The first podcast to really hit it big in terms of listenership, and a true crime classic. It began with a random email: Hey, my brother’s friend is in trouble, and you once wrote a story in the Baltimore Sun about his lawyer. We think he’s innocent and she botched his defense–would you be willing to check it out? From there, once Sarah Koenig started digging into it, the case of Anan Sayed proved to be anything but straightforward. Critically, “Serial” now refers, not just to this famous first season, but an entire franchise of different podcasts by different producers on many different subjects, all of which are high quality (see Notes).