With Scamanda, have we reached fraud-docuseries overload?

There’s nothing more all-American than a scam. In an era when pulling yourself up by the bootstraps through honest hard work and ingenuity is all but a fantasy, becoming a successful con artist is the new American Dream. Maybe that’s why we’re so fascinated with stories of those who turn moral bankruptcy into cold, hard cash. We love to hate scammers almost as much as we love to love them. Kicking back with a tub of popcorn as they get their just desserts is the perfect victimless crime.  

Over the past decade, American media has been making a mint off this national obsession. Just take a look at the success of scripted series like The Dropout, Inventing Anna, and WeCrashed and documentaries like Catfish, The Imposter, The Tinder Swindler, and Fyre Fraud. So the time was ripe for ABC News Studios’ Scamanda, a new docuseries based on Charlie Webster’s popular podcast of the same name. The show follows the infamous tale of Amanda C. Riley, a California woman who started a blog in 2012 documenting her battle against stage four Hodgkin lymphoma, miraculously birthing two healthy children along the way. Turns out that, though the pregnancies were real, the cancer sure wasn’t. 

Over the course of seven years, Riley solicited donations from hundreds of people to the tune of more than $100,000. Her web began to unravel in 2015 when investigative journalist Nancy Moscatiello, while searching for scams to cover on Crime Watch Daily, received an anonymous tip. Riley pled guilty to wire fraud in 2021 and is currently serving a five-year sentence in federal prison.

This first of Scamanda‘s four episodes (the only one made available to critics) leans hard into the “how could a pretty white Christian woman do such a thing?!” angle. While there are a dozen interview subjects featured, including Webster and Moscatiello, the star of the show is Riley in absentia. It’s no surprise that a woman egomaniacal enough to fake terminal cancer has put hundreds of photos of herself out there: wedding portraits of her and her husband walking barefoot along the beach; snapshots of her family with the kids’ faces blurred out; and, of course, the countless “cancer” selfies she posted to her blog. It’s filler of the most insidious kind, as if Scamanda is attempting to recreate the allure of Riley’s own social-media charm offensive.

Though the episode—titled, pretty tastelessly, “Stage One: Who’s Afraid Of Amanda Riley?”—eventually reveals the extent of its subject’s lies, the first two-thirds plays like a hagiography. Countless photos of Riley flash across the screen between talking heads describing her as “beautiful,” “vivacious,” “special,” and “charming.” “Stage One” features interview subjects close (and formerly close) to Riley telling their side of the story, including American Cancer Society volunteer Penny Fraley; members of the Family Community Church, the San Jose megachurch that helped to amplify Riley’s message; and a handful of friends. There’s even testimony from the family’s former babysitter.

But Lisa and Steve Barry, who used to be tight with the Rileys, serve the biggest pot of piping-hot tea. It’s easy to see why Scamanda leans on Lisa, who submitted that anonymous tip to Moscatiello after she realized that her ex-bestie’s story didn’t add up. But it’s also because Lisa’s got just the right sense of drama for television. In one of the episode’s most gasp-worthy moments, she recalls the day that Riley took a dip in her pool immediately after doctors supposedly drained fluid from her brain.

Despite this tasty dish, Scamanda seems to be just as taken with (and taken in by) Riley as her victims were, which is…not a great look for a docuseries! This is partly due to the fact that, visually, the creators had very little to work with aside from all those snapshots. So they turn to the hoariest documentary device of all: the reenactment. Dozens of them run underneath the voiceover, from cinematic moments like Riley collapsing to the floor at church to repeated sequences of two women chatting beside a backyard swimming pool and hands clattering across a keyboard. Scamanda also includes more dramatic music cues than an episode of Real Housewives. The overall effect is as cheesy as it is emotionally manipulative.

But the most journalistically irresponsible aspect of the episode is its depiction of the Family Community Church. Hell, “Stage One” is practically free advertising, painting FCC as a pious, loving organization and an innocent victim of Riley’s scheme. Large chunks of the episode cut between lovingly filmed slow-mo clips of an FCC service, all colored lights and stage fog, and two members of the congregation talking about how totally awesome it is. 

That means leaving out a whole lot—like the fact that FCC is part of the Assembly of God Fellowship, a massive religious conglomerate that oversees hundreds of thousands of megachurches across the globe. WAGF is a cult-like Pentecostal organization that encourages its congregants to contribute massive amounts of money. Member churches also propped up the presidential campaign of far-right demagogue Jair Bolsonaro; and that’s not even to mention rampant homophobia and multiple accusations of sexual abuse at the hands of clergy members.

I can’t speak to whether Webster’s podcast is as sensationalist as the docuseries. Considering that podcast listeners are generally a less guileless lot than network-TV viewers, I’m guessing it wasn’t. But judging by the first episode, I’m betting that Scamanda is better heard than seen.    

Stray observations 

• • Speaking of the cultiness of FCC, I’m kinda worried about Lindsey Wilder, one of the congregants who’s interviewed in this ep. With a zealous, glazed look in her eyes, she recalls the first time she walked into the church (as an atheist, no less) and was overcome by excitement at the sight of all the stage fog. “It was almost as if love was raining down like confetti,” she says dreamily. Later, she talks about how she came to believe that Riley was “anointed” by god. 
• • I’m admittedly curious to hear more about Riley’s husband, Cory, who seemingly props up his wife’s lies every step of the way. Did he get Lady Macbeth’d?
• • Among Riley’s wild claims, here’s the wildest of all: She told a friend that she became pregnant with her “miracle baby” while doing chemo and using an IUD. And according to her doctor, she no longer needed to be in treatment because her pregnancy was reversing her stage four cancer. Sounds legit.