‘Serial’ Sets Premiere Dates for Seasons 2 and 3 — Can It Keep Up the Momentum?
“Serial,” the compulsively listenable podcast which wrapped its first season in December 2014, left such a strong impression on us that we still wonder if there was ever a phone booth at Best Buy, what story is with the Nisha call and most of all, if Adnan Syed killed his ex-girlfriend, 18-year-old high school student Hae Min Lee, in 1999.
The wildly popular podcast will return for a second season (with a whole new storyline) this fall and a third season is already in the works and set to premiere next spring. Sarah Koenig, the Peabody Award-winning show’s host and executive producer, made the announcement in an e-mail newsletter to subscribers on Wednesday.
Koenig has said that the upcoming episodes will depart from the storyline of the first-season, which investigated Lee’s murder. The spinoff of the radio program “This American Life,” “Serial” focused on the question of whether Adnan, who was convicted of Lee’s murder and given life in prison, was guilty.
In the e-mail Koenig wrote that the upcoming seasons will be very different, “but no less interesting” than sef ason one. “We are hard at work reporting not one, but two distinct new stories. This means we’re planning on a third season of ‘Serial,'” Koenig wrote. “And we hope it means we can reduce the amount of time between the end of Season 2 and the beginning of Season 3. As it stands, we intend to launch Season 2 this fall and Season 3 next spring.”
Given that the ace investigative reporting in Season 1 raised questions about the case against Adnan, which led to a court order which could re-open the case, the bar for the second two seasons has been set quite high.
“Serial” was the fastest podcast ever to reach 5 million downloads, according to CNN.com. When the first season wrapped, there was talk of how “Serial” would popularize podcasts in general, but so far, no other podcast has been able to reach the same widespread acclaim.
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