It’s a good time to be a Serial fan. Last month, the acclaimed series became the first podcast in history to win a Peabody. Last week, Adnan Syed, the convicted subject at the heart of the viral first season, got a huge break in his last appeal that could allow him to present new evidence in his case.
And now, Serial producer Sarah Koenig has announced that the show is already gearing up for seasons 2 and 3. How’s that for an unexpected plot twist?
In a newsletter emailed to Serial fans Wednesday, Koenig filled us all in on this happy development:
[W]e are hard at work reporting not one, but two distinct new stories. This means we’re planning on a third season of Serial. And we hope it means we can reduce the amount of time between the end of Season Two and the beginning of Season Three. As it stands, we intend to launch Season Two this fall and Season Three next spring. Sorry – we can’t tell you details about the new stories yet. What we can say is that they’re very different from Season One, but no less interesting to us.
This is great news for fans who need their Serial fix and can’t get it from the myriad podcasts analyzing the podcast that have sprung up in its wake—part of the so-called “Serial effect.”
But the blatant teasing about the new storylines is frustrating for the many desperate fans who are dying to know what the next seasons will actually be about. Since the first season of Serial focused on a single story about a murder, it’s unlikely that the second season will involve criminal justice. It could involve anything.
That’s why Google’s autofill results for “What will season 2…” currently look like this:
Until yesterday’s announcement, fans had no ETA about when the show’s second season, which was partially crowdfunded, would be arriving. They didn’t even know if Koenig and crew had a story.
Given the already intense speculation over the subject matter, the bombshell that the producers are currently working on stories for two seasons will undoubtedly ratchet up the theories, rumors, and general excitement until season 2 airs in the fall.
The possible split in themes also poses an interesting question for fans. Undoubtedly some fans who followed the storyline of Adnan Syed’s murder trial probably aren’t sure whether they will be interested in whatever might be coming down the road. On Reddit, concern over the split between fans who are only interested in Syed’s case and fans who are mainly interested in the podcast itself has contributed to increased tension, with the current mod of r/SerialPodcast recently proposing to put the entire forum on a brief hiatus in order to encourage posts about the show itself.
“At this point, I feel like it will be impossible to use this sub for Season 2, whatever it might be,” one fan wrote in response to the proposal.
But whatever seasons 2 and 3 might actually be about, as long as they continue to bring us plenty of mystery, controversy, and “Mail Kimp” jokes, we’ll be more than satisfied.
Photo via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY SA 4.0)
