Are you all listening to the podcast Limetown? It's been described as Serial meets The X-Files, which of course caught my interest and spurred me to listen to the first episode. If you haven't listened and want to, maybe stop reading here so my review doesn't influence your experience.
But if you want to keep reading:
I loved the first episode. I thought it was spooky and well produced and seemed to promise good acting and a spellbinding mystery in a tidy, seven-episode package. However, with each successive episode (cute interstitial mini-updates notwithstanding), I like this podcast less and less.
I know a lot of people whined "but she sounds just like Sarah Koenig, ugh!!!!" but that is not my complaint at all. I LOVED how the actress playing Leah Haddock was obviously trying to sound just like Sarah Koenig, and one of the things I am saddest about in later episodes is that Leah Haddock sounds less and less like SK as time goes on.
My main problem is that after episode 1, Limetown stopped being a podcast and turned into an audiobook. And that ruined the experience for me. While I could still believe (with some effort, granted) that this was a real podcast, Limetown was magic. But now that I hear it as an audiobook, it's just kind of meh. Leah Haddock sounds like an audiobook narrator now, and it drives me crazy. Audiobook narrators, with their breathy emotions and slow delivery, are awesome - for audiobooks (actually, even then...). For a news-y, investigate podcast, Leah Haddock would, well, sound a lot more like Sarah Koenig! She would speak quickly, and backtrack, and not make sense sometimes. She would be so excited to ask a question or get an idea out that she would talk over her interlocutor, or let adrenaline get the best of her, or admit that her subject has brown cow-eyes (or whatever it was). But Leah Haddock is always letting her interview subjects finish their sentences, and she's always finishing hers. It's too pat.
My other problem is with the format of the podcast (audiobook). At the beginning, she says it's going to be seven episodes. This is perhaps a dig at Serial, right? But the story is still unfolding during production...so how could she know it would be seven episodes? Why are big chunks of the podcast completely untrimmed, unedited interviews?
Bottom line: I'll be listening to all seven episodes, but it will be as an audiobook, not a podcast.
