People love to get outraged. They especially love getting outraged about mass media, like TV! Since anyone with a TV set can tune in and see primetime shows, it’s easy for a wide audience to see a controversial episode of a popular show and voice their collective outrage. Here’s our list of the most controversial TV episodes ever aired.
The Simpsons: Blame it on Lisa
One of the worst episodes of The Simpsons is also its most controversial. In “Blame it on Lisa,” the family goes to Brazil for some Simpsons nonsense. The country is presented in a bizarre way that is both stereotypical and highly uninformed. The writers seem to even get their stereotypes mixed up, conflating Brazil with Central America and generally showing that no one in the writer’s room had ever set foot south of the border.
Game of Thrones: The Rains of Castamere
You’ve heard about this one, whether you realize it or not. Game of Thrones is a notoriously brutal show in which bad things happen to good people, and nothing ever goes the way the audience wants it to. Such is the case when the show’s ostensible protagonists Robb Stark, his mother Catelyn Stark, and his wife Talisa Stark visit the Freys in “The Rains of Castamere” for a wedding. Walder Frey and his cronies unleashed a massacre so senseless and brutal that fans of the show were inconsolable. The sudden loss of Robb, Catelyn, Talisa, and their allies left the show with a sudden dearth of relatable characters, outraging fans (who hadn’t read the books).
Orange is the New Black: The Animals
Orange is the New Black received a strong fan following after debuting on Netflix. However, many fans threatened to give up on the show altogether following the events of the episode “The Animals,” in which beloved character Poussey dies. Her death was seen by many fans as deeply unfair, even within the context of the show’s often bleak worldview.
The Ellen Show: The Puppy Episode
Ah, how times change. In 1997, the most controversial thing about The Ellen Show was that it featured an episode where Ellen comes out as a lesbian. In the modern era, the most controversial thing about it is that it starred Ellen DeGeneres! Yeah, believe it or not, in the 90s a show could get low ratings and get canceled just because its lead actor came out.
Dallas: Return to Camelot
You know the joke about “it’s all a dream” being an easy cop-out for TV writers? Well, the writers on Dallas actually used this trope to undo Bobby’s death in the episode “Return to Camelot.” Needless to say, fans weren’t happy about being led by the nose on this one.
The Office: Diversity Day
The most controversial episode of The Office sees Michael Scott forcing his employees to act out racial stereotypes. In the classic form of The Office, this is meant to be cringe-inducing anti-humor that makes you squirm in your seat. It was also, true to the premise, quite racist. Suffice it to say, NBC doesn’t run the episode anymore.
Stranger Things: The Lost Sister
The worst episode of Stranger Things has Eleven suddenly joining the cast of what seems like another TV show entirely. “The Lost Sister” sees El joining Kali, another psychic who came from the same facility in Hawkins where El grew up. Kali and her weirdly edgy friends feel like they’re meant to be the protagonists of some spinoff show, but the negative audience reaction to this weird tangent of an episode precluded any chance of Netflix giving them their own series.
South Park: “200” and “201”
Comedy Central’s hit show South Park is no stranger to controversy. In fact, this list could be made up mostly of episodes from this series. The most notable controversial episodes, though, are “200” and “201,” which managed to offend members of pretty much every religion on the planet and nearly caused real-world conflict by almost going to air with a representation of Muhammad. The religious figure was, instead, covered by a large “censored” bar in the version that went to air.
Seinfeld: The Puerto Rican Day
Long before Jerry Seinfeld’s current bumbling attempts to disentangle his horrifying personal politics from his public persona, his show came under scrutiny for an episode called “The Puerto Rican Day.” At one point, Kramer accidentally sets fire to a Puerto Rican flag and then stomps on it to put it out, leading to accusations of cultural insensitivity. Rather than insisting that the scene be preserved as part of some grand artistic vision, NBC at the time had the decency to pull the episode from syndication.
Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood: Conflict
A famous lost early-80s episode arc from Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, titled “Conflict,” depicts some bizarrely dark storytelling for the kids’ show. In it, the Land of Make Believe is pushed the brink of literal, actual war. Yeah, kids watching along at home were mortified. You actually can’t even watch these episodes! They’ve never been made officially available after being pulled from syndication.
NYPD Blue: Season 10, Episode 16
NYPD Blue was notoriously controversial throughout its 11 season run in the 90s and early 00s. It nearly got slammed with a massive fine from the FCC for a 2003 episode, in which a character is depicted about to enter the shower. The scene in question wouldn’t raise any eyebrows these days, but it certainly drew the ire of the FCC back in the day.
Pokemon: Electric Soldier Porygon
What could possibly be controversial about Pokemon? Well, a first-season episode of the show featured a bright, flashing light that caused seizures in some photosensitive viewers in Japan. The episode was pulled from syndication and not aired in the US! It, of course, made for some sensational headlines during the height of Pokemania, with newspapers loudly crowing “Pokemon puts kids in the hospital!”
I Love Lucy: Lucy is Enceinte
If you ever want to know how far TV censorship has come, look no further than the I Love Lucy episode “Lucy is Enceinte.” The censorship was so strict back then that you couldn’t say “pregnant” on TV, and the show used the French word “enceinte” and Ricky’s humous “spectin’” (expecting) to get the point across.
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Star Trek: Plato’s Stepchildren
It seems downright unremarkable these days that a white man and a black woman would share a quick kiss on the lips in a primetime TV show. However, when the Star Trek episode “Plato’s Stepchildren” aired in 1968, the popular story is that it caused outrage when Captain Kirk, played by William Shatner, smooched Lt. Uhura, played by Nichelle Nichols. In fact, the BBC wouldn’t even air the show in the UK.
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Was the Kiss Controversial?
However, the outrage had nothing to do with the kiss, which the crew says was actually well-received. Instead, the BBC banned the episode because of its violent content—which was a common British complaint about the American-made show. Interestingly, in this era the British public largely viewed Trek as children’s programming, largely due to sci-fi being aimed mainly at kids in the UK at the time.
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