The Big Picture with Kal Penn - Season 1

The Big Picture with Kal Penn takes us into the board room of "Crime Incorporated" to see what makes crime the biggest business in the world.  Sifting through the latest statistics, Kal searches out the deepest, darkest secrets of what makes the business of crime tick.  By mapping and visualizing the business of crime, we land in some very surprising places.

There are billions of dollars out there - you just have to know where to look. We're on a quest to dig up the goods, from the most remote ends of the earth to our own backyards. The Big Picture with Kal Penn takes you on the hunt for real treasure, that can be found anywhere from your own home to buried deep underground, if you just follow the data.

We travel to Hurley, Wisconsin, a town with the unlikely distinction of being the Strip Club Capital of America. Know where to find the fastest-growing group of sexually active people? We head to Delray Beach, Florida, where senior citizens are turning retirement communities into sexual meccas.And as more countries experiment with legalized prostitution, we journey to a drive-in brothel in Zurich.

When an idea goes viral, it spreads like a disease. When a sickness goes viral, all of us are at risk. Whether it starts with animals, humans or bombs, how can we improve our chances of surviving the next global pandemic? At the Centers for Disease Control headquarters in Atlanta, a researcher studies mosquitoes (the world's most dangerous animals) by letting them suck blood from his arms.

Traveling the globe to assemble this dream team, Kal finds best in everything from players to fans, even mascots. We'll see why one town in Louisiana sends so many football players to the pros, what makes cheering for your favorite Argentinian soccer team so dangerous and even what it takes to be a mascot. Kal will boil down all the numbers and statistics to assemble Team Big Picture.

The Big Picture delves into the realm of natural disaster, to see how some of the hardest hit places on the planet are faring against nature's worst elements.  Natural disasters thrash, twist, shake, drown, burn and explode 365 days a year.  Some of the worst disasters hit in heavily populated areas, begging the question: why would you live there?

In this episode we start in Silicon Valley and discover that the world's high tech hub has some surprisingly psychedelic origins. How did this suburban area south of San Francisco end up being the home of Google, Apple, HP, Intel, and dozens of other tech giants?  We may have hippies -- and their penchant for LSD -- to thank.

The question "What's for dinner?" has very different answers around the world. From snacks, to main courses, to drinks and even condiments, we're building a plate of the world's most popular dishes.

In more ways than we know, our lives are built on trash. Even though by definition it's the stuff we set aside, trash is actually central to our existence - whether we're building with it, reusing it or even eating it.

It's easy to think of space as something "in a galaxy far, far away," but there's a very thin line between Earth and space.

Think of the human body as a city unto itself, with buildings, utilities, traffic patterns and rules and regulations that make the whole place hum.

You'd think after thousands of years of exploring and mapping the earth that we'd know where everything is by now. Well, we don't. Not even close.