The BEST episodes of Panorama season 2017
Every episode of Panorama season 2017, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of Panorama season 2017!
Investigative documentary series revealing the truth about the stories that matter.
#1 - Election 2017: What Just Happened?
Season 2017 - Episode 23 - Aired 6/12/2017
Theresa May's election gamble has resulted in a catastrophic outcome for the Conservatives, whilst Jeremy Corbyn has defied many expectations. Following the election that's changed the face of British politics, Nick Robinson asks how and why it happened.
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#2 - Back to the Falklands: Brothers in Arms
Season 2017 - Episode 22 - Aired 6/5/2017
In 1982 Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands, and a task force of over 100 vessels and 26,000 men and women sailed 8,000 miles from Britain to defend the islands. In a short but brutal war lasting three weeks, hundreds died on both sides, the Argentinians were defeated, and the islands were reclaimed. But what happened after the parades were finished and the flags were put away? In this moving film, Panorama uses animation drawn by a Falklands War veteran to explore how the trauma of fighting a war can continue to affect soldiers even decades later. The film follows a group of Welsh Guards whose lives were shaped by their Falklands experience as they return for the first time to the islands to confront their demons.
#3 - Trump's Fortress America
Season 2017 - Episode 27 - Aired 7/17/2017
Donald Trump fought the US presidential election with a promise to send millions of illegal immigrants back to Mexico. While the world focuses on his troubles in Washington, Panorama investigates how behind the scenes Trump is putting his controversial deportation plans into action. Reporter Hilary Andersson meets families split by immigration arrests and children of detained parents left to fend for themselves. It has been claimed that Trump's policies are dividing America. The programme hears from those who support the deportations and films with police in Arizona as they hunt down illegal immigrants at night.
#4 - Cadet Abuse Cover-Up
Season 2017 - Episode 25 - Aired 7/4/2017
As one of Britain's largest youth groups, the cadet forces are responsible for nearly 130,000 children in more than 3,000 clubs across the country. However, not all members have positive memories of their time within the ranks. They are victims of sexual abuse by their cadet instructors, and this abuse could have been stopped but wasn't. This investigation shines a light on a culture of cover-up across the UK which allowed abuse to continue. Reporter Katie Razzall reveals the deeply troubling evidence with serious questions now facing the government organisation in overall charge - the Ministry of Defence.
#5 - The Mystery of the Unknown Man
Season 2017 - Episode 4 - Aired 1/30/2017
The police and social services were baffled when an elderly man with an American accent was found lost on the streets of Hereford. He didn't know who he was or have any ID, and he was dressed from head to toe in brand new clothes from Tesco. He was in a nursing home before Panorama took up his case. Reporter Darragh Macintyre follows the clues to America and unravels the mystery of the unknown man - before confronting the person responsible for bringing him to Britain.
#6 - Behind Bars: Prison Undercover
Season 2017 - Episode 6 - Aired 2/13/2017
An undercover investigation reveals the reality of life behind bars in Britain's crisis-hit prison system. Footage recorded by a reporter also working as an officer at a Category C adult prison shows how inmates are effectively running the prison, with many of them off their heads on drugs and drink. It also reveals how prison officers don't feel able to maintain control and how they are at risk themselves. The programme also finds little evidence of rehabilitation or change, where some weak prisoners suffer, career criminals profit while jailed, drug addicts simply change which drugs they smoke, and the prisoners who could change their ways are being ignored. It comes as the government faces repeated warnings about the crisis inside Britain's prisons. There have been up to four riots in the last three and a half months, 354 deaths in prison last year and 6,430 assaults on staff in the year to September 2016.
#7 - Life in Immigration Town
Season 2017 - Episode 7 - Aired 2/27/2017
What happens when a community is changed by immigration? Slough has gone from a majority white British town to a place where they are the minority. Ten years ago, Panorama's Richard Bilton reported on how Slough was struggling to cope with its migrant population. Now he's back. He finds a town with a booming economy and new families arriving every day. But there is a darker side. White British people are abandoning Slough, and some foreign workers say the dream is over.
#8 - Westminster Terror Attack
Season 2017 - Episode 11 - Aired 3/27/2017
Last week, the UK Parliament came under attack in the most serious terror incident in the country for over a decade. Speaking to witnesses and the injured, BBC Panorama pieces together what happened during the attack that left five people, including the attacker, dead and many more injured. The programme also looks into the life of Khalid Masood to ask what motivated him to carry out this fatal terror attack in the heart of London.
#9 - Manchester Attack: Terror at the Arena
Season 2017 - Episode 21 - Aired 5/29/2017
One week on from the atrocity at the Manchester Arena, Tina Daheley reports on the attack targeted on the audience of thousands of young and teenage girls as they left a pop concert. She hears from concert attenders and parents, and investigates the community context and the extremist Islamist links behind the mass murder committed by the suspected suicide bomber, a 22-year-old man born of Libyan parents in the city.
#10 - Inside the Litter Police
Season 2017 - Episode 20 - Aired 5/15/2017
Panorama goes undercover inside Britain's litter police and reveals some of the methods behind the soaring litter fines - over 140,000 were handed out in 2015-2016. The programme hears from people who have been stung with fines for offences like pouring coffee down the drain, dropping tiny pieces of orange peel and even leaving out their weekly rubbish. The undercover reporter goes inside one leading private enforcement company, with over 50 council contracts, to capture the litter police in action and reveals the bonus system used to reward enforcement officers for the number of tickets they issue.
#11 - Terror on the Beach: Why Did It Happen?
Season 2017 - Episode 1 - Aired 1/9/2017
Panorama returns to the scene of the killing of 30 British tourists by a gunman on the beach at Sousse in June 2015. Reporter Jane Corbin investigates whether security concerns were ignored before the attack and if lives could have been saved on the day. She asks why there wasn't tighter security or a warning to holidaymakers to stay away from Tunisia after similar attacks. And should the Tunisian government, the British tour operators and the Foreign Office bear any responsibility for what happened?
#12 - Sleepless Britain
Season 2017 - Episode 8 - Aired 3/6/2017
Britain's kids are going to bed later and sleeping less, and hospital visits triggered by poor sleep have tripled in ten years. This is playing havoc with children's health and education and causing obesity, problems for parents and teachers, and even family breakdowns. In this film, reporter Jenny Kleeman finds that children's rocketing use of technology coupled with more lax modern parenting is creating an epidemic of poor sleep. Jenny visits a sleep charity in Doncaster that gets up to 200 emails a day from desperate parents. She meets Jayne, mum to a toddler who takes up to four hours to go to sleep, and follows them as they trial a firmer bedtime routine. At Honley High School in Yorkshire, Jenny investigates how poor sleep is affecting pupils' concentration and behaviour in class. Jenny also visits the sleep lab at Sheffield Children's Hospital, which has seen a tenfold increase in referrals in the last decade.
#13 - Revealed: Britain's Mental Health Crisis
Season 2017 - Episode 5 - Aired 2/6/2017
One month after prime minister Theresa May promised to 'transform the way we deal with mental health problems right across society', reporter Sophie Hutchinson investigates the troubled state of NHS mental health services. She hears the concerns of staff and patients at the first mental health trust in England to be placed in special measures, and learns of the deteriorating national picture for mental health care funding, exclusively revealing new figures that show a shocking increase in unexpected deaths of mental health patients.
#14 - London Tower Fire: Britain's Shame
Season 2017 - Episode 24 - Aired 6/19/2017
The fire that is believed to have started on the fourth floor of Grenfell Tower engulfed almost the entire 24-storey building at shocking speed. Firefighters battling the inferno say they have never seen anything like it before. Why were the fears of residents about fire safety apparently ignored and why did the flames rip so quickly through their council tower block? Richard Bilton investigates what happened that terrible night, as well as the grief and anger surrounding one of Britain's worst fire disasters in living memory, which occurred in one of its richest boroughs.
#15 - Marine Le Pen: Who's Funding France's Far Right?
Season 2017 - Episode 12 - Aired 4/3/2017
France votes for a new president in a few weeks, and far right candidate Marine Le Pen has her sights set on victory. She is trying to detoxify her party to distance herself from its racist and anti-Semitic past. However, Gabriel Gatehouse explores how the Front National's desperate need for money could be undermining this process. He meets fixers and insiders who have helped Marine Le Pen run her campaign and raise money from some controversial sources around the world.
#16 - Contaminated Blood: The Search for the Truth
Season 2017 - Episode 19 - Aired 5/10/2017
It has been called the worst treatment disaster in the history of the NHS. More than 2,000 people died and thousands more were infected with HIV and Hepatitis C after being treated with contaminated blood products. All the victims were infected over 25 years ago, but even now new cases are still being diagnosed. Survivors and their families are trying once more to persuade the government to hold a UK public inquiry. Panorama examines recently released documents, and asks if the government could have done more to save lives. The film hears the heartbreaking testimony of some of the victims and their families and explores the dilemmas of doctors who had to carry on treating their patients through the unfolding crisis.
#17 - Britain's Home-Care Crisis
Season 2017 - Episode 10 - Aired 3/20/2017
As hospitals struggle to cope with growing numbers of older patients, Panorama investigates the challenges facing those on the front line of a social care system buckling under the strain, and reveals a nationwide shortage of home-care workers. Filming in North Wales and Liverpool, reporter Sian Lloyd meets domiciliary care company owners struggling to recruit carers because they can't afford to pay them enough, whilst others are handing back council contracts because they can't make the numbers work. At the heart of this crisis are the people waiting for care - many of them in NHS beds, fit to go home, but unable to be discharged until a home-care package can be found.
#18 - The Big Bank Fix
Season 2017 - Episode 14 - Aired 4/10/2017
Following the acquittal of two former Barclay's traders, Panorama asks if the right people are being blamed for what has been called the biggest financial fix of all time. Piecing together explosive new evidence, which calls into question the safety of other convictions, Panorama reporter Andy Verity reveals that manipulation of the world's most important interest rate, Libor, was allowed and even ordered by people at the highest levels of the financial establishment.
#19 - Madeleine McCann: 10 Years On
Season 2017 - Episode 17 - Aired 5/3/2017
Madeleine McCann is the world's most famous missing person. Her disappearance ten years ago has been investigated by police forces in two different countries, but they came up with contradictory conclusions. So what really happened to Madeleine in the Portuguese resort of Praia da Luz? Reporter Richard Bilton, who has covered the story for the BBC since the first days, examines the evidence and tracks down the men British police have questioned about the case.
#20 - The Battle Against Legal Highs
Season 2017 - Episode 3 - Aired 1/23/2017
The drugs that were known as legal highs have become a global phenomenon. They have exploded in popularity in the UK, and deaths from these chemical compounds, designed to mimic illegal drugs like cocaine and cannabis, have tripled here in recent years. In May 2016, the government acted by banning these drugs with the introduction of the Psychoactive Substances Act. The north east of England is one of the worst-hit areas for drug addiction. Panorama spent six months in Newcastle to see how the city is tackling the problem and asks whether the new law is working.
#21 - Trump: The Kremlin Candidate?
Season 2017 - Episode 2 - Aired 1/16/2017
On the eve of the new president's inauguration, Panorama investigates Donald Trump's strange bromance with Vladimir Putin. John Sweeney - who has confronted both men in the past - travels to Russia, the United States and the battlefields in Ukraine to report on what's behind their mutual admiration. He investigates whether Russian cyber-warriors helped get Donald Trump into the White House and asks how safe the world will be if they stay friends - or if the bromance falls apart.
#22 - The Spy in the IRA
Season 2017 - Episode 15 - Aired 4/11/2017
In the murky world of British intelligence during the Northern Ireland conflict, one agent's life appears to have mattered more than others. Codenamed Stakeknife, Freddie Scappaticci rose through the ranks of the IRA to run their internal security unit. He was the IRA's chief spy catcher, in charge of rooting out those suspected of collaborating with the British. But all the time he was in fact working for the British intelligence services. Panorama reveals that a classified report links Scappatici to at least 18 murders. Some of these victims were themselves agents and informers. Scappaticci, the intelligence agencies who tasked him and the IRA to whom he also answered are the subject of a criminal enquiry. Panorama discloses how he kept his cover by having the blood of other agents on his hands, how the intelligence agencies appeared to tolerate this and why he has been protected for so long.
#23 - The Billion Pound VAT Scam
Season 2017 - Episode 45 - Aired 11/27/2017
Current affairs programme featuring interviews and investigative reports.
#24 - North Korea's Nuclear Trump Card
Season 2017 - Episode 36 - Aired 10/2/2017
Trump versus Kim - it is the most chilling nuclear stand-off for decades. No longer is the world asking whether North Korea can be stopped from developing nuclear weapons but instead whether it can be stopped from using them. As the two leaders trade threats, reporter Jane Corbin investigates how North Korea has dodged sanctions and thwarted international efforts to stop it becoming a nuclear power. She also asks how the two leaders can move back from the brink and how likely it is this could all end in nuclear war.
#25 - When Kids Abuse Kids
Season 2017 - Episode 37 - Aired 10/9/2017
Panorama investigates a hidden world of child sexual abuse, one in which children sexually assault other children. It's often referred to as 'peer-on-peer' abuse and can happen in classrooms and even in theplaygrounds of primary schools. In this part-animated film, children, interviewed anonymously to protect their identities, talk candidly about the abuse they have experienced and describe how they felt let down when they tried to report it. The programme also speaks to some parents who say they struggled to get help from schools, social services and the police. Using freedom of information requests, the programme reveals an increase in sexual offences carried out by under-18s on other children and a dramatic rise in sexual assaults committed by children even on school premises.