The BEST episodes of Taboo
Every episode ever - ranked by fan votes!
Around the world there are people of different cultures who take actions and decisions that seem out of the ordinary to the average westerner. Considered taboo, these people and their stories are now being known.
#1 - Crime Scene
Season 3 - Episode 14 - Aired 1/27/2005
Included: a medical examiner autopsies human corpses. Also: a professional crime-scene cleaner in the Baltimore/Washington area; the Body Farm in Knoxville, where trainees observe human decomposition.
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#2 - Narcotics
Season 6 - Episode 4 - Aired 2/3/2010
Throughout human history, narcotics have been used as medicine and for pleasure, but those who use them can be stigmatized. When drug use is legal or accepted, is it still taboo? More than a century ago, Queen Victoria is said to have used marijuana to alleviate cramps. Today, patients in California are smoking it to relieve pain and other chronic symptoms. Deep in the Brazilian Amazon, a congregation gathers to drink a powerful hallucinogenic drug. Even children participate in the ritual.
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#4 - Marks of Identity
Season 2 - Episode 11 - Aired 3/15/2004
Ritualistic body modification in different cultures around the world is examined. Included: neck stretching in Thailand; samurai body tattoos in Japan; branding scarification in the U.S.
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#5 - Extreme Collectors
Season 9 - Episode 5 - Aired 7/15/2012
Since ancient times, humans have expressed their passions and their personalities through their collections. But when a collection crosses the line from passion to obsession, ignoring legal, moral and taste boundaries, then it becomes taboo.
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Season 2 - Episode 9 - Aired 1/19/2004
Entertainment in different cultures. Included: the training of a Japanese geisha; cross-dressing cabaret performers of Thailand; American circus sideshow performers who pierce their bodies with skewers and chew glass.
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#9 - Nudity
Season 4 - Episode 7 - Aired 9/5/2007
For some, shedding clothes is an act of expression, of liberation, even a means of worship. Wiccan witches perform rituals in the nude, or “skyclad,” to express their truest form and bring themselves closer to the natural world. Some devout Christians worship together naked in the name of the Lord. In a unique festival, one man is chosen to be the spirit man and must run naked to the shrine.
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Season 10 - Episode 9 - Aired 7/30/2013
American society places great value on physical beauty and those who achieve a firm and fit body. In Hollywood, Fla., Rajee is a transgender woman who took part in black market plastic surgery. In Massachusetts, Moustafa ("Mo") is known as the real-life Popeye; he has an obsession with growing his biceps. In Texas, Patrice has a condition that causes her to have severe reactions to chemicals, which forces her to wear a mask in public.
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Season 10 - Episode 10 - Aired 8/6/2013
In Florida, a man known as Dada 5000 is the self-proclaimed King of the Ghetto. Living in one of the most poverty-stricken and crime-ridden areas in America, he has turned his backyard into a savage fight club, and his bare-fisted business into an opportunity for glory and for survival. In Las Vegas, 500 miles of flood tunnels provide shelter for many of the Nevada homeless. These tunnel dwellers constantly face crime, violence and even the risk of deadly floodwaters.
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#16 - Beauty
Season 7 - Episode 1 - Aired 5/2/2011
In a youth-obsessed Western culture, some feel the need to obsessively diet, exercise and partake of beauty treatments or plastic surgery. However, some have taken these to fatal extremes. In Paris, we'll meet a young model with extreme anorexia, so fixated on her weight that at 55 pounds she died from the disease. In Texas, a woman feels the need to continually increase her breast size, all the way to a triple K cup.
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#21 - Teen Sex
Season 9 - Episode 4 - Aired 7/8/2012
Whether we like it or not, teenagers are having sex. How their families – and their societies – deal with the sexual development of young teens, in particular, their daughters, varies wildly according to their culture and beliefs.
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#22 - Addiction
Season 7 - Episode 3 - Aired 5/9/2011
Delve into the lives of those haunted by addiction. Meet a 15-year-old South Korean boy in rehab because he’s hooked on video games. It’s an addiction shared by millions of Koreans, even spurring the government to intervene with a specialized rehab facility. In California, a woman is addicted to anonymous sex meeting countless partners in parking lots to satisfy her insatiable appetite.
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#24 - Delicacies
Season 2 - Episode 2 - Aired 10/13/2003
In Iceland's traditional Thorrablot celebration in February, a chef prepares rotting shark meat, goat's head and other hard to swallow dishes for their traditional buffet. And in India, an Anglo-indian lady prepares a special luncheon that features a goat foetus stew called kutti pi. In Togo, the cameras follow hunters out into the hot wilderness to hunt a rat to be used in a stew and voodoo ritual. And finally in Taiwan, a chef prepares bull's penis soup to boost his diner's virility.
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#25 - Blood Bonds
Season 2 - Episode 10 - Aired 1/26/2004
Taboo looks at different family arrangement around the world including the matriarchal Mosuo tribe in China, criminal gang families in South Africa, and polyandry in northern India.
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