The BEST episodes of Panorama season 2023
Every episode of Panorama season 2023, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of Panorama season 2023!
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 - Aftershock: The Turkey-Syria Earthquake
Season 2023 - Episode 5 - Aired 2/13/2023
More than 30,000 people are known to have been killed in the earthquake that devastated Turkey and Syria last week, and the death toll is expected to increase. With the help of teams from BBC Turkish and BBC Arabic, Panorama follows survivors and rescue workers from both sides of the border, and asks if more could have been done to save lives.
#2 - Ukraine's War Diaries
Season 2023 - Episode 7 - Aired 2/21/2023
When Russian forces invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Panorama asked five Ukrainians to start filming their lives. The result is a powerful documentary marking the first anniversary of the war.
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#3 - The Drug Wars That Killed Olivia
Season 2023 - Episode 13 - Aired 4/3/2023
When Olivia Pratt-Korbel was shot dead in her home, the nine-year-old became the youngest victim of Liverpool's drug wars. There have been dozens of deaths in the city as rival gangs fight for control of the lucrative drug trade. Reporter Bronagh Munro investigates how the city came to dominate the UK drug market and how organised crime brought death to Olivia’s door.
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#4 - Cops, Cash and Fraudsters
Season 2023 - Episode 10 - Aired 3/13/2023
Every year, scammers steal billions from the public, and fraud now represents around 40 per cent of all reported crime in the UK. Over the last year, Panorama has had exclusive access to Kent Police as their detectives try to catch the fraudsters. With more than 10,000 reports of fraud in the county last year, they estimate that only around 20 cases were solved. The programme explores why so few cases are prosecuted and shows how fraudsters target the vulnerable, often using sophisticated techniques to dupe victims into handing over their cash.
#5 - What's Gone Wrong with Our Housing?
Season 2023 - Episode 12 - Aired 3/27/2023
Millions of council houses were built after the war to help protect people from slum landlords. They used to be home to around a third of the UK population. Margaret Thatcher’s flagship right-to-buy policy boosted home ownership, but the council house sell-off is causing major problems 40 years on. Many former council properties are now in the hands of private landlords. In some parts of the country, rents are going through the roof, and slum landlords are back. Reporter Richard Bilton investigates what’s been happening, by telling the story of one housing estate in London.
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#6 - Debt Trap: Who's Cashing In?
Season 2023 - Episode 23 - Aired 7/24/2023
As the cost of living crisis deepens, Panorama investigates the booming debt management industry and the companies signing up people for Individual Voluntary Arrangements.
#7 - Beyond Human: Artificial Intelligence and Us
Season 2023 - Episode 25 - Aired 8/14/2023
Reporter Lara Lewington speaks to some of the so-called 'godfathers' of AI about their hopes and fears, and she meets researchers developing technology allowing computers to read emotions and minds.
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#8 - Is the Cloud Damaging the Planet?
Season 2023 - Episode 4 - Aired 2/6/2023
We all love the cloud. It stores our pictures and emails, it powers our internet searches, and it helps us stream movies and box sets. But out of sight, the cloud depends on processing factories - vast data centres that use enormous amounts of power and water. Every time we go online, we increase its carbon footprint. Richard Bilton investigates the growing environmental problem we’re all responsible for.
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#9 - Is China Watching You?
Season 2023 - Episode 21 - Aired 6/26/2023
From spy balloons to secret police stations and dissidents on the run, Panorama investigates China’s global surveillance operation.
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#10 - Prime Suspect: Who Took Madeleine McCann?
Season 2023 - Episode 34 - Aired 10/30/2023
It's been 16 years since the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. Richard Bilton travels across Portugal and Germany to find out more about the man suspected of abducting and killing her.
#11 - Putin and Ukraine's Stolen Children
Season 2023 - Episode 37 - Aired 11/23/2023
The Ukrainian government says that thousands of children have been taken unlawfully to Russia. Panorama investigates what happened to more than 40 children taken from a children's home in Kherson.
#12 - The Millionaire Who Cheated a Council
Season 2023 - Episode 24 - Aired 7/31/2023
A series of disastrous investments has left Thurrock Council effectively bankrupt. Services are being cut and council tax raised to try to cover the second biggest deficit ever run up by a local authority. Most of the council's cash was invested in one man's business. Liam Kavanagh promised his solar farms would provide a safe return, but his companies have been wound up and the council faces big losses. Reporter Bronagh Munro reveals how the millionaire businessman spent council cash on himself and left local people to pay the price.
#13 - Elon Musk's Twitter Storm
Season 2023 - Episode 9 - Aired 3/6/2023
Elon Musk made billions from electric vehicles and space travel, but when he bought Twitter last year its users were quick to predict its demise. Though reports of the social media site’s death appear to have been exaggerated, Musk’s takeover has seen thousands of company staff sacked and the reinstatement of users previously banned for breaking Twitter’s rules. Marianna Spring reports on the changes at the influential platform, speaking to insiders both in the UK and at Twitter headquarters in San Francisco, and investigates claims that Musk has created a culture in which hate and misogyny are allowed to thrive.
#14 - The NHS Crisis: Can It Be Fixed?
Season 2023 - Episode 1 - Aired 1/16/2023
The NHS is in a critical condition. As hospitals struggle with soaring demand, increasing waiting times and their biggest ever workforce crisis, Panorama investigates what can be done to fix the health and care system. We’re an ageing population, living with more long-term health conditions. After years of underfunding, the Covid pandemic has exposed the scale of the crisis. The BBC’s social affairs editor, Alison Holt, assesses the innovation and new ways of working that might offer the NHS the lifeline it needs. She also meets patients getting hospital treatment at home, and the doctors, nurses and care staff desperate for change.
#15 - Ultra-Processed Food: A Recipe for Ill Health?
Season 2023 - Episode 18 - Aired 6/5/2023
The UK is facing a chronic illness epidemic, with diabetes rates at record levels and cancers in young people rising steeply. Now, there’s growing evidence suggesting this could be linked to the food we eat. Ultra-processed convenience foods contain chemicals that UK regulators say are safe, but Panorama investigates emerging scientific evidence of a link between some of these chemicals and cancer, diabetes and strokes.
#16 - Forgotten Heroes of the Covid Front Line
Season 2023 - Episode 3 - Aired 1/30/2023
Health workers, hailed as heroes during the pandemic, say they’re being abandoned by the NHS and the government. Some are living with long Covid and say it’s having a devastating impact on both their personal and professional lives. For Panorama, the BBC’s health correspondent, Catherine Burns, meets staff struggling to return to work and reveals how some are now facing financial hardship and the prospect of having to retire early or, worse, being sacked.
#17 - The Billionaire Bishop and the Global Megachurch
Season 2023 - Episode 40 - Aired 12/11/2023
With more than 30 branches in the UK, the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God claims to transform lives. But Panorama uncovers allegations that members can feel manipulated into handing over money.
#18 - Dogs, Dealers and Organised Crime
Season 2023 - Episode 2 - Aired 1/23/2023
Panorama goes undercover to reveal the increasingly close relationship between organised crime and dog dealing. Reporter Sam Poling infiltrates a network of dealers making millions by breeding dogs to extremes. She exposes how some drugs dealers have switched from dealing narcotics to dealing dogs, and shows how the growing popularity of breeds like American and French bulldogs has led some breeders to resort to cruel and dangerous tactics.
#19 - Westminster's Toxic Culture
Season 2023 - Episode 22 - Aired 7/17/2023
Parliament is once again under fire over complaints about sexual harassment and bullying, with MPs suspended from their parties and claims of a toxic workplace culture going unchecked. Reporter Naga Munchetty speaks to staff members and MPs who give their accounts of sexual harassment and bullying. Exactly five years after parliament set up a new system to deal with complaints, many of those campaigning to clean up the House have lost faith in it, saying it is too slow and complex.
#20 - Care Workers Under Pressure
Season 2023 - Episode 41 - Aired 12/18/2023
Reporter Balagopal Balakrishnan investigates one of 15 care homes run by a company in North East England. He finds carers being charged thousands by an unscrupulous recruitment agency and nurses locked into lengthy contracts with financial penalties.
#21 - The Water Pollution Cover-Up
Season 2023 - Episode 39 - Aired 12/4/2023
Water companies are dumping huge quantities of sewage in our rivers every year. So why do some of the worst offenders have such good environmental ratings? Reporter Joe Crowley investigates.
#22 - My Teacher the Abuser: Fighting for Justice
Season 2023 - Episode 38 - Aired 11/30/2023
Since Nicky Campbell went public about the abuse he experienced at school in the 1970s, he's become the face of a campaign by former pupils. They are determined that one teacher should face justice.
#23 - Why are we Still Searching for Fossil Fuels?
Season 2023 - Episode 36 - Aired 11/13/2023
Richard Bilton investigates why oil, coal and gas exploration is booming when almost every country in the world has committed to limit the rise in global warming to 1.5 degrees.
#24 - The Abercrombie Guys: The Dark Side of Cool
Season 2023 - Episode 30 - Aired 10/2/2023
Panorama investigates allegations of exploitation and abuse at the top of one of the biggest fashion brands in the US. Former CEO Mike Jeffries transformed Abercrombie and Fitch from a failing retail chain to a multibillion-dollar empire and the epitome of cool. Now, after months of painstaking investigation, reporter Rianna Croxford speaks to men who say they were recruited into a dark world, created to satisfy the sexual fantasies of Mike Jeffries and his British partner Matthew Smith. Silenced for years by the fear of breaking non-disclosure agreements, these men describe feeling exploited and traumatised by their experience. One high-profile American lawyer has called for prosecutors to investigate
#25 - Surviving the Pay Squeeze
Season 2023 - Episode 11 - Aired 3/20/2023
Millions of people in the UK feel like they've had a pay cut, with wages often not keeping up with the cost of living. As public sector workers continue to take strike action, the BBC's Analysis Editor Ros Atkins asks why so many people are feeling so poor. He returns to Cornwall, where he grew up, to meet families struggling to make ends meet in what has become one of the country's most deprived areas.