What are embarrassing TV moments in an age where nobody actually gets cancelled and there's no such thing as bad publicity?

This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine.

It’s not often you feel sorry for Tom Cruise. Whether he’s diving headfirst into Paris’s Olympic stadium, defying gravity perched aloft Dubai’s Burj Khalifa or just donning a pair of Ray-bans to ride a motorbike along an ocean-front, he invariably epitomises cool, as if he were the love child of The Fonz and Huggy Bear – that is, with one exception.

In 2005, he turned up on Oprah Winfrey’s chat show, ostensibly to promote his latest film. Instead, intent on expressing his love for future wife Katie Holmes, he variously shook his host’s shoulders, fist-pumped the floor and finally leapt onto the couch. Were we all having what he was having? Not so much. Instead, Winfrey spoke for everyone when she pointed out, “We’ve never seen you behave this way before.”

In that brief, shining moment, Cruise “went viral” before it was a thing and proved he shares hallowed turf with Noel Edmonds (solemnly addressing his own Guardian statue in his recent documentary), Holly Willoughby (asking This Morning viewers, “Are you OK?” We’re fine!), Guy Goma (who went for a job interview at the BBC and ended up live on News 24) and Judy Finnigan (jaw-droppingly top-dropping at the NTA Awards).

All have given us TV moments to watch through our fingers but never fully turn away from. Now they’re among those featured in an irresistible 5 documentary series (most embarrassing of all, it includes your friendly columnist as a nodding head, but don’t let that put you off). But why can’t we get enough of such clips? What puts the “fest” in “cringe”?

It ill becomes us to dwell on the most obvious answer, everyone’s favourite German word schadenfreude, that is, pleasure derived from another’s misfortune, but it’s clearly a factor. Specifically, though, TV aims to offer us a world shinier, blander and more scripted than our real lives, so when humanity in all its foibles succeeds in breaking through, it’s both immensely jarring and wonderfully relatable.

It’s no fun when there’s a clear victim – a young Taylor Swift was ill-prepared for Kanye West to storm her stage at the 2009 MTV VMAs, and a pair of judges were sacked after they shredded a young contestant on New Zealand’s X Factor, shouting “You’re a laughing stock” – but for the most part, such moments offer a refreshing antidote to all the blandness we’re otherwise fed.

Except, these kinds of clips pretty much all date from TV times gone by. These days, there’s so much media on offer that very few what we used to call “watercooler moments” have the power to cut through the noise and stop us in our tracks.

While the nation can still pause for an irate BGT contestant to throw an egg at Simon Cowell, it’s no more eventful than the slurry of such incidents available on TikTok; it’s Beadle’s About on tap. Bloopers used to be edited out, saved for the director’s reel and revealed at the wrap party. Now they’re edited in, shared with millions and called “content”.

Something more profound, too, has occurred along the way. From politicians to presenters to fake heiresses to Tinder swindlers, very few public figures still remain in thrall to a single invisible referee that used to guide our behavioural norms; instead they strive for clicks, views and comments to measure success.

We live in an age where there really is no such thing as bad publicity, and nobody, but nobody, actually gets cancelled. That we’ve reached this state of affairs is far more embarrassing than Judy’s button-popping boo-boo or even Tom’s sofa-leap of love.

The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here.

The Most Embarrassing TV Guests airs on Saturday 6 December at 10.35pm on 5.

Check out more of our Entertainment coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what else is on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.