The Sackler family and the opioid crisis

Matthew Broderick leads a large ensemble cast in “Painkiller,” the six-part Netflix series and the latest scripted effort to explore the corporate culture that led to the decision to market and manufacture Oxycontin, a highly addictive painkiller that spawned an opioid epidemic and claimed hundreds of thousands of lives.

The story of Purdue Pharma, its decision to specifically target regions of the United States where mining and logging industries created a ready market for pain relief and its ability to essentially bribe an FDA agent and get around the federal regulation of painkillers, was explored in the acclaimed 2021 series “Dopesick,” streaming on Hulu.

This new Netflix series is based on the book “Pain Killer” by Barry Meier as well as material in a New Yorker piece, “The Family That Built an Empire of Pain” by Patrick Radden Keef, explaining the history and behavior of the Sackler dynasty, owners of Purdue

Pharma.

Broderick plays executive Richard Sackler, who insulated his family from legal and social scrutiny with decades of art collection, charity work and institutional endowments. Uzo Aduma (“Orange Is the New Black”) portrays the investigator who began the legal battle against the seemingly invincible family company and corporate empire.

› Netflix also streams the documentary “Ladies First: A Story of Women in Hip-Hop.”

› Viaplay, the streaming service dedicated to Nordic content, begins streaming the original Swedish series “Limbo.” Based on a true story, it introduces an attractive group of uppermiddle-class friends well into middle age as they share a breezy gathering of cocktails and tacos. Over the course of a brief conversation, we discover who is single and at loose ends, who is married and/ or divorced and who may or may not be embarking, or at least thinking about, a new approach to their sexuality.

Into the mix comes a few teenage boys, the sons of respective couples, who, in typical teenage fashion, need to borrow money and a car from their mothers for their night out. Later that night, the entire social circle is thrown into crisis when they receive a late-night call urging them to get to the hospital, where one of the teens hovers on the brink of death after a road accident. As they gather in the waiting room, casual friendships and even flirtations give way to rage, guilt and recriminations. Over the course of six episodes, “Limbo,” peels away the secrets of each relationship, particularly between the two teens’ mothers. Presented in Swedish with English subtitles.

› CBS presents “The Challenge: USA” (10 p.m., TV-PG), a competition series featuring past stars of “Survivor,” “Big Brother” and “The Amazing Race.” It’s basically “Battle of the Network Stars” for unscripted series.

Neither actors nor writers and presumably unaffiliated with either SAG or the Writers Guild, such “talent” may begin to appear with greater frequency as the Hollywood strikes continue.

OTHER HIGHLIGHTS

› FIFA Women’s World Cup (8 p.m., Fox).

› On two episodes of “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” (NBC, repeat, TV-14): a confusing pattern doesn’t match the evidence (9 p.m.); teens taunt tourists (10 p.m.).

› Getting an injured Guillermo to the ER proves complicated on “What We Do in the Shadows” (10 p.m., FX, TV-MA).

SERIES NOTES

› It takes a village to spring Meemaw from the slammer on “Young Sheldon” (8 p.m., CBS, repeat, TV-PG).

› “Password” (8 p.m., NBC, repeat, TV-PG).

› “Generation Gap” (8 p.m., ABC, TV-PG).