The BBC’s controversial Jimmy Savile drama has been in the works for some years now, but they kept delaying it because there are a lot of i’s to be dotted and t’s to be crossed to ensure the show isn’t a complete PR disaster once it drops on October 10 2023.

Now, 2 weeks before it arrives, we finally have a trailer:

Naturally, the BBC has turned off comments on their YouTube page. The main issues people seem to have is that the BBC is exploiting Savile’s many victims by making this series, and also that they are hypocrites for even commissioning the program, given they missed several opportunities to report Savile while he was still working for the broadcaster.

Still, there is public interest in story which is why the BBC is going ahead with. Steve Coogan, 57, addressed the backlash in a recent interview with Radio Times:

“It is controversial and I understand that. The BBC are damned if they do and damned if they don’t, and I believe the correct choice is to be damned if they do. Broadly, it’s better to talk about something than not. The team had the right attitude and it was done with the cooperation of survivors. I think when it’s broadcast, it will vindicate itself.”

Well, if the survivors are OK with it, then why not? Not to mention the same people complaining about this show being made will be glued to their TVs when it’s released in a couple weeks.

I mean, come on. It’s Steve Coogan playing Jimmy Savile. Sounds like must-watch TV to me. The only part I find strange is that the series is titled ‘The Reckoning’, when there was no real reckoning for Savile as he passed away before he could pay for his crimes. Has there even been a more disappointing lack of karma?

Still, I suppose his legacy is in tatters. Even Amanda Holden has a gross story about the time he tried to seduce her when she was a teenager in hospital.