Two miniseries about investigations - one disturbing, one hilarious

Two short miniseries that at first seem entirely different but that actually have a lot in common. First, the Erroll Morris series Wormwood, a documentary about the famous case of a CIA agent, Frank Olson, who mysteriously "fell" from a 10th-floor hotel window in NYC in 1952. Morris almost single-handedly created the contemporary investigative documentary style w/ his famous Thin Blue Line; in that style, this series uses a mix of documentary footage (home movies from the Olson family and many news clips relating to the case over 40 years), an extensive interview w/ the principal - Olson's son Erich, who has made investigation of his father's death his lifetime's work, or even obsession, as he concedes, plus interviews with several other participants including lawyers involved in the case and the journalist Seymour Hersh, and re-enacted scenes of what may (or may not) have happened in the hotel in 1952. The results is that we see the evolution of this case is it unfolds, and darkens, over time: At first in the 1970s, the CIA admits that the agency tested various Rx, including LSD, on unwitting agency members, including Olson. We assume at first that the drug screwed up his mind and he committed suicide. But as Olson's pursuit of truth continues, we learn more: the LSD admission/concession was itself a cover-up, as the CIA was involved in much more hideous schemes (I won't give it away). Like so many documentaries, this one ends w/ probability but still w/ some uncertainty - like life.

Similarly, the Netflix "documentary" series American Vandal ends with probability but some uncertainty; this series is high (sometimes low) comedy, a parody with direct-hit references to Serial and Making a Murderer (the sense that the authorities framed the suspect not because of this case but because he was a bad egg they wanted to remove, extensive and esoteric discussions of cell-phone "pings" and records, emotional statements by the narrator such as "But this is what keeps me awake at night ... "), but in this case the crime is ludicrous (a student, Dylan Maxwell, is suspended from high school, accused of spray-painting 27 "dicks" on cars parked in the faculty lot) and the investigators are earnest, talented, but still immature high-school kids who run the campus radio show. The kids set out to get "the truth," which they suspect will show Dylan's innocence (at least of this vandalism - he admits to numerous other "pranks"). The pursuit of truth leads the student journalists into some hilarious encounters as well as into some really tricky situations, particularly because they and all their peers are so imbued w/ technology and social media; every private moment and encounter seems to be recorded somewhere by someone, which leads to some embarrassing revelations, and the journalists pay the price. I wish the series were not so hard on the journalists - there's a sense that they have gone "too far," which I think is all part of the business - but where the series really pays off is toward the end as we watch the changes in Dylan's behavior and in his sense of himself as a student, person, and friend. It's not a sentimental ending, but it's open, a little disturbing, and seems quite real.