True Crime Podcast ‘Serial’ Is Making A Comeback & Returning To Its Season 1 Roots

We have good news for Serial fans – especially those that found season 2 didn’t quite hit the spot. The producers of the addictive podcast are launching a new show titled S-Town, a non-fiction limited series about crime in rural Alabama. And it’s coming bloody soon. Every episode of the podcast is planned to be released in March.

While Sarah Koenig won’t be hosting (*hysterically screams*) she will be staying on as a producer, along with Julie Snyder and Ira Glass. Instead, This American Life producer Brian Reed will host the series, and the case sounds intriguing AF.

“This story takes so many unexpected turns,” Glass said in a statement. “Every episode is a new surprise. And the story has this feeling and mood that’s different from anything else we’ve done. I don’t think people have heard a show like this.”

The story the podcast follows sounds a bit Making a Murderer meets The Jinx. S-Town was started after an Alabama man contacted This American Life, asking the show to investigate the son of wealthy man, who allegedly boasted about getting away with murder.

After a second death, the investigation morphed into “a nasty feud, a hunt for hidden treasure and the mysteries of one man’s life.”

“We’re harnessing the incredible reporting and editing talent of This American Life and Serial and throwing it toward the creation of new shows,” Snyder said. “Brian and I began working on the S-Town story three years ago, before we’d even launched Serial, and immediately I knew it was special.”

The series calls back to the first season of Serial: focusing on a simple story, a town and revisiting the investigative process and what went wrong.

The second season of the hugely successful podcast divided listeners. It had a noticeably different and less personal tone to the first – examining the trial of Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, who made international headlines after he was held captive by the Taliban for five years.

S-Town is one of three series that Serial Productions is launching and we can’t wait to sink our teeth into a new true crime narrative.

UPDATE:

All seven episodes of S-Town will be released 28 March. Listen to the preview here.