Dexter
‘Just too horrifying’
There are two specific scenes that have forced me to stop watching a show or movie, both involving infants. One is the final scene from the fourth series of Dexter, where he finds his wife’s murdered body in the bathtub and their young son sitting in a pool of his mother’s blood. As a parent, this scene was just too horrifying for me to contemplate. Cushla, 52, Dunedin, New Zealand
Spooks
‘I give fish shops a wide berth’
When Helen Flynn was dunked into the deep fryer, I could not believe what I was seeing. Horrific and unnecessary. Never watched another episode. I give fish shops a wide berth but am always pleased to see Lisa Faulkner [the actor who played Flynn] looking well and happy. John, 69, London
The Walking Dead
‘I struggled with nausea’
‘Beaten to a pulp’ … Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Negan with Lucille the baseball bat in The Walking Dead. Photograph: Gene Page/AMC
I had enjoyed much of the Walking Dead, and felt betrayed and sucker-punched by the the scene where they killed off Glenn. We held our breath for months to find out the identity of Negan’s victim, and were treated to the graphic image of a beloved character’s caved in head as it is beaten to a pulp with a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire. I didn’t sleep for days and struggled with nausea and shock. How can producers of a TV show expose their loyal viewers to such an image?
In the same way that I would never watch images of beheadings by a terrorist, to protect my mental health, I would never choose to see such a traumatic and deeply shocking image. I am aware of the difference between make believe and real life, but with this degree of realism the boundary is less evident. When the shock faded and I got back to thinking clearly, I was furious with the network that exposed me to trauma, suddenly blindsiding me and harming my mental wellbeing. Ben, 50, France
Black Mirror
‘Horribly off-putting’
‘Showing an actual body on TV should be avoided’ … Andrea Riseborough in the Crocodile episode of Black Mirror. Photograph: Arnaldur Halidorsson/Netflix
The episode Crocodile – where a person is effectively tying up loose ends by killing anyone who was a witness to a murder she committed, meaning she kills a blind baby in a cot (who obviously couldn’t have seen anything). Any time a child is killed in a TV show I find it horribly off-putting, more so now I have kids of my own. I didn’t switch off but I did look away and I didn’t forget. It’s such a sensitive and horrible topic, that I think anyone who goes down that route on TV needs to consider how justified it is as part of the plot. Showing an actual body on TV should be avoided unless it’s absolutely essential to the plot – and even then, when would it be essential? Natalie, 41, Sydney, Australia
‘I couldn’t get past it’
The first episode of Black Mirror with the pig. I know everyone says the show gets better after that, but I felt physically ill and couldn’t get past it. Elena, Geelong, Australia
Game of Thrones
‘An intentional choice to bring sexual assault into their show’ … Emilia Clarke as Daenerys with Jason Momoa as Khal Drogo in Game of Thrones. Photograph: HBO
‘It didn’t contribute in any meaningful way to the plot’
I don’t like the use of sexual assault as a plot device, it is unnecessary and incredibly distressing. As an example, in Game of Thrones the scriptwriters chose to deviate from the original book to make Daenerys’ wedding night a scene where she was raped. In detail. Despite this not contributing in any meaningful way to the plot and being an intentional choice to bring sexual assault into their show. Clare, 27, Sydney, Australia
‘The sheer horror of that scene stayed with me for weeks’
Like many people I was a big fan of Game of Thrones (sexism and poor latter seasons notwithstanding). I had read the books and loved watching them but the Mountain and the Viper episode definitely went too far. In the book, the titular fight ends with a character’s head being crushed by a forceful blow (gruesome by any standard).
In the show, they decided to up the ante and closely portray him have his eyes gouged out, screeching in agony, before his head is basically ripped apart via the eye sockets. The sheer horror of that scene stayed with me for weeks, even months afterwards, and I felt as though I had seen it happen for real. What lingered even longer with me, for years in fact, was the question of why the showrunners decided to portray such extreme violence? There is enough gratuitous brutality in the world, we shouldn’t poison our entertainment with it. Danny, 31, Ireland
Shōgun
‘It made me bawl my eyes out’
‘Needlessly cruel’ … Moeka Hoshi, centre, in Shōgun. Photograph: Courtesy of FX Networks
I couldn’t get past the bit in Shōgun in the first episode where a mother is persuaded to hand over her baby to be administratively murdered because of something his father had said. It made me bawl my eyes out, possibly because I’m pregnant, but it seemed so needlessly cruel. Michelle, the Netherlands
‘I feel ill every time I have to think of it’
I’m pretty careful about what I watch as I’m a highly sensitive person [HSP], but twice the content I watched in TV shows traumatised me. One scene was in Shōgun which showed a man being boiled alive. You had to hear it, you had to see it and I feel ill every time I have to think of it. The fact it was on wholesome Disney just added insult to injury. Content like this is soul killing. Una, 58, Toronto, Kanada
Outlander
‚Zu weit mit der schieren Anzahl von sexuellen Übergriffsszenen‘
Outlander ging zu weit mit der schieren Anzahl von sexuellen Übergriffsszenen, aber der letzte Strohhalm für mich war Claire (die Hauptfigur). Sie hatten Staffel um Staffel damit verbracht, jeden anderen Charakter in diese Position zu bringen, einschließlich des Hauptfigur Jamie, aber ihrer hat mich über die Kante gedrängt, weil es so überflüssig war. Es war so unnötig, bei jedem einzelnen so ins Detail zu gehen. Mitchi, 36, Madrid, Spanien
Squid Game
‚Ich konnte nur drei Episoden durchhalten‘
Die Geschwister meines Mannes verfolgten alle gespannt die erste Staffel von Squid Game und wir beschlossen auch, sie anzusehen. Ich konnte nur drei Episoden durchhalten. Die massiven Mengen sinnloser Todesfälle schienen von der Show fast glorifiziert zu werden. Ich kann immer noch nicht das Bild von maskierten Spielarbeitern loswerden, die Särge mit möglicherweise lebenden Opfern darin verbrennen. Mikaela, Frankreich