The WORST episodes of Taboo
Every episode of Taboo ever, ranked from worst to best by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The worst episodes of Taboo!
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 - Secret Lives
Season 8 - Episode 1 - Aired 1/3/2012
Do we really know who our co-workers, loved ones, and friends are? Maybe not as well as we think. Taboo opens a window into the lives of individuals leading a double life with surprising secrets.
#2 - Living with the Dead
Season 9 - Episode 1 - Aired 6/17/2012
Though many people are disturbed by the sight of dead bodies, there are those who deal with death as a matter of course—for occupational, cultural, and sometimes questionable reasons.
#3 - 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.
#4 - 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.
#5 - Extreme Rituals
Season 5 - Episode 13 - Aired 11/24/2008
Rituals that mark the passage from one phase of life to another are examined. Included: boys leap headfirst from a 70-foot-tall tower on an island in the South Pacific; a young girl tattoos her face before marriage in Papua New Guinea; a man in West Africa participates in a bloodletting ceremony that will ready him for priesthood.
#6 - Extreme Performers
Season 4 - Episode 11 - Aired 11/11/2007
Profiling performers who engage in extreme entertainment. Included: bullfighters in Mexico; members of a North American sideshow; a transsexual beauty pageant in Thailand.
#7 - Trials of Faith
Season 4 - Episode 8 - Aired 10/3/2007
Exploring how far some people will go to test their faith. Included: Christians who subject themselves to suffering similar to that of Jesus Christ in the Philippines; Thai believers who impale their flesh with various objects to get closer to Chinese gods that watch over their land; a group of U.S. Christians that put their lives at risk to affirm their faith.
#8 - Signs of Identity
Season 4 - Episode 4 - Aired 8/15/2007
Profiling young women of Ethiopia's Hamar tribe who voluntarily submit to brutal beatings to show loyalty to male relatives as they participate in a coming-of-age ceremony. Also: the Japanese horimono; branding.
#9 - Sexual Identity
Season 4 - Episode 3 - Aired 8/8/2007
Profiling people who push gender boundaries. Included: transsexuals in San Francisco; Thai katoey or “ladyboys”; Samoan fa'afafine.
#10 - Skin Deep
Season 4 - Episode 2 - Aired 8/5/2007
Spotlighting the Latmul tribe of Papua New Guinea and a coming-of-age ritual that requires teenage boys to have their skin repeatedly cut so that it resembles crocodile skin. Also: Maori tattoos.
#11 - Initiation Rituals
Season 4 - Episode 1 - Aired 8/5/2007
Different cultures' initiation rituals. Included: a Brazilian tribe's bullet-ant glove; an urban Australian subculture's practice of suspension from fishhooks.
#12 - Gender Benders
Season 3 - Episode 12 - Aired 10/18/2004
People who push gender boundaries are profiled, including transvestites and eunuchs.
#13 - Altered States
Season 3 - Episode 11 - Aired 10/4/2004
The use of mind-altering drugs is examined.
#14 - Freaky Remedies
Season 8 - Episode 4 - Aired 1/24/2012
Unconventional medicines are examined. Included: a treatment for asthma that entails swallowing a whole, live animal.
#15 - Odd Couples
Season 8 - Episode 2 - Aired 1/10/2012
Unconventional relationships are the focus. Included: a three-way marriage; a woman who dates a man nearly three times her height; a gay man who's married to a woman.
#16 - Strange Behavior
Season 9 - Episode 2 - Aired 6/24/2012
People with uncontrollable medical conditions share their stories. Included: a father whose Tourette's syndrome makes him an outcast; a 17-year-old stigmatized by self-harm.
#17 - Forbidden Love
Season 7 - Episode 6 - Aired 6/12/2011
Love can come in many different and bizarre forms. In Washington State, we meet a man with objectum sexual, who has an emotional, romantic and often sexual attraction to his car, named Vanilla. In Germany, we'll introduce you to the founder of the Objectum Sexual International Forum, who is in a loving relationship with the Berlin Wall. And we'll meet a married couple in California whose concept of monogamy has an odd twist she works as a professional sex surrogate.
#18 - Prison Love
Season 7 - Episode 5 - Aired 5/23/2011
Love behind bars with some of the most dangerous criminals on earth. In Texas, an inmate in solitary confinement gets married with the help of a radio host as surrogate groom, while the prisoner listens over the radio. In California, a pregnant woman has a white wedding at the county jail, with a glass wall separating the couple as they say their vows. In Tennessee, a man serving life for murder marries a woman he met over the Internet, but the marriage has little hope of being consummated.
#19 - Hoarders
Season 7 - Episode 4 - Aired 5/16/2011
In every city, there are hoarders. A Florida woman shares her house with nearly 400 pigs, as they continue to multiply. In Pennsylvania, a man's obsession with vinyl records has driven him to collect around two million records, with thousands more purchased every month. In England, we meet a male hoarder whose apartment is filled with clutter piled three feet high, and a female hoarder forced out of her home due to her inability to throw items away.
#20 - 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.
#21 - Fantasy Lives
Season 7 - Episode 2 - Aired 5/2/2011
People obsessed with their fantasy lives are profiled. Included: a grown man in California pretending he's a baby; a Japanese kickboxer dressing up as animated characters in the ring; a Florida father engaging in cybersex in his spare time.
#22 - 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.
#23 - Beyond the Grave
Season 6 - Episode 6 - Aired 2/17/2010
In an effort to cope with death, we shroud it in ritual and surround it with taboos. And what one culture sees as a normal way to deal with the dead, for another might be forbidden. In Nepal, a body is burned beside a sacred river. In America, a corpse is beautified for an open casket funeral. In Germany, human bodies are sometimes put on public display.
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#24 - Strange Love
Season 6 - Episode 5 - Aired 2/10/2010
Human relationships can bring safety, security and love - but sometimes they can also be taboo. Witness a real-life "Lars and the Real Girl" relationship, when a man in the United States falls in love with a sex doll. In Australia, meet a couple who stay faithful by having sex with strangers. In poverty-stricken Nepal, innocence is lost when a 7-year-old child is sold as a bride. Then, in the United Kingdom, a man defies one of his country's strictest taboos by marrying seven women.
#25 - 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.