10 TV Shows That Made You Answer Impossible Questions

Charlie Brooker is famously no fan of easy endings, and the twisted morality tales of his sci-fi anthology series Black Mirror often feature twist endings so cruel that even the writers of the Outer Limits would have to stand back and appreciate their inventive viciousness.

That said, a great many of these stories do end up giving their audience a relatively easy out, intentionally or otherwise, as the revelations they contain leave us far less likely to identify with the primary protagonist (looking at you, White Bear and Shut Up and Dance). It’s rare to find an episode which leaves the viewer wondering what they’d do if left in the main character’s shoes, outside of the recent Netflix film Bandersnatch, and even that was built entirely around the gimmick of forcing you into the star’s head.

However, the show’s pilot episode The National Anthem did manage to make viewers worldwide question just how they’d handle the dilemma faced by its main character, and folks, said dilemma is a doozy. Our nominal hero is the British prime minister, who is charged with doing something unimaginable as a sort of ransom in exchange for the return of a kidnapped princess.

Viewers everywhere struggled to answer “Would you f*** a pig on live television to save royalty?” and the show is too mean to offer an easy out from this one, leaving viewers gobsmacked by the eventual answer.