Dopesick

A doctor's reassurance, a sales target and a patient's pain become parts of the same story in Dopesick. The series dramatises the spread of OxyContin and the effort to investigate the practices surrounding it, moving between a community, a corporation and law enforcement.

Michael Keaton gives the local doctor's decisions a troubling credibility. The damage is more involving because the initial desire to help is understandable. Kaitlyn Dever's performance keeps the consequences close to an individual life rather than allowing the subject to become only a corporate argument.

Based on Beth Macy's reporting, the drama combines historical material with fictional and composite characters. Its value as television is in showing how information and incentives move between people who do not all know the same things.

It is heavy viewing, but the different strands reinforce each other rather than simply broadening the cast. The Dropout is a useful companion about medical claims and persuasive business stories, though Dopesick gives considerably more attention to the people living with the consequences.