“Hold high a sharp saber against corruption,” Mr. Xi intones on the show. “Corrupt elements will be investigated and dealt with as they’re uncovered. Corruption must be punished. Graft must be purged.”

But viewers of Chinese television already get to see plenty of Mr. Xi in each news broadcast. For them, the main interest in the series has been the sight of once-mighty officials humbled and imprisoned.

It is an established part of China’s political stagecraft to parade disgraced officials on the state news media. But this series shows more than usual. The dyed jet-black hair the leaders had while in office — the customary sign of vigor for the cadre — has often turned gray and straggly in prison.

Some seem truly anguished.

“The wrong lies with me,” Li Chuncheng, the former party secretary of the southwestern city of Chengdu, confesses in sobs. “What was I doing all this time? You know, based on the usual retirement age, I was close to the end of my career. But because of my own mistakes, I’ve ended up like this. What a tragedy.”

Before the tragedy, though, there was plenty of indulgence. The documentary serves, inadvertently, as a guide to how Communist cadres got away with playboy millionaires’ lifestyles while preaching clean living and probity.

Zhou Benshun, the former party secretary of Hebei Province, in northern China, would publicly inveigh against corruption and then return to the 16-room, 8,600-square-foot house he had commandeered inside a military compound. His staff there included two cooks from his native Hunan Province, who knew how to please his spicy palate, and two nannies, one of whom took care of his pets.

Zhang Huiqing, the wife of Mr. Bai, the imprisoned official, pressed businessmen seeking favors to add to her staggering collection of jade jewelry, including a bracelet that cost $2.2 million. By the time the investigators searched the home of the couple, they had amassed rooms of expensive jewelry and rare redwood.