13 "Offensive" TV Episodes That Embarrassed Their Creators

In the carefully-controlled world of big-budget TV, networks and artists are forever held to the whims and tastes of their advertisers.

As such, if executives get even the faintest whiff of disapproval from those paying top dollar to flog their wares during their shows, you can guarantee they'll take drastic action.

And such is the reason why, despite these 13 TV series all being easy ratings hits, they had to ditch one of their episodes following outcry from the public, twitchy network bosses or even the showrunners themselves.

Now, it's worth keeping in mind that not all of these banned episodes are merely emblematic of knee-jerk censorship. Sometimes storytellers get things wrong tonally and creatively, while some of these bans were only temporary reactions to concerns of their era and have since been made available for fans.

All of them, though, stoked quite the furore upon their original creation, embarrassing the network or showrunner in the process. As a result, they were either never officially released to the public, or had the plug pulled following a controversial initial airing.

Each of them pushed the envelope on matters of taste and decency in one way or another, asking where the line lies and what content creators can get away with in the hermetically-sealed bubble of mainstream television...