The BEST episodes of Channel 4 (UK) Documentaries season 2018
Every episode of Channel 4 (UK) Documentaries season 2018, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of Channel 4 (UK) Documentaries season 2018!
Channel 4, in common with the other main British stations, airs a highly comprehensive range of programming. It was established in 1982 with a specific intention of providing programming to groups of minority interests, not catered for by its competitors, which at the time amounted to only the BBC and ITV.
#1 - The Real Brexit Debate
Season 2018 - Episode 47 - Aired 12/9/2018
Krishnan Guru-Murthy chairs a live Brexit debate, with four high-profile politicians who represent the main divisions between MPs on Brexit and an audience with diverse perspectives.
#2 - The Foreign Doctors are Coming
Season 2018 - Episode 33 - Aired 8/7/2018
From Egypt to Brazil, doctors across the world leave to train and practise in the UK. Will their hard work earn them a pass and a job in the NHS? Having spent thousands travelling to the UK, the doctors find training much tougher than anticipated and the expectations of British patients are also a big surprise.
#3 - Saving Planet Earth: Fixing a Hole
Season 2018 - Episode 34 - Aired 8/18/2018
As climate change begins to feel like an impossible challenge, this documentary tells the story of the first man-made threat to the planet's environment - the hole in the ozone layer - and how the world managed to fix it. The scientists and politicians at the heart of the story reveal how they spotted the giant hole in the stratosphere and, against all odds, persuaded Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher to take action
#4 - Manhunting with My Mum
Season 2018 - Episode 35 - Aired 8/21/2018
TV presenter AJ Odudu and her match-making mum Florence embark on a mission to find AJ a husband in mum's native Nigeria. Drawing on the Nigerian tradition of parents arranging partners for their children, mother and daughter embark on a road trip around the country, with potential suitors including Nollywood star Timini, a besotted Prince Joshua, 34-year-old churchgoer KC and musician Isaac
#5 - Inside Alton Towers
Season 2018 - Episode 36 - Aired 8/23/2018
For nearly 40 years, Alton Towers has attracted visitors to some of Britain's most thrilling roller coasters. But in June 2015 something went very wrong. Two carriages collided on one of the park's most popular rides, injuring 16 people, five of them seriously. This one-off documentary goes behind the scenes as the UK's biggest theme park attempts to win back visitors with the launch of their multi-million pound new roller coaster, Wicker Man - the first new ride at the park since The Smiler crash. The film meets the roller-coaster junkies keen to try the new ride; and with exclusive access to the theme park, follows the team at Alton Towers as they battle with the challenge of building a wooden structure that appears to burst into flames. Can the theme park sell the new ride to the public, a sceptical media, and get Wicker Man ready for its big launch?
#6 - Married to a Paedophile
Season 2018 - Episode 37 - Aired 9/3/2018
Each week over 100 wives learn that their husbands aren't all they seem, as police charge ever more men for having child sex images. This programme provides an insight into affected families' lives.
#7 - The Extreme Diet Hotel
Season 2018 - Episode 38 - Aired 9/5/2018
“We will whip you into shape and you will say thank you and pay us [£750] for the privilege!” Not the demand of a dominatrix, but the greeting offered by formidable weight-loss guru Galia Grainger to new arrivals Kirsty, Tony and Liam at Slimmeria, AKA Britain’s poshest fat camp. Laughter, tears and real results.
#8 - Spying on my Family
Season 2018 - Episode 39 - Aired 9/6/2018
One family gets to see into every corner of each other's lives, with every social media post and text message laid bare and cameras tracking their every move
#9 - Massacre at Ballymurphy
Season 2018 - Episode 40 - Aired 9/9/2018
Massacre at Ballymurphy is a forensic exposé of one of the most shocking and significant events of the troubles in Northern Ireland: a series of killings the British Army stand accused of which took place over three days in West Belfast's Ballymurphy estate in 1971. Among the 11 who died were a priest who was attending another man who had been shot, but survived - and a mother of eight children. This important film presents evidence suggesting that, contrary to the claims of the army at the time, all of the victims were innocent and unarmed. The families of the dead accuse Britain's elite Parachute Regiment of carrying out the shootings, the same regiment which, less than six months later, was to shoot dead 13 unarmed people on what became known the world over as Bloody Sunday.
#10 - Guy Martin: The World's Fastest Van?
Season 2018 - Episode 41 - Aired 11/4/2018
Guy Martin rebuilds his beloved transit van and tries to break the van lap record at the dangerous and demanding Nürburgring in Germany. But the huge undertaking threatens to end in disaster.
#11 - Brexit: What the Nation Really Thinks
Season 2018 - Episode 42 - Aired 11/5/2018
As the Prime Minster tries to deliver a Brexit that works for the country as whole, we reveal what the British people think of the likely deal on offer. Channel 4 has commissioned the largest independent survey of attitudes across the whole of the UK conducted since the referendum. We asked 20,000 people drawn from every UK constituency for their views and put the results to politicians and those who stand to gain, or lose, most from the outcome; all before a live studio audience in Birmingham. Krishnan Guru-Murthy hosts.
#12 - Extreme Everest with Ant Middleton
Season 2018 - Episode 43 - Aired 11/11/2018
This documentary provides an adrenaline-fuelled account of Ant Middleton's attempt to climb the Earth's highest mountain. It documents the raw emotion and the impact on Ant's body and mind at every stage as he attempts to reach the 8848-metre summit and gets trapped in an unexpected and life-threatening storm. Climbing Everest has become a hugely popular, controversial and commercialised pursuit for thousands of people each year. But this popular bucket list adventure comes with serious risk.
#13 - Trans Kids: It's Time to Talk
Season 2018 - Episode 44 - Aired 11/21/2018
Psychotherapist and author Stella O'Malley reflects on the huge rise in numbers of young people embarking on gender transition, through the prism of her own experience as a child with gender identity issues. As a child in the 1970s and 80s, Stella was convinced she should be a boy, but is now a married woman with two children. She examines how the experiences and options open to transgender children today compare with her own childhood, and asks what person she might now be, had these choices been available to her.
#14 - John and Yoko: Above Us Only Sky
Season 2018 - Episode 45 - Aired 11/24/2018
John and Yoko: Above Us Only Sky is the untold story of John Lennon's album Imagine, released in 1971. The underlying message was one of radical engagement, as relevant today as ever. This film reveals the depth of the creative collaboration between John and Yoko and explores how the art, politics and music of the pair are intrinsically entwined. The album, and its iconic title track, shows the genius behind the music that defined a movement and marked an era. Above Us Only Sky recounts a story of hope, justice, empathy and love.
#15 - World's Weirdest Homes
Season 2018 - Episode 46 - Aired 12/5/2018
From a giant sandcastle and a farm that floats on the ocean, to the tallest single-family home on the planet, Charlie Luxton explores jaw-dropping homes, and examines why the people who live in them choose to escape the everyday world. The funny, heart-warming and insightful programme meets a Bible-obsessed Dutch entrepreneur, a group of scientists pretending they live on Mars, and a billionaire YouTube celebrity with his own zoo full of wild animals named after Versace, Gucci and Paris Hilton, revealing what it takes to live in a one-of-a-kind wonder.
#16 - The Shopping Centre: Artist in Residence
Season 2018 - Episode 32 - Aired 8/5/2018
Artist Rachel Maclean spends a month living in Birmingham's Bullring Shopping Centre, meeting shoppers and staff and making an extraordinary new piece of art
#17 - Paul Heaton - From Hull to Heatongrad
Season 2018 - Episode 48 - Aired 12/12/2018
Exploring the life and career of one of the UK's most successful songwriters - the man behind the much-loved songs of The Housemartins, The Beautiful South and latterly Paul Heaton & Jacqui Abbott
#18 - The World's Most Extraordinary Christmas Dinners
Season 2018 - Episode 49 - Aired 12/19/2018
This programme meets the people whose ambition and creativity have no limits as they strive to achieve the world's most extraordinary Christmas dinners. Nasa astronaut Anne McClain will be spending Christmas day on the International Space Station. Each meal that she has in space has to be carefully selected and prepared in advance, so she and the food technicians go through every meal while she's still on Earth, and hope that it tastes as good in zero gravity. On a nuclear submarine at the bottom of the ocean, 150 submariners tuck in to a Christmas dinner that was carefully prepared and stored before the sub set off. Their mission is so secret that on Christmas Day only six crew members have any idea where in the world they are.
#19 - Celebrity Call Centre at Christmas
Season 2018 - Episode 50 - Aired 12/19/2018
The Call Centre reopens at Christmas, as celebrities including Debbie McGee and Goggleboxers Steph and Dom tackle the public's queries - from festive dilemmas to affairs of the heart.
#20 - Courtney Act's Christmas Extravaganza
Season 2018 - Episode 51 - Aired 12/24/2018
Global drag sensation Courtney Act celebrates Christmas in spectacular style with Leona Lewis, Little Mix and Zara Larsson. Paralympic gold medallist Jonnie Peacock gets a full drag makeover, and in a UK exclusive Courtney is also joined by Drag Race icons Adore Delano, Bianca Del Rio and Darienne Lake.
#21 - Rob Rinder's Good Year, Bad Year
Season 2018 - Episode 52 - Aired 12/28/2018
End-of-year review show in which the man best known as ITV's Judge Rinder casts an unflinching eye, razor-sharp legal mind and acerbic tongue over the events of 2018, to determine once and for all whether the year will be chalked up as being a `good' or `bad' one. With the help of guests Anthony Scaramucci, Deborah Frances-White, Ed Balls, Clare Balding, George Osborne, Tez Ilyas and David Baddiel, Rob delves deep into all the news stories, people and talking points of the year. Uncompromising, perceptive and funny, he gives a fresh take on the big issues while also reminding viewers of the hilarious tiny details already forgotten in the post-Christmas haze
#22 - The Secret World of Emily Bronte
Season 2018 - Episode 53 - Aired 12/29/2018
Two hundred years after the author's birth, Lily Cole - an admirer of Bronte's work - explores her world and the groundbreaking novel she produced, Wuthering Heights. Given that Bronte had to publish her book under the androgynous pseudonym Ellis Bell, Cole goes on to consider the parallels in terms of contemporary women's ongoing struggle to achieve equal pay, recognition and opportunity in their chosen profession.
#23 - Big Ben: Countdown to New Year
Season 2018 - Episode 54 - Aired 12/30/2018
2018 Episode: As the clock tower is dismantled into thousands of pieces and sent for repair, new technologies uncover astonishing secrets of the past. But will Ben's bells be ready in time to chime for New Year?
#24 - Britain's Wildest Weather 2018
Season 2018 - Episode 55 - Aired 12/30/2018
At times funny and at times frightening, Britain's Wildest Weather 2018 tells the story of an incredible extreme weather year through first-hand accounts and eye-popping footage filmed by the people who were caught in the eye of the storms. From the infamous 'Beast from the East', which brought record-breaking snowfalls across the country, to our blistering summer heatwave and devastating rural and urban wildfires, this was a weather year to remember. Rural communities high in the Cumbrian hills were snowed in and London neighbourhoods faced terrifying urban wildfires. Experts explain where our weather comes from, how it affected us in 2018, and why.
#25 - Superkids: Breaking Away from Care
Season 2018 - Episode 56 - Aired 11/28/2018
Lemn Sissay meets seven young people who are in the care of their council and sets out to help them express their experiences through words and perform them to a packed theatre of decision-makers