OUR RATING:
The True Crime Podcast That’s Actually Competent (How Refreshing)
Where to begin with “Criminal,” the true crime podcast that somehow managed to launch in 2014. That’s before Serial made everyone and their mother think they could solve murders from their couch, and still maintains the audacity to be good. Hosted by Phoebe Judge, whose voice has been described as everything from “melodious” to “mesmerizing” (because apparently we’re now reviewing podcasts like wine), Criminal proudly declares itself “the first of its kind. A show about people who’ve done wrong, been wronged, or gotten caught somewhere in the middle.”
Yes, it’s yet another true crime podcast, but it’s popularity suggests that it’s somehow set itself apart from the cacophonous choir of amateur sleuths cluttering your podcast feed. And perhaps that something is the wide definition of what constitutes “crime.” that it employs. Criminal “considers no crime too grievous, too trivial, too grisly, or too quirky: murder, counterfeiting, extortion, assault, hacking, hijacking, stalking, streaking, identity theft, book theft, plant theft.”
Yes, you read that correctly, plant theft gets the same thoughtful treatment as murder. Finally, a podcast brave enough to tackle the scourge of succulent stealing that’s plaguing our neighborhoods. It’s almost as if Judge and her team understand that the human capacity for wrongdoing exists on a spectrum, rather than just the binary of “serial killer” or “parking ticket violator” that most true crime shows seem to recognize. Either that or the research team has run out of compelling true crime stories to cover.
The show’s approach to storytelling is so competent it’s almost insulting to the rest of the genre. While other podcasts meander through multiple episodes like they’re getting paid by the hour, Criminal manages to tell complete, nuanced stories in under 30 minutes. The show “suffers from none of the bagginess that plagues many newcomers to the true-crime genre” because, and here’s the radical concept, the producers are actual trained journalists rather than true crime enthusiasts who learned everything they know from watching CSI reruns. Lauren Spohrer, Nadia Wilson, and Judge bring the idea that “no sentence is superfluous, every minute is in the service of the story, and facts are checked with rigor.” I can definitely get behind that.
Judge herself has figured out the lost art of interviewing without making it about herself. She’s described as “a gifted interviewer, adapting her style to suit the guest, prompting those who need it, and giving space to those that don’t.” She asks tough questions without the theatrical gasping and pearl-clutching that seems mandatory for the genre, and she is possessed of a decent sense of humour. Not the kind of gallows humour that involves making jokes about victims, but actual wit applied to the absurdities of human behavior and criminal justice systems.
Of course, no discussion of Criminal would be complete without addressing the elephant in the room: Judge’s voice, which has garnered more commentary than some Supreme Court decisions. Apparently, it’s so captivating that “it even renders pleasurable the obligation of listening to her advertise mattresses and meal kits.” One can only assume this is the first time in podcast history that listeners have been grateful for ad breaks. Critics are practically swooning over her vocal cords, which is slightly creepy but also testament to the power of actually knowing how to speak into a microphone, another skill that seems optional in podcasting these days.
Is there anything else that distinguishes Criminal from the true crime industrial complex? Yep. It’s the podcasts’ commitment to what one reviewer called “compassionate curiosity.” Instead of wallowing in the gory details or treating crime like entertainment, the show focuses on understanding the humans involved. Turns out, treating real people like actual people rather than characters in a twisted bedtime story makes for better storytelling.
Perhaps most annoyingly for other podcasters, Criminal has managed to produce nearly 350 episodes without a single dud. Some obviously stand a bit above others, but there’s a remarkable consistency in the high-quality nature of each and every single episode. This, of-course, sets an inconvenient standard for other true crime podcast creators, who often consider “mostly coherent” a victory. The show has been praised by outlets like The New York Times as one of the best podcasts out there, and has been described as “the thinking person’s true crime podcast” and “the purist’s true crime series.”
In the end, Criminal commits the ultimate crime in podcasting: being consistently excellent without resorting to sensationalism, exploitation, or the kind of amateur-hour production values that make you wonder if the hosts are recording in a wind tunnel. It treats crime as a lens through which to examine humanity rather than humanity as a vehicle for crime entertainment.
The show offers “a masterclass in how to think and talk about crime,” which is both its greatest strength and most damning indictment of everything else cluttering the true crime space. Criminal proves that you can make compelling content about crime without sacrificing intelligence, compassion, or basic human decency. How absolutely revolutionary.
Where to listen to Criminal
Pod.link | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Overcast | Pocket Casts | Castro
Discover the best episodes of Criminal