I was really enjoying Million Dollar Lover and saw that all episodes were available for free listening, but that just changed today when all episodes have moved behind the pay wall. This includes the episodes that I listen to for free earlier. Was this a mistake?

I havent watched the first two seasons but the way the host is biased in this season is insane. Dave has his flaws for sure, but he certainly doesn’t deserve the treatment he is getting from the community and his lover’s daughters. The way the host justifies the things the daughters do to the poor guy is insane. I think with a better host, this show could be something. If the roles were reversed and it was a younger woman dating an old, decrepit man (as we have seen countless times before), this wouldn’t even be a worthwhile story to sensationalize in most journalists opinions. Unfortunately since he the younger MALE partner he gets scrutinized far more heavily. I think we need to give Dave the same benefit of the doubt that’s given to the aforementioned women.

Some of the best storytelling in podcasting. I want more from this crew!

I binged the first two seasons and was charging into the next but this 3rd has large chunks of audio missing and the shows just end midway through. It’s a shame - a lot of work went into these and the subject matter is fascinating.

Great story telling with a human touch and element to it.

I only found this show in late 2023 and am listening in order while waiting for all of Million Dollar Lover to be released. Wow, Tunnel 29 is so gripping. I binged it all in one day!

Incredible. I still can’t decide if Dave was a villain or if he loved her. Her daughters not letting them say goodbye makes me really sad.

Early seasons were well-made investigative journalism but the current season, Million Dollar Lover, is just awful. The host is amateurish, unprofessional, and disrespectful to both the individuals she’s talking to and the seriousness of the subject matter. Zero research or investigation was done and the host engages in stereotyping as lazy as the writing. BBC’s podcasts are losing quality quickly.

This show just gets worse by the season. Why are the episodes 10 minutes long with 3 minutes of intros and extros not to mention the ads? If you can't make a good 30-60 minutes of content like normal podcasts then don't release them as frequently. And cut the repetitions in the beginning from the previous episode... you mean the previous 10 minutes? Most repetitive show ever with so little content I can't believe this is made by BBC.

What this show completely evades is the issue of prospective technology being available to an uberclass of wealthy, greedy megalomaniacs. Best outcome by their standards? Immortal rulers lording it over enslaved mortals: even a less pretty picture than their current machinations.

The first season covers the scandal in China where Bo, at one point the number two politician in China, who could have even replaced Xi as leader of the country, was brought down by allegations that his wife murdered an Englishman named Neil Hayward. Instead or rising to the top office, Bo and his wife were sentenced to life terms and will never be seen again, if they’re still alive. The story is extremely well told, it’s a entertaining, concise, but also covers the important parts of this story and goes beyond the simple narrative we originally heard to ask some very interesting questions. To be clear, none of this is remotely conspiratorial. The only real evidence for the standard media conclusion came from a transcription of a supposed confusion in a four hour show trial (reporters were not permitted to witness, nor see a tape of the confession). So hardly what I would call the definitive story haha. They fo a great job of talking about the standard narrative as well as a few other possibilities that could match the evidence we have. All of which are very interesting.

This could be one of the best BBC docs. Very interesting and well put together. It is gripping, thrilling, elucidating, and provocative. Anybody curious about the situation in East and West Berlin and the struggles of escaping will enjoy this.

I really like this series. The story is told quickly but the characters are developed. I have studied east asia history / languages my whole life (parents idea) and so the stories are fun to hear from BBC perspective.

Your Episode 1 is actually the second episode, and Episode 2 is the first episode. I had literally just started listening and it took me 3 seconds to notice that. 🤦🏻‍♀️

I’ve loved all four seasons. Please do make another. These stories are so engaging and relatable

Wha happened? Please tell me you are working on a new project 🥰😍

This is an incredible piece of work and highly recommend it

I love each season of this incredible podcast. If you haven’t yet listened to Intrigue: The Ratline- you’re missing out. Murder at the Lucky Holiday Hotel is amazing! All of it! Keep making excellent podcasts, BBC!!

Very well done, would love longer episodes with more excellent content and less outro music.

Well done. A great listen

Love the format, love the stories. Just the right amount of detail to give color and depth to characters, keeping the listener engaged but not bored. One of the things I love about the BBC is that the narrators and hosts are typically great characters themselves with personality and quirky humor, and this series is no exception. Give one a season a listen, you’ll soon be back for the rest of the series.

I was hoping for real journalism but this is biased propaganda. Booo

Intriguing stories! And very well produced! The first story, Murder in the Lucky Holiday Hotel, is especially excellent. British colonizers are the worst, no sympathy for the devil.

I’ve recently listened to The Ratline, Tunnel 29, and Mayday, and all were told with a great depth of reporting skill and balanced perspective. The production values also are excellent: sound places you at the scene and music adds to the element of intrigue and discovery. Thank you! I’m going farther back into the archive now to listen to more.

The season on the Ratline was absolutely amazing. A must listen! Well scripted and researched.

Comprehensive reporting. Enjoyed the story despite sad ending. TY social media for giving voice to all the propaganda ( heavy sarcasm). Everyone should continue to support humanitarian organisations based on your readings, beliefs, and facts.

Wow!!! I knew so little about the Syrian conflict, but this series hooked me with its heart, nuanced storytelling, and riveting pace. It's a very complex narrative and has inspired me to learn more about the country and its war. So compassionate and truly amazing.

found this podcast by accident and binged it. as a brit in the us, i have seen the power of misinformation on an epic scale, and the fact that people lose their lives because of it is heartbreaking. this podcast was captured all that and more.

Not going to mince words- this is giving me the chills. It is so frightening how propaganda fallout can manifest. Reminds me of the QAnon fright fest here in the US. Also of the Backstabbing for Beginners movie. Terrifying. What is it about organ harvesting conspiracy theories (read: lies) and lunatics?

Don’t waste your time on mayday

Phenomenal reporting. Extremely well done. Have listened to all 3 series and can’t wait for the next one. BBC knocks another one out of the park.

Dear Moderate Liberal Extraordinaire, Your review of this podcast has assured I will give this a listen, albeit I probably was going to do that anyway. However, you have charm and eloquence and a vivid memory with passion and respect... Please consider beginning a podcast of your own!! I sure as hell would listen to that. I wanted to read your book after that touching, amusing and heartfelt review. You have a captivating way with storytelling. Please don’t waste it; we are listening!! On an actual podcast-related note: I can’t wait to check this out but I’ll tell ya, I haven’t met a BBC4 production yet that I didn’t obsessively love. I’m your #1 Fangirl!

Perfect length. Perfect reporting. Perfectly binge-worthy.

Wow, I binged this. Absolutely absorbing.

Beautifully produced true story about the Berlin Wall. Totally love this high quality podcast. Compelling!

The reporters & narrators make it fun and intriguing even when the tales are serious and probably scary af. Understated bravery.

70 years ago, on 8 February 1950, the GDR created “The Firm” as it was known to those within it, to everyone else it was known as the Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (MfS) or the Stasi. Modeled upon the Cheka of the USSR, the Stalinist secret police, and headed for most of its existence by Erich Mielke, a known murderer of two Berlin police officers in 1931. It was the most effective, repressive and pernicious secret police the world has ever seen to date. Every escape through the GDR border to the West was a personal loss and failure for Mielke, and he learned well from every escape that was successful during his long tenure. At age 22, I was stationed at Tempelhof Central Airport (a US Air Force installation) in the American sector of Berlin from Nov 1988 to Jan 1992. I knew several people who fled from East Germany and lived in West Berlin during my time there. They all knew the stories of the escapes which succeeded, and the world knew of the failures that were made public. I still wonder about the ones that were disappeared, swallowed up inside the Stasi archive, yet to be discovered. The voiceless victims of that communist dictatorship. This podcast was a spellbinding story for me, one that I could listen to and place in geographical context because of my time in that city. Well researched, it was “just enough” to keep me intrigued for all of the episodes (which I listened to in a single day, I love binging on these). The story of these defectors has been told before but never in such a riveting way for me personally. My thanks to Helena Merriman and the BBC for that, it was storytelling at its finest. November of 1989 was an especially exciting time to live in West Berlin. It’s a place and time that I look back on with nostalgia, because it was a time of great hope. Watching the end of the Cold War happen on my watch has been one of the highlights of my life. As an American who was there to protect the West Berliners from Communist aggression intent on forcing them out, the fall of the Berlin Wall was the fulfillment of the Allied Forces mission there. My own unit motto, “De Defensores Libertais” (The Defenders of Liberty) was also a personal one for me, and I never forgot that mission while I was there, standing on the shoulders of my brothers-in-arms of all three allied military forces who fed that beleaguered city during the Berlin Airlift, and stayed to see that it remained free. One last thing, for those of you who are interested: Erich Mielke, who was the Sword and the Shield of the (SED) Party incarnate, was summoned to and addressed the Volkskammer for the first time on 13 Nov 1989 to explain himself. He told the assembled parliamentarians that “I love all - all humanity. I really do. I set myself before you!” amongst other outrageous statements. Their response, and this was to a man who held everyone in the country’s very existence in the palm of his hand, was laughter, boos, whistles and catcalls. That’s right, they laughed and jeered him off the dais. His hypocrisy was so great that these people, party members and former party members all, had had enough of him. It remains the single greatest (and finally, the most honest) moment in the history of the East German state as far as I’m concerned. All that power, the people he had murdered, and the ones whose lives he made a living hell, was at long last reduced to a punch line. A joke. A little man who plotted and planned to make every East German conform to the absolute hypocrisy that was East Germany on pain of imprisonment or death, was finally seen as the murderous, treacherous little man that he was. It must have been glorious for them. Best of all, it was televised for the entire world to see. He was tried by the Federal Republic in 1992 for his crime of the first degree murders of the police officers in 1931 (he had kept the evidence in his own safe to blackmail other party members) but served only a very short time (until 1995) before he was released for “health reasons.” I have no doubt he enjoyed getting the last laugh on them, as he collected a small government pension until his death in 2000. By all that is just and right, he should have spent the last years of his pathetic existence confined under the very same torturous conditions he subjected thousands of East German citizens to on his watch. Then cremated and his ashes scattered at sea, all traces of his existence wiped out in an act of damnatio memoriae. He was a sadistic torturer and murderer. He deserves no grave, only the condemnation of humanity.

Fabulous series. Intriguing, international and inspirational

Fascinating story. Highly entertaining journalism.

The epic crescendo of this story left me in tears. Tunnel 29 is a must-listen to story that does what good story-telling does: engages you with an almost impossible plot that you realize is not just historical, but continues all around us today.

Absolutely brilliant. I love it.

Absolutely riveting.

Tunnel 29 is some of the best radio storytelling I’ve ever heard

Irritating political message at the end, but you should know what you’re getting with the BBC

Love these!! Want more real life stories of intrigue like this one! Bravo everyone.

Love the content, but the episodes are too short — too much time recapping and looking forward at the end.

Really good stuff. Listen.

Absolutely fascinating, one of the better podcasts I’ve ever listened to.

What a shame that the Tories want to abolish the BBC. But it makes sense. People like Cummings and Johnson are afraid of quality journalism.

Any more?? soon please!