Analysis Of The Docu-Series Underworld, Inc.

The docu-series Underworld, Inc premiered in 2015, first in the United Kingdom then later in the United States. The series works backwards from consumer to source to look into illegal activities around the world. The series was produced in the United Kingdom by Wall to Wall Media Production Co., and was distributed by National Geographic. The series sixth episode, “Fake Pharma”, was produced by Laura Gamse, Christopher Lent, and James Adames, and it documents the counterfeit pharmaceutical market, the people who participate in the market, and those who try to stop the market.
The episode starts in the southwest United States and shows how a pharmaceutical dealer scams the insurance companies and pharmacies to obtain real pharmaceuticals with illegitimate prescriptions. Then, the episode moves to the United …show more content…
Afterward, the episode zooms into a homemade counterfeit pharmaceutical producer and supplier that consists of two people and a small apartment. This segment shows how “street-deal pharma” is made using store bought ingredients, dangerously risky recipes and sloppy practices. Finally, the episode zooms out to global proportions in order to showcase India, one of the world’s leading suppliers in the global counterfeit pharmaceutical market.
An underlying issue that is expressed by the documentary’s showcase of the counterfeit pharmaceutical market is the uneven economic development in the first world. The use of the word “pharmaceuticals” is deliberate by the documentarians and the subjects and stands to separate the counterfeit