8 Reasons to Binge-Listen to "Serial" Right Now

The podcast Serial could be called a cult success, but that'd be massively underselling it. For one, it's topped the iTunes downloads list since it debuted on October 3. For another, it's helmed by the folks behind This American Life—still the high-watermark (along with Radiolab) for the expanding possibilities of radio journalism. Maybe "full-blown phenomenon" would be a more accurate term.

Serial's core concept is that it tells one ongoing story week after week until, well, until the producers decide the story is done telling. The first "season," as they're calling them, is a true-crime investigation of the murder of a young woman killed in Baltimore in 1999. The hook: maybe the murderer is innocent. Week after week, host Sarah Koenig has gone into exhaustive detail looking at the facts behind the crime, the trial, and—most riveting of all—interviewed Adnan Syed​, the supremely charming convicted murderer who still maintains his innocence.

With each new episode, Koenig provides listeners with more details surrounding the case: Did Adnan have an alibi? Was the investigation botched? Did the defense attorney purposefully throw the case? As we learn new facts, the momentum behind the show has only grown. Eight episodes in, it's reached such a fever pitch that not only has their been predictable Internet backlash, but backlash against the backlash. Basically, people are talking about this thing. A lot. In keeping with this week's installment, here are eight reasons to binge-listen to Serial right now.

Nathan Reese is a News Editor at Complex. Share your​ Serial theories with him on Twitter.

Like Orange Is the New Black or Gilmore Girls (word to @the_summerman), it's nearly impossible to listen to one episode of Serial at a time. (Unless, of course, you're already caught up in which case you wait with baited breath for each coming Thursday.) But unlike other highly binge-able media, Serial is a true, ongoing story.

On the one hand, that means listeners aren't guaranteed a tidy resolution; on the other, the events that happen could have real world implications. The stakes are infinitely higher, because the people involved are very real. Still, Koenig and co. know their audience, and though it's a reportage, Serial is crafted like a thriller. And like Koenig, we want to get to the bottom of the mystery.

Everything about Serial is of the highest quality, and I'm not just talking about the journalists doing the reporting. The music, by Nick Thorburn of indie-pop bands The Unicorns and Islands, is perfectly tense. The structure is beautifully paced. And the staff has an untouchable pedigree. (The names Ira Glass, Julie Snyder, and Emily Condon should be familiar to any fan of This American Life. But it's host Sarah Koenig, a veteran of both This American Life and—like The Wire's David Simon—The Baltimore Sun​, is the true star. Each week she does a fantastic job of putting the pieces in place. (Better, one might argue, than the detectives who were tasked with investing the case originally.) It's hard to imagine any other reporter in the world doing work this consistently fabulous week in and week out.

Much of what makes Serial so riveting are the people involved. The hook of the show is that Adnan Syed may not have killed his ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee in 1999. Syed has given Koenig countless hours of interview time, which enables the listen to try to get into his head and decide for themselves if they think he did it. (He's maintained his innocence since the very beginning.) It's not an easy decision: Syed is incredibly charming, intelligent, and sincere sounding. If he is the killer, he may be the most appealing real-life sociopath ever to capture national attention. And then there's Jay, the witness for the case, who we only hear from in court documents. He sounds shady, evasive, monotone. Could it be that he set up Adnan? Does he know more than he's letting on?

The rest of the students at Woodlawn Highschool are fascinating as well. Asia, an acquaintance of Adan's, may have had a information that exonerates him that wasn't shown in trial; other students weigh in on Adnan and Jay's shady (or not so shady) reputations. David Simon (or Mamet) couldn't have come up with a better cast.

If you clicked on this, you've probably heard something about Serial already, be it on the Internet or from one of your friends. I've been an evangelist of the show since hearing the first episode broadcast on This American Life—it's impossible not to want to talk about Adnan's case with everyone you know. And then there's the online discussion. Reddit has a dedicated message board with thousands of participants. There's a blog kept by Rabia Chaudry, who originally brought the case to Sara Koenig. There's even a Slate podcast about the podcast. So yeah, everyone's talking about it except you.

At it's core, Serial is a detective story. But unlike a Dashiell Hammett novel or big-screen legal thriller, there's no conclusion. Not even Sarah Koenig has settled on the truth about Adnan's guilt. So with each new episodes, we're tasked, along with the producers of the show, to come up with our own ideas of what happened. That can be maddening for people who like neat endings, but thrilling for those who fancy themselves amateur detectives. But you don't need to go full-on Reddit obsessive to have an opinion. For some it's enough to mull over the facts quietly by themselves or chat with friends on Twitter. Who knows—maybe you'll discover something Koenig missed?

While it's true that Koenig doesn't explicitly say that she believes Syed is innocent, it's pretty clear that there were egregious errors made in the initial investigation and subsequent trials. (He had a mistrial before he was convicted.) While Adnan doesn't seem to have much hope he will get out of prison, the Koenig's reporting has brought the case's attention to The Innocence Project, an organization that tries to get people wrongfully convicted out of prison. (The above photo is of Todd Willingham, an innocent man executed in Texas in 2004, who Rabia Chaudry points to as similar situation that could have been avoided.) The fact that Syed could eventually be freed due, in part, to Koenig's ads another dimension to the show. We're hearing real life unfold before our ears.

Though the Serial team has been referring to the show as having "seasons" the format is incredibly loose. Some shows are just a half an hour long, while others are a full hour. Furthermore, they haven't let on how many episodes this season will run—just that it will finish when Koenig feels that the story has been adequately reported. That means it could continue to develop as new facts arise, or cease as Koenig hits a dead end. If you don't hop on now, you might just miss the train.

Possibly the best thing I can say about Serial is that it feels truly novel. Though true crime reporting has been a staple of culture as long as we've had radio, it's hard to find an analog for what Koenig has accomplished. Though some of the DNA may be shared with television 20/20 or Nightline, those shows stop when the hour or segment is over. Serial's very nature is contrary to that format. And even when the show ends, the people that we've met will keep living there lives.

Perhaps just as interestingly, Serial give us a view inside the journalistic process that's rarely seen. Koenig tells us her fears, doubts, and biases as she reports the series. She's as objective as she can be, while going out of her way to show us that objectivity is a myth. It's rare that any media these days breaks new ground, so watching Koenig reimagine a 100-year-old medium is a truly wonderful thing to experience.