Is Anyone Else Addicted to Serial?

You may have heard of Serial, the podcast by Sarah Koenig, created by the people from This American Life. It re-examines, one weekly episode at a time, a seemingly open and shut murder case from 1999. I'd seen a blurb about it on one of the many websites I waste my life on, but didn't really give it a listen until the production was about six episodes in. From there, I was hooked. It's buzzing around right now, as many have found themselves hooked. I would say, "if you're into podcasts, check it out," but I think it'd be better to say, "if you're not into podcasts, check it out," because that's pretty much me.

Aside from this latest foray into podcast territory, I haven't done a ton of exploration into the medium. A few years ago, I got pretty dedicated to WTF hosted by Marc Maron; a podcast with two distinct descriptions, one short/intended, and one long/unintended. The short write up on this one is that an aged stand up comedian of minor celebrity (Maron) talks to fellow show-business folk in his garage each week for an impromtu interview. The long story/unintended consequence is that a recovering alcoholic who has burned just about every bridge he ever had in show business starts a low-budget podcast in his garage and goes from talking with friends/fellow stand up comedians about life, to talking with major celebrities each week, to reviving his name/career, to becoming a required stop on the promotional circuit (Rivers Cuomo, Anna Kendrick, Claire Daines, etc.). Presently, Maron continues his podcast alongside his other ventures, including a TV show on IFC. If you want to check this one out, you can probably fast forward the first 9 minutes, which is basically just the host ranting...unless you're into that sort of thing. After the passing of Robin Williams, he re-posted his episode featuring Williams...I highly recommend that, or the Louis CK episode, or his keynote address from the Montreal Comedy Festival a few years back.