Serial, from the This American Life family, is a hit — to the point where it's now got spinoff podcasts at both Slate and The A.V. Club, the latter of which calls its Serial recap podcast the Serial Serial. The air is getting pretty thin up here, no? Against this background, NPR's Gene Demby and I sat down to talk about the phenomenon of meta-podcasts, and more generally about the spectator sport of Serial-watching (well, listening). We talked about how Serial fandom is and is not like True Detective or Boardwalk Empire fandom, the importance of red herrings, and the role of commentary in validating the importance of a narrative work, fictional or nonfictional.
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