
What does it take for a TV show to get an episode banned? Small screen standards have, of course, changed a lot over the years.
Long gone are the days when the merest wiggle of Elvis Presley’s hips was enough to send entire nations into an uproar over such filth polluting the minds of viewers everywhere. Nowadays, one would hope we’re all rather more rational and less prone to fits of moral panic – although, sadly, this doesn’t always seem to be the case.
More often than not, if a TV episode gets pulled, it’s over fears of it causing offence – which, we should note, isn’t necessarily the same as the episode itself being deemed truly offensive. Although that can happen.
On top of which, there are from time to time rare instances in which both the broadcasters and the audience may have a legitimate reason to believe that an episode’s content could cause real harm.
Even in recent years, when TV content has become more permissive than ever before, there are still odd occasions when individual episodes are pulled off the air, and some of the most popular shows in recent memory have fallen afoul of the censor here and there.