S-Town Is Narrative Wizardry
The Serial and This American Life spin-off embodies what made Serial a sensation in the first place.
The gold standard for storytelling in the Podcast medium is Serial. The podcast, hosted by Sarah Koenig, was released in the same vein as the radio program This American Life. The first season was based on the now famous story of the murder of Baltimore native Hae Min Lee. It not only focused on the story itself but also the accusation and trial of Adnan Syed. The episodes had been downloaded over 80 million times by February 2016, over a year after the first season concluded. It was a worldwide phenomenon that transcended the very medium it was released on, simple podcasts.
This was the gateway drug to the podcast world for many people. Although sports and entertainment podcasts had made a solid presence in the podcasting world, it wasn’t a common entertainment medium.
Most people discovered Serial after all 12 episodes had been released. It was the same sort of phenomenon that was experienced a short time later with the Netflix series Stranger Things and Making a Murderer. This became an odd phenomenon, where a collection of art was readily available to consume in its entirety. The binge-watch, or binge-listen in the case of Serial.
Binge-watching something wasn’t an entirely new concept when Serial came out. But what made it, and certain Netflix and Amazon shows, different was that its presence and creativity “sniped” you, for lack of a better term. I had no idea Serial was good, or that consuming a podcast with that thematic tone would be captivating. But once I started listening, I finished in a day.
Serial Season One is an incredible cocktail of a fantastic story and an incredible walkthrough of it. A truly transcendent storytelling experience is one that gives you a walkthrough of a story without making the audience feel like it’s 2000 miles away without visual descriptors. Serial had a story worth telling, and the insight and pedigree to tell it in a captivating way.
Other podcasts have since tried to capture the magic of Serial Season One, including Serial Season Two. None of them have been able to capture the great mix of audio engineering, story, narration, and pace that all came together for the first season of Serial. Most really good podcasts can put together two or three from that list. But the ability to balance all of those things, in a condensed, well thought out package, is incredibly difficult. No other podcast had been able to pull that off in the storytelling realm, in my opinion, — that is, until S-Town.
S-Town put together a few of the pieces immediately that made Serial special. They released all seven chapters in one day. Listening to a fascinating story isn’t something that we want to wait a week for anymore. Part of that is a saddening experience, rushing something that is a sweet experience and should be savored. The other part of it makes for an incredibly special time of being apart of a story that transcends time and distance. I still remember listening to Serial in my first apartment and what that feeling felt like — being swept up in the narrative laid out in front me, ready for whatever Sarah Koenig was going to lead me into next.
Brian Reed and Julie Snyder are the two main driving forces behind S-Town. As the executive producer, Julie was able to help shape and weave the story throughout the audio medium with ease. She’s a co-producer of Serial so she understands how to thread anticipation throughout a podcast season. Brian held the mantle of being a host and the main investigative force. He started reporting on this story more than three years ago. It all started with him getting email from a guy named John with the subject line “John B McLemore lives in Shittown Alabama.”
That opening email subject is the catalyst for the entire story. The one line intro to a world that is entirely foreign to the narrator and most of the audience. I won’t spoil anything from the podcast itself, but one of the key ingredients that made this podcast successful in my eyes, is how they revealed key points of the narrative. There weren’t ever cliffhangers. One reason is because they released it all at once, so it would be foolish to try and tease episode to episode. Usually stories and the storytellers have difficulty weaving the big reveal into the ebb and flow of the collection of episodes. S-Town breaks down that wall faster than expected.
Most podcasts and storytelling collections, books or television, struggle to hold the audience’s interest with a particular situation. Podcasts especially struggle with this aspect because the overwhelming urge of this genre of podcasts is to solve something. There is a thesis or a question that is presented at the beginning, and we have to solve it for the audience. S-Town guides you through a story but there isn’t this overwhelming urge to solve or figure something out as a listener. They do such a brilliant job at setting up the narrative that you aren’t looking for a big reveal longer than an episode. There isn’t this week-long buildup to findout X and then the disappointment of X being far less fascinating than it was built up to be.
S-Town was designed and put together knowing that most people who would consume this would do it in a short time frame. They perfectly built and designed the way they told this story to weave brilliantly over seven chapters. It honestly feels more like a book when you listen to it than a typical podcast or narrative driven product. I think that’s why they refer to it as chapters as opposed to episodes. It feels more calmly driven by the incredible nature of the story then driven by the shock value of a big reveal. Just as you read a book you know the next chapter is right there, so there isn’t a need to leave you on a cliffhanger for cheap shock value. You’re literally going to find out moments later. This is how they let the awe of the story itself grab the attention of the audience.
There were very few flaws with Serial Season One. One of them was the way they built it felt like it was driving towards some sort of conclusion, and the conclusion was lackluster. The story itself was so fascinating that if the podcast had been shaped around simply telling the story, as opposed to building towards a reveal, it would have been a more timeless piece of art. I don’t see myself ever re-listening to Serial, and when I try it just doesn’t have the same feel. Now, that shouldn’t take away anything from the brilliance of the investigative and narrative driven work they did. But what it says about S-Town is important. S-Town works to tell a story and let the audience take away what is most fascinating or important for them personally. They get to choose the big reveal.
It’s somewhat like Crimetown, a podcast that looks at the mob and crime laden culture in Providence, Rhode Island. But what makes S-Town different is how wrapped up the storytellers get into it. In Crimetown, Zac Stuart-Pontier and Marc Smerling basically produce a documentary style podcast. It’s incredibly fascinating and I don’t miss an episode. But you aren’t thrown into it and enthralled the same way that S-Town pulls you in. You really feel what Brian Reed feels as his relationship with John B ebbs and flows throughout the season. The dramatic turns that it takes are heartfelt and emotional. He’s an incredible storyteller, but also brutally honest about how what he’s experiencing makes him feel. He does that in such a subtle and unique way that it’s incredibly relatable. A deep dive into the unknown, a commodity that has aspects that people can relate too, yet are completely foreign.
The producers of Serial, many worked on S-Town, figured out a way to capture a timeless story. Knowing the entirety of the story doesn’t take away from the brilliance of the collection itself. That is such a difficult accomplishment for storytellers to achieve, and the creators of S-Town did it in a brilliant, majestic package. Everything about their work is imaginative and wonderful. From the artwork to the music, to Brian Reed’s interpretation of the story he experienced firsthand. Everything they managed to do with S-Town is a work of art. Sure there are flaws, but appreciating this piece of work doesn’t take much effort.
