Title: The Pharmacist

Year: 2020

Genre:  Crime | Documentary|

Seasons: 1 |

Runtime: 215 min (Entire Series)

Created by: Jenner Furst, Julia Willoughby Nason

Starring:  Dan Schneider

7,9/10

In 1999, after losing his son in a drug-related shooting in New Orleans and lacking answers from police, a small-town pharmacist – Dan Schneider – beats the odds when he embarks on a dogged pursuit to find and bring his son’s killer to justice.

But months later, the ripple effects of his son’s addiction and tragic death would find him again when a troubling number of young, seemingly healthy people begin visiting Dan’s pharmacy with high dose prescriptions for OxyContin. Sensing a crisis long before the opioid epidemic had gained nationwide attention, Dan stakes a mission: Save the lives of other sons and daughters within his community. Then take the fight to Big Pharma itself.

A DECENT DOCU-SERIES ON DRUG ABUSE

Netflix has, as you probably already know, an ability to create a variety of crime series in documentary format. Some are good, like Don’t fuck with cats (2019) and this series with Dan, The Pharmacist tries it best to make you emotionally involved in this personal portrait of a private drug investigation of an unjustified murder of his son, back 1999. Although the other series manages to keep the true-crime essence on a higher level.

The content is violent and mature as the perspective from a griefing father makes a major impact of this short mini-series. This makes the perspective somewhat limited and expands first with the two last episodes. Once the killer is arrested, it goes prolonged and involves other authorities. The case itself is resolved, so the knowledge could go deeper with the case if it wasn’t the fixed perspective of Dan. It becomes more of distinct a reality by the third episode and the fourth and final episode.

After 20 years, drug abuse and addiction is clearly a domestic crime and problem globally. The use of OxyContin clearly showcases the addictive side of it. Especially, the negative side effect of the prescriptive drug. He succeeded. So you should ask yourself, why is this available now,  after 20 years? Some information is shortened and replaced with a simple narrative that the depth loses it the sharp-edged quality it could have been provided otherwise.

So within this effort, this mini-series does what it promises but it builds also up to something bigger. Something more meaningful and as it expands by the final episode, it gives that contrast away. The contrast that this is an issue that affects other families and authorities that investigate non-morally doctors that commit these crimes and are in just for the money.

It lacks the depth that you might seek for, yet its narrative provides you with the necessary information and facts to make the intrigues presented still entertaining throughout the four episodes. It has a good quality and the graphic won’t overwhelm you to a mature degree that you could find in other docuseries, in this genre. It’s a mature series that doesn’t have a large depth, nonetheless. It’s unfortunate that it reduces on a lower quality, making this docuseries just above a mediocre ranking. it does what it needs to but is it enough? It’s shortlived but could they explore this more?