Oil supply is not actually running out, this three-part series argues; it is just concentrated in places consumers would rather not think about. Director Bill Cran, for BBC Four's Storyville strand, moves past the usual Middle East focus to look at oil-producing regions in Africa, Latin America, and elsewhere, tracing what it actually takes to keep the pumps running: deals with governments accused of abuse, drilling pushed into wilderness, and the daily friction between oil companies and the people living on top of the reserves. The series pays particular attention to how that friction is shifting, with native populations increasingly able to organize, protest, and slow down or block extraction projects that once proceeded unopposed. Cran resists a tidy conclusion. Instead of blaming a single villain, government, company, or consumer, the film lays out how each depends on the others, leaving the ethics of the oil trade as unresolved as the geology is real.