Hour One begins with the epic story of the rise of modern finance. A revolution in banking begins at a luxury hotel in Boca Raton, FL, where a rowdy team from J.P. Morgan invents a new marketplace for trading risk. Correspondent Martin Smith interviews leading bankers, officials and journalists to explain how financial engineering on Wall Street brought the global economy to its knees-and the reverberations are still being felt along Main Street.

Then, in Hour Two, FRONTLINE producer Michael Kirk investigates how the country's leaders failed to prevent an oncoming crisis and ended up initiating the largest government bailout in history. Told by participants from Washington and Wall Street, the story includes inside accounts from the campaign of presidential candidate Barack Obama. By the time of his election, Obama is thoroughly up to speed on the disaster, but the question remains-what can he do once he takes office?