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 - Return from ISIS: A Family's Story
Season 2020 - Episode 45 - Aired 11/23/2020
The extraordinary story of one family's journey from a small town in America to the heart of the Islamic State group and back.
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#3 - 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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#4 - Banking Secrets of the Rich and Powerful
Season 2020 - Episode 36 - Aired 9/21/2020
Panorama uncovers secret reports that expose how banks have failed to tackle crime. Reporter Richard Bilton also exposes the business deals billionaires would rather you didn’t know about. It’s the leak that reveals the secrets of British banking. Panorama uncovers secret reports that expose how banks have failed to tackle crime and how terrorists, money launderers and crime bosses are able to use the same banks as us. Reporter Richard Bilton also exposes the double life of the man who funded the Brexit Party, secret deals at the top of British football and the business deals billionaires would rather you didn’t know about.
#5 - 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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#6 - 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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#7 - Hunting the Neo-Nazis
Season 2020 - Episode 22 - Aired 6/22/2020
Panorama investigates a global network of neo-Nazis whose aim is to destroy society and discovers that it is recruiting in the UK. Last year, a 16-year-old boy from Durham became the youngest person ever convicted of planning a terrorist attack in the UK, prompting reporter Daniel De Simone to delve deeper into this shadowy world. Police say right-wing extremism is the fastest-growing terrorist threat in the UK and that the coronavirus pandemic may be leaving young people vulnerable to radicalisation. As Daniel investigates the Durham case, he notices certain names cropping up again and again. Working with investigative journalist Ali Winston in the US, he tracks down some of the movement's most influential figures and reveals how the network operates across the globe.
#8 - 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.
#9 - China's Coronavirus Cover-Up
Season 2020 - Episode 28 - Aired 7/27/2020
Did China hide crucial information about Covid-19 from the world? What began with a handful of mystery pneumonia cases in Wuhan late last year has now left more than half a million dead worldwide. Beijing says it has been open and transparent throughout, but former BBC China Editor Carrie Gracie investigates how it delayed reporting the initial outbreak and evidence that Covid-19 could be spread by people. It also silenced doctors who tried to speak out. Panorama also hears from one high-level insider who believes the animal market at the centre of the Wuhan outbreak should have been treated as a 'crime scene' and from experts who warn that this crisis may be a 'dress rehearsal' for an even more deadly pandemic in the future.
#10 - 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.
#11 - 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.
#12 - 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.
#13 - Race for a Vaccine
Season 2020 - Episode 49 - Aired 12/14/2020
The inside story of the development of the Oxford vaccine against Covid-19. Fergus Walsh scrutinises the data that has come out of the trials, and examines the vaccination's efficacy and safety.
#14 - 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.
#15 - 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.
#16 - 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.
#17 - Coronavirus: Destination New York
Season 2020 - Episode 19 - Aired 6/1/2020
Reporter Hilary Andersson travels from her home in Vermont to the dark heart of America's coronavirus crisis, New York City. Meeting despairing doctors, health workers and community activists, she asks why more than 16,000 people have died in a city with some of the best health care in the world. Donald Trump insists his own handling of the pandemic saved thousands of lives despite initially hoping it would simply go away of its own accord. But the city's leaders face criticism too. Joining food queues in the Bronx, Hilary discovers how the city's poorest have suffered the most.
#18 - Scandal at the Post Office
Season 2020 - Episode 20 - Aired 6/8/2020
Hundreds of postmasters were jailed or financially ruined after a computer system said money was missing from their branches. Now the Post Office has admitted that its Horizon computer system can make mistakes. But when did senior managers find this out, and did they continue to prosecute postmasters for stealing when they knew technology could be to blame? Reporter Nick Wallis investigates what could be Britain’s biggest ever miscarriage of justice scandal and uncovers evidence of a cover-up at the Post Office.
#19 - Stacey Dooley and the Lockdown Babies
Season 2020 - Episode 30 - Aired 8/3/2020
Almost a quarter of a million babies have been born in the UK since lockdown began. Stacey Dooley reports from Bradford Royal Infirmary to find out how the pandemic is transforming the way we deal with pregnancy and birth. She meets pregnant women terrified of getting the virus, women giving birth and new mums with coronavirus who have had to isolate themselves from friends and family. Stacey also speaks to midwives and doctors who reveal how their lives have changed in order to protect mothers, babies and themselves from the risk of infection.
#20 - Has Lockdown Changed What We Eat?
Season 2020 - Episode 31 - Aired 8/10/2020
The way we eat is changing – and the way we shop for our food is too. Almost five months after the beginning of lockdown, Panorama reporter Tom Heap investigates the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on Britain’s biggest manufacturing sector - food - and looks at how the way we shop, cook and consume has been transformed.
#21 - 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.
#22 - 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.
#23 - Is TikTok Safe?
Season 2020 - Episode 42 - Aired 11/2/2020
Tina Daheley investigates whether TikTok, the social media sensation of lockdown, is safe for the millions of young people who have signed up.
#24 - 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.
#25 - 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.