Was Pumped, But Disappointed
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“As a superfan of both Startup and Reply All, I was eagerly awaiting the launch of Gimlet’s third podcast. But I’m sad to say that I was disappointed by the first episode of Mystery Show. It maintains a few aspects of what makes their other podcasts great—narrative journalism, superb marketing (love the logo and theme music), good writing, and entertaining interactions with their sponsors—but it was the core content of Mystery Show that really let me down.
I expected the “mysteries” to be pretty inconsequential. I have no complaints there. Not every mystery can be a murder mystery, and it would feel disingenuous for them to copycat Serial so blatantly. But I still expected the inconsequential mysteries to be interesting for other reasons—to have (genuine) plot twists and intriguing characters. The “case of the missing video store" seems a strange choice for the premier episode, especially when in the end, it’s a mystery solved so quickly and easily, but then turns out to only be kind of solved, because we end with the two central characters clinging to directly contradictory stories. People have poor memories? That’s not a mystery. A true mystery, even if it’s inconsequential, can still be felt at a gut level, can still make you truly curious and personally invested. We never got there in the first episode, and ultimately we’re left with something that feels like it would be cut from any episode of This American Life.
I still love Gimlet, and still hold out hope for Mystery Show. I’ll keep listening before I give up. It’s an intriguing premise, but one can’t help but feel that in order to do it well poor Starlee Kine will have to investigate 20 mysteries for every 1 that ends up being interesting enough to air. I think she shows promise as a host, but I hope in future episodes she lets us feel like we’re investigating with her (this is what Koenig did so well in Serial), and resists the peripheral, cutesy life-advice giving she slips into in this first episode. She has charm and wit. She’s clearly intelligent, and is a personality I think people will want to get to know. But if we have no stake in wanting the mystery solved, why are we listening?
Good luck!”Read full review »
Zac Koons via Apple Podcasts ·
United States of America ·
05/23/15
More reviews of Mystery Show
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“Starlee is awesome!”
Cgiliberti via Apple Podcasts ·
United States of America ·
05/23/15
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“This podcast combines the engaging storytelling talent of Snap Judgement with the investigative journalism panache of Serial, held together by its utterly charming host Starlee Kine. If Harriet the Spy had a podcast, it would be this.”
Monkeymosh via Apple Podcasts ·
Great Britain ·
05/26/15
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“I love all of her contributions to TAL and Wiretap. When I heard her name on the TLDR podcast a while back and now on ReplyAll it made me likes those podcasts even more.”
Hellofartdog via Apple Podcasts ·
United States of America ·
05/07/15
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