Ashley Ray's Ultimate Scammer Show Weekend Ranking
TV reviews, TV opinions and also sometimes other opinions
At TV, I Say, we promise: there are no spoilers below. Enjoy.
I know: You’ve already read a ton about all of these shows. Some of them have been out for awhile. For a moment, everyone was focused on the trend of these “scammer” shows, but interest dwindled as each one concluded. But, I was there watching every single one. Still, people ask me: Which one should I watch? Since most people do not watch as much TV as me and have no interest in sitting through the story of Uber. With WeCrashed finally ending this week, I feel like I can finally give my overview.
First, I’ll share my parameters for The Scammer Show:
Based On A True Story (BOATS for short) - A proper scammer show has people who have been in on the scam from the beginning. Podcasts, documentaries, articles - anything with a paper trail viewers might already be aware of is fair game.
Impact Of The Scam (IOS for short) - Why do we care about this scam? Who did it hurt? Does it really have emotional, real world weight and consequences?
This is how I separated the true crime from That Real Scammer Shit. For example, you could make a case that The Girl From Plainville is about a girl who scams a town into sympathizing with her, but the show’s focus is more about the isolation of being a teenager. Real Scammer Shit is all about the scam, through and through.
With this in mind, I made my list, which is a bit longer than the shows that usually come up with this topic, but, hey, at least I watched all these shows?
The Dropout (Hulu)
The Thing About Pam (NBC)
WeCrashed (AppleTV)
Inventing Anna (Netflix)
Super Pumped (Showtime)
Dr. Death (Peacock)
Dopesick (Hulu)
Turning popular documentaries and podcasts into mini-series is nothing new, but these shows truly focused on the art of the con and the systems that encourage these cons from the start.
Now let’s get to rankin’ ‘em:
7. Super Pumped - Bad
Super Pumped is the rare series where it seems like everyone showed up to set with a different objective and script. The series is about Uber’s founder and the battle for the company. Frankly, it ranks in low on the BOATS scale: at this point, we all know Uber is a bad company. The company’s lows were well documented by tech writers at the time, so it also never feels like there’s a true attempt to cover one scam. It’s just a show about one guy who is super shitty and we already knew he was shitty the whole time.
Super Pumped also can’t seem to decide if it wants to praise Travis Kalanick or actually call him out. Quentin Tarantino does random narration that seems more like an attempt to make him look cool more than anything else. It tries to be clever like The Big Short, but its love for Uber and Kalanick is why it falls short. The show does take some time to look at those victimized by Uber, but in terms of the IOS scale, it ends with one message: people still use Uber, this asshole still got rich and got fired…so who cares?
Also, in terms of “Do they look like the real people?”: 0/10, Travis Kalanick was not hot. Uma Thurman simply does not look like Arianna Huffington. What is going on here? Coach Taylor, bring us home.
6. Inventing Anna - Good Bad
I still watch Grey’s Anatomy. I watched Scandal until the end. What I’m saying is: I love a messy, nonsense dramedy and Inventing Anna is exactly that. Is the show good? No, you’re better off sticking to podcasts if you want the real story of Anna Sorokin. Most people who watched it didn’t even think it was a true story. So, it ranks low on the BOATS scale.
It takes a lot of liberties with the facts and mostly, it makes no sense, but it is a lot of fun to watch. Everyone is having a good time! It’s also fun to just go for the ride because the IOS is so low: Anna scams some rich people and hotels who all get their money back! She goes to prison! The real scam is the bankers who allowed her to get by on a bad accent! If you just want fun, this is the scammer show for you.
Also, they did nail casting. Even though a lot of the parts are made up or completely changed, Anna and her friends mostly look like their originals.
5. WeCrashed - Bad Good
Unlike Inventing Anna, WeCrashed takes itself so seriously, it can’t be any fun. That’s a shame, because it’s really not an interesting story and the best parts are when people openly point out how silly Adam and his wife are. Obviously, WeCrashed is about the rise and fall of WeWork and Adam Neumann’s removal from the company. The series seems to know that’s a story that isn’t particularly unique anymore: we’ve had a reckoning with the VCs of the early 2010s who wasted their money and know unicorns aren’t real. Instead it tries to pivot to a love story: Rebecca and Adam were made for each other. This gives us a pretty low and uninteresting score on the BOATS scale: rich people fall in love and do dumb stuff with their money all the time.
Like Super Pumped, WeCrashed can’t tell if it loves Adam and Rebecca or if it hates them. It seems to think Adam was a real charismatic genius who was brought down by Rebecca. We also don’t get much of a return on IOS: Adam and his wife walked away with money and you feel bad for a few WeWork employees who should’ve waited until their stocks cleared before buying expensive things. The show ends on a note that tries to make a case for justice, but the real story takes away from that. It’s just another company that made some jerks rich.
What makes WeCrashed good though is its performances. Well, really, its performance. Anne Hathaway is genuinely the only reason to watch this. This is her achievement. When she’s onscreen, you want to watch every choice she makes. She’s the heart of the show and everything else just kind of fades away.
Oh, also, once again we have way too generous casting. The real Adam and Rebecca were not attractive.
4. Dr. Death - Good
Dr. Death was so early in The Scammer Show game, it was mostly overlooked as a scammer show. It meets the criteria though: podcasts and documentaries have been done on the case and the focus is absolutely about a guy who scammed the medical system for his own profit. It also looks at the terrifying fact that this could happen again in any other state! That’s giving us a big 10/10 on the BOATS score: after you watch, you will want to watch the accompanying documentary updates.
Dr. Death also knows its central character is a villain and gives us a team to root for in the people who try to take him down. It jumps between time periods and events to give a sense of Christopher Duntsch’s addiction, but it ends up muddling the story. It’s hard to really see the timeline of events, but the show does capture the victims impacted by Duntsch. Understanding just how badly Duntsch hurt innocent people who had full lives ahead of them is bad enough, but the IOS increases when the involvement of Duntsch’s friends is revealed.
And, well, none of these actors look like the real people, but oh well! Joshua Jackson does a wonderful job capturing Duntsch’s downfall summarized in his final mugshot.
3. Dopesick - Good Good
Some scammer shows are pure Emmy-bait and that is the case with Dopesick. Everyone is ACTING. These are PERFORMANCES. It’s almost so polished, its status as a scammer show is hidden behind the beautiful way it takes on addiction and grief. I mean, yes, obviously, those are very good things the show should be awarded for, but for me? I was amazed at how Dopesick got me deeply intrigued by the corporate ongoings of a pharmaceutical company. I can’t imagine it’s easy to create television out of “some guys in a boardroom talk a lot,” but Dopesick has a Mad Men-esque take on the Sackler family. The internal rivalries in the family and blatant ploys driven by profit make this a 10/10 BOATS scammer show!
Dopesick also fully understands its IOS and shows us all the ways the Sackler family are pure evil. By the end of it, you will want to personally box each one of them. They avoided consequences! The problem has only gotten worse! Oddly enough, Dopesick also uses a lot of time jumps to tell its story. It works better than Dr. Death, but mostly because they use these weird filters and bad wigs to tell you what time period you’re in.
Do they look like the real people? I don’t think it matters for a story like this. All I do know is that it’s on sight if I ever meet a real member of the Sackler family.
2. The Thing About Pam - Better
The Thing About Pam was also overlooked in the recent Scammer Show talks. This was probably because it feels more like a true crime-made for TV-drama, but that’s not the case. The Thing About Pam takes a full camp approach to what should have been a clear scam. It’s almost so unbelievable that Pam ever gets away with her crimes that the show has to use Keith Morrison’s narrations and comedic, staged retellings of Pam’s lies to really make its point: With some cookies and some crying, damn can a white woman get away with some ridiculous shit!
This isn’t just a true crime story, it’s about one woman weaponizing her whiteness to swindle neighbors, lawyers, DAs and police until she couldn’t anymore. The series looks at the scope of the legal system that let Pam thrive. The real story comes into play wonderfully and you’ll want to know more about this case and the legal teams that never faced charges for helping Pam.
Another reason the show was overlooked is Renée’s fatsuit. Like everyone, I hate the use of fatsuits and think they’re absolutely unnecessary. Understandably, a lot of people stayed away for that reason. HOWEVER, I will say, in this one case, the use of the prosthetics and fatsuit are used to show the radical plastic surgery Pam gets after she scams her way into some money. Any actor would’ve needed prosthetics and a suit to mirror Pam’s real changes over the story. Pam’s physical insecurities also play a major role in her motive, so is it totally justified? Maybe.
1. The Dropout - Best
Holy shit. Holy. shit. You guys, THE DROPOUT. Sorry, but Elizabeth Holmes really is that girl. This show has everything all the other shows are going for! WeCrashed wants a love story? No! The Dropout has the love story! Corporate greed and bureaucracy? Absolutely! The Walmart Guys are amazing! Systemic problems that persist to this day? Hell yeah! It’s a BOATS knock out and it feels like a pay off even if you’ve listened to every podcast and watched every documentary. Of course, it takes liberties, but they don’t feel outrageous.
And when it comes to the tone? Well, The Dropout is more like a villain’s origin story than a defense that tries to paint Holmes as a genius. The Dropout is Cruella meets Watergate and somehow, it works. Maybe it’s because The Dropout doesn’t take itself too seriously. With Elizabeth Meriwether in charge, this isn’t a surprise. The creator of New Girl and Single Parents, Meriwether knows how to let the most dramatic moments simmer into something even more unbelievable and funny. It naturally deserves every bit of Emmy attention Dopesick is trying so hard to get. Also, if you want “Boardroom Drama,” you’re getting that on top of the romance, the scam, the victims and the best musical score out of any of these shows.
Also, Michael Showalter is involved. Nothing about The Dropout coming together makes sense. Originally, it was supposed to star Kate McKinnon which would’ve been a very different, over the top comedy. With Amanda Seyfried, we get a brooding female-Joker type who really illustrates why people were so eager to believe a Young White Woman no matter how silly her actions became (Sorry, Anne Hathaway, Pam and Anna, but The Dropout has that arc too!).
And then, there is Naveen. Naveen Andrews as Sunny, Elizabeth’s love interest, is a revelation in what acting truly is. Much has been made of Andrews’ physical changes in taking on the character, but it goes beyond that. Andrews inhabits Balwani from his walk to the way his hand tremors when he’s angry. Balwani was always the missing piece of the Theranos story and Andrews fills in that blank with a definitive performance. His character also gives us a rare look at what it looks like when a person of color is at the heart of a scam: motherfuckers go to jail.
Finally, The Dropout featured 13 Reasons Why-Kid. I refuse to look up his name because I absolutely hate him from 13 Reasons Why. When he appeared on The Dropout, I audibly groaned. By the end of the show? I actually liked the 13 Reasons Why-kid. Can you believe that? Any show that can make me like the 13 Reasons Why-kid has to be a good show.
Ashley Ray's Ultimate Scammer Show Weekend Ranking
A stellar breakdown!! I also think the Dropout is an absolute masterclass in how to make Good TV from unicorn of an expert Liz Meriwether. She is doing some of best creative work of any showrunner in the game right now. I mean the jokes alone…
as a fat person who is vehemently anti-fatsuit, i must confess i still just had to watch the thing about pam anyway, and was absolutely hooked from start to finish. ultimately, they could have just gotten an actual fat person to play the role (i really didn't notice any stunning transformation post-plastic surgery, and thought the biggest transformation came when you saw Current Pam) BUT i feel still sort of okay about the whole thing because a.) it wasn't over the top and b.) it wasn't part of the comedy at all. i actually think renee's voice sounds way more like the real life leah askey, but even still she really embodied pam and brought her to life in other ways.
one thing that stuck out to me was that late in the plot russ is described as a tan/dark skinned latino, which confused tf out of me because the whole time i just assumed he was a white guy. yk, because he's played by a white guy. (who completely and totally embodied russ perfectly otherwise - i mean the voice even was spot on - and who i already loved from billions.) but still, that was weird.
anyway thanks for the great roundup! much of what i watch has ended or is on hiatus so now i have some shiz to fill in the gaps!