The BEST episodes of Panorama season 2020
Every episode of Panorama season 2020, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of Panorama season 2020!
Panorama is a BBC Television current affairs documentary programme. First broadcast in 1953, it is the world's longest-running public affairs television programme.
#1 - Liverpool: Fighting Covid
Season 2020 - Episode 43 - Aired 11/9/2020
Jane Corbin finds out how Liverpool coped with restrictions due to Covid-19 infection rates, hearing from residents worried about the second wave, business owners pushed to the brink of despair, and those who say that living under tier three rules just isn't possible.
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#2 - Spying on the Scammers
Season 2020 - Episode 8 - Aired 3/2/2020
Panorama goes inside a criminal call centre to reveal how scammers cheat their victims. Hundreds of thousands of people fall victim to scams in the UK every year. Many are run from criminal call centres in India, where teams of fraudsters operate around the clock. Now Panorama has obtained hacked CCTV footage from inside one scam call centre that shows exactly how it works. Reporter Rajini Vaidyanathan tracks down the man behind the crime and the British victims who have been conned.
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#3 - Britain's Wild Weather
Season 2020 - Episode 48 - Aired 12/7/2020
The UK's weather is getting wilder. This year has been a record breaker, with unprecedented rainfall, sunshine and sustained high temperatures. It's a sign that climate change is already happening in the UK – and it's going to get worse. Justin Rowlatt visits communities around Britain battered by this year's extreme weather to find out how they have coped. With access to Met Office data and experts explaining how hot and wet every part of the UK could become, he discovers a future of more heatwaves, intense storms and little snow for most of us, and asks whether we are ready for the even wilder weather that is coming.
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#4 - On the NHS Frontline
Season 2020 - Episode 14 - Aired 4/20/2020
Four weeks into the government’s lockdown to save lives and protect the NHS, Jane Corbin reports from the frontline to tell the inside story of a Coventry hospital coping with Covid-19. She hears from doctors and nurses saving lives and dealing with death every day and asks if there is enough protective equipment and testing to help protect them from the daily risks to their own health.
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#5 - Amazon: What They Know About Us
Season 2020 - Episode 6 - Aired 2/17/2020
In a quarter of a century, Amazon has propelled Jeff Bezos from online bookseller to tech titan. He's the richest man on the planet, and the company he founded is one of the most powerful. Panorama investigates Amazon's rise to corporate superpower and asks whether there is a dark side to our love affair with the company. Former high-level insiders describe Amazon's huge, obsessive data-gathering operation, which enables the company to use what it knows about us to shape not only the future of retail but the workplace and technology too. On both sides of the Atlantic, politicians and regulators are beginning to question Amazon's power and to explore ways to rein it in. But some of Amazon's most senior executives say the company is a force for good, inventing new ways to serve customers and maintain their trust.
#6 - Lockdown UK
Season 2020 - Episode 12 - Aired 3/30/2020
Is the disease that’s threatening our families also destroying the economy? Panorama investigates the financial impact of Covid-19. The programme follows workers, supermarkets and manufacturers struggling to survive as food runs short, jobs are lost and panic sets in. Reporter Richard Bilton tells the story of the fight to save the UK's economy from an unprecedented threat.
#7 - The Corrupt Billionaire
Season 2020 - Episode 2 - Aired 1/20/2020
Leaked documents reveal how an impoverished country was corruptly exploited by its former ruling family. Reporter Richard Bilton uncovers the dubious contracts and loans that were used to get hold of some of the country's most valuable assets. He then follows the money trail back to the UK and discovers how one of the suspicious deals was run from an office in central London.
#8 - Has the Government Failed the NHS?
Season 2020 - Episode 15 - Aired 4/27/2020
Doctors and nurses have been warning for weeks that they don’t have enough protective kit to stay safe. So has the government let down the health workers leading the fight against the coronavirus? Reporter Richard Bilton investigates the delays and mistakes that may have put the lives of NHS staff at risk.
#9 - Coronavirus: The Week That Changed Britain
Season 2020 - Episode 11 - Aired 3/23/2020
It has been a week where life in Britain has changed beyond recognition. Schools have shut down, supermarket shelves have emptied, and we have all been told to stay at home where possible. Meanwhile, the number of deaths is rising, and hospitals are preparing for many more coronavirus patients. Panorama looks at how Britain is coping with its biggest crisis since the Second World War – and asks if the government has the right strategy to contain the virus.
#10 - Coronavirus: The Most at Risk
Season 2020 - Episode 13 - Aired 4/6/2020
More than one-and-a-half million people have been told they have to stay at home for at least the next three months because they are most at risk from coronavirus. The government has promised to do whatever it takes to support them. Richard Bilton hears from some of the most vulnerable about how their lives have changed and the people trying to help them.
#11 - Coronavirus: When Will We Be Safe?
Season 2020 - Episode 16 - Aired 5/4/2020
As politicians decide how and when to lift the lockdown, Justin Rowlatt reports from the scientific frontline, finding out how science can help us defeat the virus. With access to key drug and vaccine trials, he reveals a race against time to help save lives, and he asks when are we likely to be able to return to a normal life.
#12 - Mo Farah and the Salazar Scandal
Season 2020 - Episode 7 - Aired 2/24/2020
The inside story of the downfall of Alberto Salazar, who coached Britain’s greatest track athlete to Olympic glory. Reporter Mark Daly first exposed doping at Salazar’s Nike Oregon Project in 2015. In this investigation he reveals fresh allegations about the disgraced coach and raises new questions about his relationship with Sir Mo Farah.
#13 - Britain's Bus Crisis
Season 2020 - Episode 10 - Aired 3/16/2020
Across the UK, bus use has plummeted in recent years. Outside the capital, thousands of routes have been cut and bus pass use is down. The prime minister has pledged billions to revitalise the bus network, but is it enough? Panorama's Richard Bilton travels coast to coast across the north of England to see the reality of Britain’s battered bus network. From rising fares, congestion and abandoned services to hi-tech, green buses and overcrowding, Panorama finds out what people want to see changed.
#14 - Cashing in on the Housing Crisis
Season 2020 - Episode 4 - Aired 2/3/2020
Panorama meets some of the growing number of people living in temporary accommodation. With a shortage of council-owned properties, and a desire to keep people, especially young families, out of bed and breakfasts, local authorities are increasingly turning to the private sector for help. In 2013, a change in planning laws meant companies could buy up and convert old office blocks into homes without planning permission. Reporter Callum Tully explores life for residents living in these converted spaces.
#15 - Failed by the NHS: Callie's Story
Season 2020 - Episode 5 - Aired 2/10/2020
Reporter Ellie Flynn talks to the family of Callie Lewis, who killed herself while in the care of the NHS, and uncovers the extent of the service's failure to provide adequate mental health care. Callie Lewis was just 24 years old when she took her own life. She had been in the care of the NHS, but fell through the cracks of an understaffed and overstretched system. For the last 16 months Panorama has been filming with her family as they try to understand what went wrong. Shortly before she died, they learned that Callie was a member of an online suicide forum, where she found detailed advice on how to kill herself. As reporter Ellie Flynn discovers, Callie's death comes at a time when many people with mental health issues continue to complain about their struggle to connect with the services they need.
#16 - Belly Mujinga: Searching for the Truth
Season 2020 - Episode 39 - Aired 10/12/2020
The death of transport worker Belly Mujinga, following reports she had been coughed and spat on by a customer at London’s Victoria Station, was described by the prime minister as appalling and has prompted two million people to join a Justice for Belly campaign. A police investigation wasn’t launched until five weeks after the mother of one had died from Covid-19 and concluded there was insufficient evidence to charge anyone with a crime. Now, Panorama reporter Rianna Croxford goes back over the evidence and asks whether all available lines of inquiry were followed. She also examines claims that Belly could have been better protected at work and hears calls for the circumstances of Belly Mujinga’s death to be investigated at an inquest.
#17 - Has Covid Stolen My Future?
Season 2020 - Episode 41 - Aired 10/26/2020
Covid-19 has hit the whole country hard, but for the under-25s, the impact has been particularly difficult. In this programme, reporter Kash Jones investigates the long-term consequences of the pandemic on young people. He reveals exclusive research about the impact of Covid on them and the scale of the challenges ahead, meeting young adults trying to deal with the long-term impact on their education, job prospects and mental health. Many are now asking whether Covid-19 has stolen their future.
#18 - How to Save the High Street
Season 2020 - Episode 1 - Aired 1/13/2020
Business journalist Adam Shaw investigates the government's plans to spend millions of pounds reviving run-down town centres. For more than a century, our high streets have been key to our communities, but now, with one in ten shops sitting empty, they are in crisis. In this programme, business journalist Adam Shaw investigates the government’s plans to spend millions of pounds reviving run-down town centres. He finds high streets across the country looking at other ways to remain part of their community and learns that to adapt and change on the scale that’s needed, they will have to have more than just money.
#19 - The Million Pound Disability Payout
Season 2020 - Episode 9 - Aired 3/9/2020
The Department for Work and Pensions is meant to help disabled people get back into work. In this programme, reporter Richard Butchins discovers that it has lost more employment tribunals for disability discrimination than any other employer in Britain. He investigates why the DWP has paid its own employees nearly a million pounds of public money in both tribunal pay-outs and out-of-court settlements.
#20 - Britain's Killer Motorways?
Season 2020 - Episode 3 - Aired 1/27/2020
What would you do if your car broke down on a motorway with no hard shoulder? Many experts think you would be in danger. Hundreds of miles of motorways are being made 'smart' - turning a hard shoulder into a live lane. Reporter Richard Bilton speaks to the families of crash victims and asks whether Britain’s motorways are becoming death traps.
#21 - Lockdown: How Business is Coping
Season 2020 - Episode 17 - Aired 5/11/2020
Britain’s economy has been turned upside down by the coronavirus crisis. Many companies are struggling to stay afloat, while some have found themselves swamped by unprecedented demand. Panorama follows some of the small business owners and key workers struggling through the lockdown, from the courier whose job it is to collect suspected samples of Covid-19 to the funeral director working round the clock to collect and bury the dead.
#22 - Sport's Hidden Crisis
Season 2020 - Episode 40 - Aired 10/19/2020
Colin Jackson investigates the hidden world of eating disorders in British sport. Speaking to athletes from amateur to elite levels, he discusses his own problems with food when he was an Olympic hurdler and asks why those involved in sport are far more likely to have an eating disorder than the rest of the population. Speaking to the chair of UK Sport, Dame Katherine Grainger, he asks what the authorities should be doing to tackle the problem.
#23 - Escaping My Abuser
Season 2020 - Episode 32 - Aired 8/17/2020
Home isn’t always a safe place. Panorama investigates what the 'Stay at Home' pandemic rule meant for those trapped with an abusive partner. Reporter Victoria Derbyshire grew up with a violent father and understands the impact it can have on families. She reveals the scale of domestic violence at the height of the crisis and meets some of those who managed to escape during lockdown. And she asks if the government has done enough for those who were put in danger by having to stay at home.
#24 - Hostage in Iran
Season 2020 - Episode 33 - Aired 8/24/2020
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been held prisoner in Iran for more than four years after being convicted of trumped-up spying charges. Nobody knows how many other British citizens have been imprisoned by the Iranian authorities because the UK government refuses to say. Reporter Darragh MacIntyre meets the families of some of those who have been arbitrarily detained and asks whether the payment of a historic debt could set them free.
#25 - Fighting for an Education
Season 2020 - Episode 34 - Aired 9/7/2020
For any parent, making sure a child gets the best schooling is often a worry, but when your child has complex special educational needs and disabilities, it can cause real anxiety. As most children in England return to their classrooms, reporter Sean Dilley investigates the system for supporting young people with special educational needs. He meets families who, during lockdown, struggled without any support at all, and now, as their children head back to school, fear they may not get the right support to help them learn and stay safe in their classrooms. Sean discovers an adversarial system that was supposed to put the needs of children at its heart, but instead has created what some call ‘a treacle of bureaucracy’ for parents to navigate.