What to Watch Friday: Entertaining doc series looks at doomed LuLaRoe empire
Detainee 001 (9 p.m., Showtime) - A new documentary, directed by Emmy-winner Greg Barker, unpacking the mysteries surrounding the young American man, John Walker Lindh, found on the battlefield in Afghanistan alongside the people who were supposed to be his enemy. The story reveals how society views the “enemy from within” and the shifting allegiances during the war on terror.
LuLaRich (Amazon Prime) - This extremely entertainng four-part documentary series examines the multilevel-marking (MLM) empire LuLaRoe, and its unraveling. Known for their buttery-soft leggings, the infamous MLM company, started by Mark and DeAnne Stidham, became hugely popular by promising young mothers a work-from-home salvation. Capitalizing on the growing power of social media, LuLaRoe’s eccentric founders recruited an army of independent retailers to peddle their increasingly bizarre and defective clothing products. Through exclusive interviews, this series unveils how it all went wrong in a spectacularly weird — and comedic — fashion.
Malignant (HBO Max) - The latest movie from “Conjuring” Universe architect James Wan, in which a woman named Madison is paralyzed by shocking visions of grisly murders, and her torment worsens as she discovers that these waking dreams are in fact terrifying realities.
9/11 specials airing tonight
9/11: The Legacy (7 p.m., HISTORY) — This one-hour documentary provides an intimate look into the profound impact and legacy Sept. 11 had on America’s children through the subsequent days and the 20 years that followed, celebrating their courage, strength and resilience.
Race Against Time: The CIA and 9/11 (8 p.m., CBS/Paramount+) - A two-hour documentary featuring top officials and elite operatives inside the CIA bringing dramatic, exclusive, and haunting first-person accounts of their efforts to warn the United States about the potential of a cataclysmic attack orchestrated by Osama Bin Laden. September 11, 2001 marked the greatest failure in the history of the nation’s premiere spy agency, but also sparked what became its greatest success, helping find Bin Laden. For the spies inside the CIA, it was a race against time to get Bin Laden, and that race began long before 9/11 and ended long after. Emerging from the top-secret corridors of Langley and covert operations in faraway places, they come to tell their story – many for the first time. The documentary features interviews with Leon Panetta, former director of Central Intelligence; John McLaughlin, former CIA acting director; Jose Rodriguez, former deputy director of CIA Operations; and lead intelligence analysts Gina Bennett and Cindy Storer.
Rise and Fall: The World Trade Center (8 p.m., HISTORY) — Through a unique architectural and engineering lens, this two-hour documentary takes a chronological look at the conception, construction and destruction of the World Trade Center towers. It recounts the inspiring, true story behind the individuals who dreamed, planned and built a symbol of American strength and ambition. Step by step, viewers will witness the execution of this innovative and one-of-a-kind sky-high complex from early designs to overcoming technical challenges to its heart-wrenching collapse. The documentary covers the first terrorist attack on the WTC during the 1993 bombing and unpacks, in vivid detail, a timeline of how and why the building fell after terrorists flew commercial airliners into them on Sept. 11. With the use of historical elements and graphics, expert interviews and courageous first-hand testimonies of the two attacks, the documentary reveals the wonders and vulnerabilities of these unforgettable buildings.
Washington Week (8 p.m., PBS NC) - Yamiche Alcindor moderates a special panel commemorating the 20th anniversary of 9/11: Peter Baker (The New York Times), Martha Raddatz (ABC), Vivian Salama (Wall Street Journal) and Pierre Thomas (ABC).
20/20: Special Edition (9 p.m., ABC) - Two decades after 9/11, ABC World News Tonight anchor David Muir reports on how the day’s tragic events forever changed the world. Muir interviews survivors and family members who lost loved ones in the attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and United Flight 93 in Shanksville. The survivors share their harrowing personal stories of rescue and escape, including Florence Jones, who Muir has followed for years. Muir also spends time with families who lost loved ones, including the family of Flight 93 passenger Tom Burnett who, along with other passengers, helped stop an additional attack on our nation’s capital. The special will also revisit Joseph Pfeifer, the New York City Fire Department chief, who Muir has profiled, who led the command post at the north tower following the initial attack – and firefighters who survived the north tower collapse. Muir’s interviews include personal and moving messages to the American people from survivors and relatives of some of the victims on what they’re hoping Americans will do to honor those who were lost — 20 years later.
The Hunt for Bin Laden (9 p.m., Smithsonian Channel) - In 2011, Osama bin Laden, the mastermind behind the 9/11 bombings, was killed by American special forces, marking an end to the longest, most expensive manhunt in American history. This special lays out the 20-year search for the most wanted man on Earth, as counter-terrorism experts in the White House, the CIA, and the FBI divulge their firsthand accounts. This inside story reveals the presidential frustrations, missed opportunities, and vicious turf wars that tainted the operation right up until the night Navy SEALs ended Bin Laden’s reign of terror.
20/20: Special Edition with Diane Sawyer (10 p.m., ABC) - Twenty years ago, ABC News anchor Diane Sawyer sat down with young women holding their infants — who were pregnant when their husbands died in the attacks. The mothers she met were fresh in grief, holding new babies who often looked like their dads. Over the years, Sawyer and her team followed these families as they look at the world through their unique lens, with their children’s lives in part shaped before they were even born. Now, as those children approach their 20th birthdays, a special edition of “20/20” brings nearly 40 families together again. Has grief given them new purpose? Are some following in their fathers’ footsteps? A master class in resilience and hope comes from a group forever bonded by a national tragedy. With lessons to teach us after a year of national trauma, they hand us a blueprint for survival.
Dateline: NBC (10 p.m., NBC) - Lester Holt anchors this special “Dateline,” featuring interviews with the family members of Flight 93’s passengers and crew members. For the first time some of the children come together as they honor the lives of their parents and the courage that inspired the world.
Come From Away (Apple TV+) — We get the filmed version of the Tony & Olivier Award-winning hit musical that tells the story of 7,000 people stranded in the small town of Gander, Newfoundland, after all flights into the US are grounded on Sept. 11, 2001. As the people of Newfoundland graciously welcome the “come from aways” into their community in the aftermath, the passengers and locals alike process what’s happened while finding love, laughter and new hope in the unlikely and lasting bonds that they forge. This was filmed at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre in New York City in May 2021.
Some programming descriptions are provided by networks.
