Pana-stinking-rama

How dumb is the newly dumbed down Panaroma? The answer is very.

Last week we endured a totally one-sided polemic against scientology, which was hugely disappointing as it would be fascinating to know exactly what’s going on there. But there was little chance of that with egocentric reporter John Sweeney putting himself at the centre of the film, choosing to focus on the group’s rather creepy reaction to his digs at their belief system. All he had to do was not use the term cult in their presence and the viewers could have been treated to a revealing insight into why loads of Hollywood stars have become members of the ‘religion’. Admittedly, the scientologist’s hounding of Sweeney was scarily intriguing, but if we could have found something out about scientology along the way, that would have been nice.

And now last night, we were treated to a Brass Eye inspired rant against wi-fi. Again, there was no effort made to offer a balanced argument, just one journalist trying to get a step up the career ladder by scaremongering on the subject of wireless networks. Yes, we don’t know what dangers are posed by the wi-fi traffic all around use but neither, it seems, did Panorama. Instead we had people wandering around Norwich looking at some sort of comedy Geiger counter, squealing “it’s gone red” every now and gain, plus such Chris Morris-isms as “children’s thin skulls are more susceptible to radiation”. In fact, I almost expected someone from The Day Today to jump into camera during Panorama’s visit to woman who two-thirds of the time can tell when a radio wave is being transmitted near her – especially when she led us to her bedroom which she has shielded totally with Bacofoil.

So Panorama has now stolen Tonight with Trevor MacDonald’s mantle of TV’s most downmarket scandal-raking, scare-mongering, agenda-not-setting documentary series. Everyone involved should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves.