which quickly led to exposure online of the full names and even addresses of people who were questioned by the police. Another point of debate was whether it was legitimate to use the murder of Hae Min Lee as a subject for entertainment.[71][72]
Sarah Koenig's reporting has also been criticized as being biased in favor of Adnan's innocence, and Katy Waldman's Slate blog noted that some felt Serial undercut Adnan's detractors.[73][74] An Atlantic roundtable discussion noted that the podcast forces the listener to consider Koenig's "verification bias", the tendency to seek answers that support her own biased assumptions, and that "even a well-meaning narrator isn't always credible".[75]
One critic asserted that Koenig presented the story of a murder involving two minority teenagers and their cultures through a lens of white privilege, "a white interpreter 'stomping through communities that she does not understand' ".[76] A rejoinder in The Atlantic pointed out, "Serial is a reflection on a murder case and the criminal-justice system reported over 'just' a year, which is to say, it is researched with more effort and depth than 99 percent of journalism produced on any beat in America... Most of all, the response to mistakes should never be to discourage white reporters from telling important stories."[77]
Serial was honored with a Peabody award in April 2015, noting "Serial rocketed podcasting into the cultural mainstream", and that it was an "experiment in long-form, non-fiction audio storytelling". It was cited for "its innovations of form and its compelling, drilling account of how guilt, truth, and reality are decided".[78] Dr. Jeffrey P. Jones, Director of the Peabody Awards, commented the podcast showed "how new avenues and approaches to storytelling can have a major impact on how we understand truth, reality, and events".[79]
In an interview with Jon Ronson for The Guardian, Syed's mother Shamim and younger brother Yusuf both said they listened to the podcast and that people sent transcripts to Syed in prison. Yusuf said the podcast had indirectly reconnected the family to his estranged brother Tanveer for the first time in the 15 years since the murder.[80]
Three "update" mini-episodes of Serial were posted during Syed's post-conviction hearing in February 2016, coinciding with the run of Season Two. They received limited attention from critics, although Slate's review notably described them as "ragged, chaotic entries [which] can't help but hit us as shadows of what was."[81]
An HBO docuseries based on the Serial podcast entitled The Case Against Adnan Syed was released in March 2019.[82]
