Multi-part dramatized retellings of scandals like OceanGate's Titan and the Lehman Brothers collapse.
American Scandal is a measured narrative history show built around dramatized scenes, researched consequences, and retrospective interviews. Recent episodes trace the Titan submersible disaster and the Twilight Zone accident through ignored warnings, production pressures, scrutiny, and the people caught inside those decisions.
PRESS PLAY
American Scandal is a narrative (not interview or panel) podcast built around scripted reenactments of real events, with a single narrator guiding listeners through each story. Episodes are released as multi-part serials, typically three to four installments per scandal, running roughly 34 to 39 minutes each. The sample set covers a business and technology disaster (OceanGate's Titan submersible and its founder Stockton Rush), a financial-crisis story (Lehman Brothers' 2008 collapse and the failed Barclays rescue), and a Hollywood production-safety story (the fatal 1982 helicopter crash on the Twilight Zone movie set). The scripts rely on named participants and documented details, such as OSHA whistleblower complaints, Coast Guard investigation findings, and courtroom or negotiation dialogue, with a standard disclosure that some dialogue is dramatized from historical research. Recurring throughlines include warnings that were raised and dismissed, leadership figures whose ambition overrode caution, and the institutional or regulatory response after something went wrong. There are no recurring interview guests; instead, historical figures like Vic Morrow, Dick Fole, and Royal Canadian Air Force search personnel appear as characters within the reconstructed scenes. The show suits listeners who follow true-crime and business-history podcasts but prefer produced narrative storytelling over conversational formats. Episodes include inserted promotional trailers for other shows in the same podcast network. Content is sourced from reporting, investigation records, and testimony rather than original interviews conducted by the show itself.
Made for: Listeners of true-crime and business-history podcasts who prefer scripted narrative dramatization over interview or panel formats.
What sets it apart: Uses serialized, scripted reenactments of a single documented scandal across multiple episodes rather than one-off interviews or news-style recaps.
Every scandal begins with a lie. But the truth will come out. And then comes the fallout and the outrage.Scandals have shaped America since its founding. From business and politics to sports and society, we look on aghast as corruption, deceit and ambition bring down heroes and celebrities, politicians and moguls. And when the dust finally settles, we’re left to wonder: how did this happen? Where did they trip up, and who is to blame? From the creators of American History Tellers, Business Wars and Tides of History comes American Scandal, where we take you deep into the hea...
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Research-based dramatization makes failures of judgment legible, while Lindsey Graham connects individual decisions to the institutions that permitted them.
American Scandal turns institutional failure into serialized docudrama, building its cases through reconstructed scenes, consequential decisions and the warnings people ignored.
A carbon-fiber hull cracks, and Lindsey Graham makes every ignored warning feel louder.
Press play if you want
Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A tense reconstruction of Titan's warning signs, where confidence keeps moving faster than the evidence.
American Scandal tracks Titan through a grim sequence of warning signs: a 2021 North Atlantic dive that barely gets below the surface, a rough recovery on the Horizon Arctic, the front titanium end cap coming loose, and a later crack so loud that people topside hear it.
A tense origin story about Stockton Rush, early submersible ambition, and confidence that already feels uneasy.
Titan Sub Disaster | Cyclops opens in 2006, before Titan is anywhere in sight, with Stockton Rush surfacing in Puget Sound from a 13-foot yellow mini-submersible he has built with parts and blueprints from London.
A sober wrongful conviction episode about panic, coerced statements, and the systems that fight being proved wrong.
American Scandal treats the West Memphis Three case as a wrongful conviction story shaped by panic, pressure, and police certainty. Lindsey Graham opens with the 1993 murders of three eight-year-old boys in West Memphis, then narrows in on how Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and…
A sharp post-conviction chapter on the West Memphis Three, where forensic doubt gives way to a fight over whether Damien Echols got a fair trial.
American Scandal picks up after the convictions of Jesse Miskelley, Damien Echols, and Jason Baldwin, when attorney Dan Stidham is still working unpaid and still convinced the case against the West Memphis Three is wrong.
A season-by-season history show pairing dramatized Rasputin and Salem narratives with historian interviews.
Greg Young and Tom Meyers explain how New York City's streets took shape.
Fashion historians April Callahan and Cassidy Zachary dig into garments, letters, and the people who wore them.
A cracking sound changes everything.
American Scandal’s "Titan Sub Disaster | Cyclops" follows Stockton Rush from a 2006 Puget Sound test dive to the 2017-2018 push to build Cyclops II for Titanic excursions.
This episode explores the aftermath of the fatal 1982 Twilight Zone movie helicopter crash that killed actor Vic Morrow and two child actors, focusing on a tense conversation between a producer and a production secretary seeking answers.
American Scandal’s “Twilight Zone Accident | Night for Night” opens at Indian Dunes on July 22nd, 1982, with Vic Morrow standing by a shallow river as John Landis’ Twilight Zone segment reaches its final night of principal photography.
American Scandal opens on July 15, 1982, with Dan Allingham, the unit production manager on John Landis' Twilight Zone the movie, traveling to Western Helicopters in Rialto, California.
A 3 a.m.
This episode examines the 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers, its devastating economic consequences, and the ongoing issues of banking industry power and lack of accountability with Stanford professor Anat Edmati.
American Scandal's "Lehman Brothers | The Reckoning" opens on September 15, 2008, with Secretary of the Treasury Hank Paulson at the Waldorf Astoria in New York City after a sleepless weekend.
American Scandal’s "Lehman Brothers | The Wolf at The Door" opens in early August 2008 at Lehman Brothers headquarters in New York City, where CEO Dick Fole paces outside a conference room while a Korea Development Bank deal is being negotiated.
This episode dramatizes the early morning of March 17, 2008, as Lehman Brothers CEO Dick Fould faces the fallout from Bear Stearns' collapse and the looming threat to his own firm.
This episode dramatizes the 2008 Congressional hearing of former Lehman Brothers CEO Dick Fuld, exploring the bank's role in the financial crisis.
This episode recounts the arrest of Patricia Hurst, a kidnapping victim turned bank robber, and her complex allegiance to the Symbionese Liberation Army.
This episode recounts the 1974 shootout between the Symbionese Liberation Army and LA police, focusing on Patricia Hurst's involvement and the aftermath.
This episode recounts the 1974 murder of Oakland school superintendent Marcus Foster by the Symbionese Liberation Army and the subsequent manhunt.
This episode recounts the 1974 kidnapping of Patricia Hearst, a wealthy heiress, from her apartment in Berkeley, California.
May 1993 begins with three murdered eight-year-old boys.
It's 1997 in Perigold, Arkansas.
This episode dramatizes the arrest of Damien Echols and Jason Baldwin for the 1993 murders of three boys in West Memphis, Arkansas.
Police discover the body of a missing eight-year-old boy in a creek in West Memphis, Arkansas, launching a murder investigation.
Host Lindsey Graham interviews Zach Goldbaum about his new podcast Lawless Planet, which investigates environmental crimes like the BP oil spill.
A dramatized account of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and efforts to rescue oiled pelicans in Barataria Bay.
An interview with Fred Bork about the My Lai massacre and its impact on the U.S.
This episode covers L.
This episode recounts President Nixon's hospitalization during the Watergate scandal, exploring his mindset and the political crisis.
This episode details Georgia Tann's decades-long illegal adoption network, the abuse and deaths of children, and the ongoing legacy of coercive adoption practices.
In 1946 Memphis, Georgia Tan, head of the Tennessee Children's Home Society, learns that a judge is investigating allegations of sick children at her organization.
In 1933 Los Angeles, Georgia Tan arranges a baby adoption with the Chapmans, hinting at a larger adoption fraud scandal.
In 1928, nuns at a Memphis orphanage hide children from a judge who facilitates their removal by a corrupt adoption agency.
A 1950 press conference announces a full-scale investigation into a black market baby adoption ring in Memphis, Tennessee.
This episode recounts Edward Snowden's 2013 escape in Hong Kong after leaking NSA surveillance programs.