In a sea of documentaries and podcasts, 'Frontline' is still a standout

So much time is spent fighting the good fight against misinformation and propaganda that we forget just how much reliable, well-reported information is also out there, waiting to be watched or heard, if only the viewing and listening public could find the time to take it all in. Documentaries abound, as does investigative news programming, along with countless podcasts.

Part of the challenge for a consumer is to know, in advance, just what we're in for: Is it 10 streaming episodes of a docuseries? Twelve parts of a serialized podcast? Or a 2-hour film? A four-parter? A three-nighter? A tight, 12-minute segment? Tell me there's an end in sight and maybe I'll press play.

Somewhere between a "60 Minutes"-style news segment and a protracted docuseries, PBS's "Frontline" remains a master of the concise, deeply reported, topically intense documentary dive on a subject of social concern. In more than 750 episodes since it first premiered in 1983, "Frontline" routinely meets some of the most vexing and troubling news topics head-on. Subjects covered in 2020 include reports on the mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic, the election, voter suppression, political rancor, the rise of conspiracy theories, police reform, American poverty, the plastic recycling glut and the economic influence of Amazon founder (and Washington Post owner) Jeff Bezos. Viewers often forget how good "Frontline" is; TV critics do, too.

Tuesday night's episode, "Return From ISIS," is about an American woman, Sam Sally (also known as Sam Elhassani), who moved in 2015 with her Morroco-born husband, Moussa Elhassani, to Syria to fight with ISIS - bringing along her young son and baby daughter. The episode is a vintage example of a "Frontline" subgenre, which is to zoom in close on the personal story of someone caught in incredible circumstances; it's also a story a viewer might be vaguely familiar with, made all the more intriguing for the disconcerting details that wait under its surface.

British director, writer and producer Josh Baker worked for four years on "Return from ISIS" (a co-production with the BBC), first traveling to South Bend, Indiana, in 2017, where Sam's sister, Lori, was receiving increasingly desperate emails and texts from Sam, who says she was trapped in ISIS's Syrian stronghold of Raqqa. After Moussa's apparent death and the collapse of ISIS, Baker journeys to Syria to search for Sam and her children in a Kurdish-controlled detention camp.

He finds her in a state of baffled half-contrition, willing to share her story of her marriage to Moussa, whose increasing agitation led him to convince her to relocate to Syria so he could become a fighter in ISIS's self-declared caliphate. Sam's then-9-year-old son, Matthew (who was Moussa's stepson), was soon seen on ISIS propaganda videos; in other videos, he gamely assembles an assault rifle and demonstrates how he is ready to wear a suicide bomb belt to greet American troops, when and if they come.

Baker keeps whittling away at Sam's story, even after she is returned to the United States, where she is currently serving a 6-1/2-year federal sentence for aiding terrorists. Baker goes to Idaho to find Matthew, now 13 and living with his biological father, to see what the son has to say about his mother's actions. Sam's other three children went to live with her father, who also has doubts about her version of what happened. Some who knew Sam think she was just misguided, possibly coerced, or maybe just seeking a new adventure. Her actions, including flying to Hong Kong several times to hide money in secret accounts in 2014, tend toward something more conniving.

At its essence, "Return from ISIS" is about losing a close family member to radical notions and the revolutionary influence of others - a theme that might resonate in domestic American life at the moment. By the hour's end, it seems as if Baker has only begun to flesh out this story. Well, guess what? There's a companion podcast from BBC Panorama and BBC Sounds, titled "I'm Not a Monster." It's 10 episodes, because in today's nonfiction storytelling arena, more is always more.