The original podcast juggernaut behind blockbuster movies Sherry And S-Town He’s back with a six-episode podcast about the most famous orca in history: Keiko’s star Free Willy.

Good Whale It tells the story of what happened after the 1993 hit movie. Because Keiko needed to learn how to be wild, she spent time being rehabilitated at the Oregon Coast Aquarium. Keiko’s story has other ties to Oregon: Free Willy It was shot partly in Astoria and in many parts of Portland, including downtown and Oaks Amusement Park.

Good Whale It comes out on November 14. The podcast is a project of Serial Productions and New York Times. Hosted and co-reported by Daniel Alarcón.

The first part reveals the cultural phenomenon Free WillyIncluding the public relations nightmare that arose when people realized that the right whale in the hit movie was dangerously ill and living in a small pool at a Mexico City amusement park. (The dorsal fin drooped sideways, “the orca version of the emo haircut,” as Alarcón puts it.)

What followed was an unprecedented global campaign to truly free Willy. But Keiko wasn’t a good candidate for rewilding: She had been living in human custody since she was 2 years old and had no orca friends. He no longer knew how to communicate with other whales or even eat live fish. These are skills that no educator in the world knows how to teach.

“At the center of it all is Keiko, who almost by chance has become a symbol of all whales, the health of the oceans and the concept of wildness,” Alarcón explains. Good Whale.

While everyone is experiencing this Free Willy influencer knows for the first time that Keiko’s signature song is Michael Jackson’s gospel-pop hit “Will You Be There” Good Whale it also includes a musical component. The series features an original song by EGOT award-winning songwriting duo Benj Pasek and Justin Paul (Dear Evan Hansen, The Greatest Showman). It’s a musical reverie of Keiko’s re-emergence into the wilderness, realized by Broadway star Jordan Fisher in a music video premiering December 12.

“There’s a lot of genre-switching going on. Good Whale“Serial Productions editor-in-chief Julie Snyder says in a press release. “Since Daniel Alarcón is a novelist and reporter, the podcast is a literary campfire epic, a scientific exploration, and then a little left turn with a little Broadway musical thrown in.”