If you absolutely cannot wait for the Theranos movie

There’s a new Netflix series involving biotech, venture capital, and Faustian bargaining. It's called “What/If” and it’s about the founder of Emigen Molecular Sequencing who, despite her scientific acumen and noble goal of saving cancer patients, cannot seem to convince Silicon Valley’s ocean of vest-clad VCs to invest in her genomics company. (“I’m afraid Big Pharma would drown us in litigation,” says one, inexplicably.)

That’s when she meets the all-powerful investor Anne Montgomery, played by Renée Zellweger, who seems to be splitting the difference between “Basic Instinct” and “Devil’s Advocate.” Montgomery offers her the money she needs to keep Emigen afloat, but the deal has dark implications for her earnest and unfortunately sideburned husband, who is a pro baseball player-turned-EMT with a night job as a bartender.

Anyway, by the end of the pilot, there’s an embattled startup, a fractured marriage, and an unsolved assault. Your correspondent did not make it to episode two.