From Morgan’s on-set wobbly to Meghan’s Oprah bombshell, TV prompted countless shocking moments this year. Here are the biggest
Last modified on Tue 28 Dec 2021 01.02 EST
Yes, we have chosen the best television of the year. Yes, we’ve celebrated how great TV can be at its finest. But where were the prank calls? The flouncing presenters? It’s time to turn our attention to the shocking, infuriating and stupid incidents that plotted the way through our television year. Here are the most controversial TV moments of 2021.
Anyone hoping Prince Harry and Meghan would maintain a diplomatic peace with the British royal family were immediately dashed when the couple sat down to talk to their neighbour and mentor Oprah Winfrey. The biggest takeaway from the event: Meghan claimed that a senior member of the family had openly wondered what skin colour their child would have. A book published this autumn pinned it on Charles, Charles has denied it and other insiders have whispered about a different culprit. Not that it matters – the impact was the thing.
Another nugget from the interview: during some of the worst issues with the royals, Meghan’s mental health suffered to the extent that she contemplated killing herself. This sort of thing deserves to be treated with consideration. Piers Morgan, meanwhile, spent the whole of the next day’s Good Morning Britain angrily accusing her of lying. The day after, as the fallout continued to rumble, his weatherman colleague challenged him. He reacted by turning bright purple and storming off set. Bit snowflakey, really.
In the final stages of this year’s Eurovision song contest, the lead singer of the victorious Italian entry Måneskin appeared to duck down and run his nose across the surface of a table. Social media went wild. Was he snorting cocaine? Amid Måneskin’s repeated denials, the Eurovision Broadcasting Union launched an investigation that saw them drug-test the band. And given that the tests came back negative, it would appear the Italian rockers were telling the truth. Nevertheless, good luck trying to change Twitter’s mind about anything.
Perhaps the most hilariously tinpot TV launch of all time happened when GB News, ostensibly a UK Fox News equivalent, revealed that it was held together by nothing but spit and sticky tape. The graphics didn’t work. Prank callers with fake names like Mike Oxlong and Jenny Taylier (say them out loud) repeatedly made it to air. Andrew Neil looked as if he was being forcibly kept in a sex dungeon. It was awful. Has it improved? That would require watching GB News, so nobody knows.
If you ever wondered how the British public would vote if they had to choose between the royal family and the BBC, here’s a pretty good indication. When Prince Philip died in April, the BBC respectfully cleared its schedules to discuss his life and the impact of his death. And people were furious. In total, the BBC received at least 110,994 complaints about their favourite shows being yanked off air. That’s more complaints than it has ever received about anything. Sure, Prince Philip was important, but you screw with The One Show at your peril.
Mike's interview with Insulate Britain spokesman Cameron lasts less than a minute.@Iromg | @InsulateLove pic.twitter.com/yJS7DheACq
Technically this is a radio moment rather than a TV moment, but I’m jiggered if I’m going to leave it out. In October, an Insulate Britain spokesperson appeared on TalkRadio and broke the mind of host Mike Graham. You’ve seen the clip a million times by now, but it ended with Graham claiming that concrete grows like trees, pausing for silent, befuddled seconds, shutting down the interview then grumpily stating that he never wants to talk to another carpenter in his life. The funniest, messiest brainfart that has ever happened in public.
I have to admit to being slightly terrified by this, since last time this paper mentioned Line of Duty in a vaguely negative way, Jed Mercurio went full-blown bananas. However, it’s fair to say that Mercurio’s mature climax to Line of Duty – a weary, beaten sigh at the realisation that the good guys will never truly win – was met by thousands of tweets all reading “EH? IS THAT IT?” By depriving the audience of a more instantly gratifying wham-bang ending in favour of something more nuanced, the Line of Duty finale qualifies as controversial. Please don’t tweet me about this, Jed.
This one, on the other hand, probably isn’t very controversial. In March, Ant Middleton was not invited back to appear on SAS: Who Dares Wins. Why? Well, who can say? Was it because he urged people to “carry on as normal” during the first wave of Covid? Was it because he called Black Lives Matter protesters “absolute scum”? Was it because multiple women filed complaints with their union, accusing him of making “lewd and suggestive” comments towards them during filming (which he claims was “military banter”)? It was one of them, given Channel 4’s response. It couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.
When Sex and the City sequel And Just Like That … was announced, one problem above all others elbowed its way to the front. Carrie Bradshaw was married to Chris Noth’s Mr Big. How are you going to make a fun TV show about dating when your lead character is married? The show devised an ingenious workaround: in the first episode, Big had a heart attack on a Peloton and died. Peloton’s stock crashed as a result, and it was forced to bring Noth back for a damage-limiting ad campaign. And then, two days later, Noth was accused of multiple sexual assaults (which he denies). It’s probably fair to say we won’t see him around again.
Perhaps the most upsetting moment in all of television this year was the Euro 2020 match between Denmark and Finland. Halfway through the game, Denmark’s Christian Eriksen dropped to the ground and, while his teammates sobbed with anguish, was revived by CPR. The incident was long and traumatic, and at no point did the cameras move from the sight of a man who – as far as anyone knew – had died. The BBC eventually apologised for not cutting back to studio sooner.
I mean, where to start? Gushing over the size of Kate Middleton’s waist? Describing Angela Rayner as Keir Starmer’s “best girl”? Asking the victim of a spiked drink what precautions she had taken to stop it happening? Calling a parenting expert “darling”? Ranting at a climate change activist until they left the studio? There may be more, but I got these from Googling “Richard Madeley under fire” for three seconds and it feels like enough.
True, it has a lot working against it, like shrinking budgets and booming competition, but BBC One’s Christmas Day lineup was particularly lousy this year. In fact, it was so similar to 2020’s lineup that it featured the same repeat of the same Vicar of Dibley episode. The schedule demonstrates an appalling lack of imagination and worse, forced us to actually talk to our relatives. Yuck.
