Hae Min Lee was a senior at Woodlawn High School in Baltimore, Maryland when she was strangled in her car and then buried in a shallow grave. Her ex-boyfriend Adnan Syed was convicted of the crime in 2000 and sentenced to life in prison. However simple that may sound, this is far from an open-and-shut story. The podcast, “Serial” explores the chilling details of this case.

“Serial” combs over all the evidence and investigates if Syed is really the killer. The podcast is a spinoff of Ira Glass’ well-known radio show “This American Life,” and it has got people talking.

The surprising thing about “Serial” is how much attention it’s gotten. While crime shows are usually popular, podcasts  — which have been around for more than a decade — have managed to stay under the radar. Until now, that is.

Instead of opting for the traditional format that most closely resembles talk radio, “Serial” goes the opposite direction and explores long-form investigation. Once you’ve heard one episode, you’ll need to hear them all. There are no casual “Serial” listeners. It’s addictive nature and gripping plot will change the mainstream perception of podcasts.

We all love a spectacle, a sense of justice and depth of characters. Today’s most successful and acclaimed TV shows are serialized dramas that leave the audience guessing what will happen next; the highest grossing movies in the box offices are battles between good and evil; the books we obsess over are installments in larger series.

Sarah Koenig, a staff producer at “This American Life,” hosts “Serial,” honing in on the story’s inconsistencies, raising questions that haven’t been asked before and leading her devoted hoard of sleuths who are fixated on cracking the case. The audience has been strung along for eight weeks now, while Koenig raises more questions than she answers. And because the story is told only through sound it has a heightened sense of mystery — the characters are just voices and the crime scene is left up to the imagination.

Another aspect of its popularity is that the story can develop at a much slower pace because the audience doesn’t have everything laid out in front of them. TV crime shows investigate one murder in the matter of an hour and show pictures of the suspects and flashbacks to the crime scene. Nancy Grace’s style of commentary is filled with finger pointing and certainty. But neither of these tactics commonly seen on TV are part of “Serial.” Rather than treating the people of interest as criminals and suspects, they are treated as human beings and given well-rounded characteristics.

Besides the medium in which its presented, it would be fair to concede that “Serial” doesn’t do anything new: true crime has been popular since Truman Capote’s “In Cold Blood” and radio dramas have roots much deeper in history. Even Koenig points out in an interview with The Guardian that serialized dramas are “as old as Dickens.” It doesn’t appear to have deterred the audience though.

As proof of the unlikely fandom stemming from a podcast, the only thing that “Serial” fans like more than the podcast is talking about “Serial.” Reddit has created a subreddit exclusively for “Serial” fans to hash out every minute detail Koenig doles out and Slate producers provide recaps of each episode. People are in a frenzy to find the answer which is not guaranteed. But we may never actually find out who really killed Lee.

But let’s ride this out while it lasts. For once, podcasts are in the spotlight and if other podcasts follow suit of “Serial,” they’re likely to stay there. If you haven’t done so already: listen to “Serial,” share your theories with your friends and cross your fingers for a season two.

Erin G. Kelly is a senior broadcast and digital journalism major. Her column appears weekly. She can be reached at egkelly@syr.edu.

Published on November 17, 2014 at 12:01 am