The Fifth Estate — Season 37
Where the story doesn't end with the headline
About this season
Each week the fifth estate brings in-depth investigations that matter to Canadians – delivering a dazzling parade of political leaders, controversial characters and ordinary people whose lives were touched by triumph or tragedy.
Episodes (25)
1. Truth and Lies: The Last Days of Osama Bin Laden
Aired 9 September 2011 • 60 min
The fifth estate reveals new information that challenges the official story of the mission to shoot and kill the world's number one terrorist.
2. Swissair 111: The Untold Story
Aired 16 September 2011 • 60 min
Years later, the crash of Swissair 111 in 1998 remains one of Canada's greatest tragedies. Now new disturbing information from an insider who suspected it might have been murder, raising questions about the official cause of the disaster.
3. Gatti-vs-Gatti
Aired 23 September 2011 • 60 min
It began with what was supposed to be a second honeymoon, a chance for two tempestuous people -- the world boxing champion from Montreal and his beautiful Brazilian wife -- to heal their troubled marriage. It ended in Brazil with one of them dead and a question.
4. Mayday
Aired 30 September 2011 • 60 min
After a decade of disasters at sea, the fifth estate investigates Canada's troubled Search and Rescue fleet and hears from the survivors who lived to tell, and the insiders who tried to save what was once a organization admired around the world.
5. Colonel Gadhafi: Palace of Secrets
Aired 7 October 2011 • 60 min
Inside the brutal secret world of Moammar Gadhafi. As the Libyan dictator vows to fight on to the last bullet -- startling new information is emerging.
6. True Confession
Aired 14 October 2011 • 60 min
A family murdered, a son and his friend convicted, and the confession that could set them free.
7. Scout's Honour
Aired 21 October 2011 • 60 min
Diana Swain investigates sexual abuse in Scouts Canada.
8. 'Til Death Do Us Part (Update)
Aired 28 October 2011 • 60 min
How did an experienced hunter mistake her own husband for a bear -- and shoot him dead? Although acquitted, questions still remain.
9. Stories from the River's Edge
Aired 4 November 2011 • 60 min
Every fall, hundreds of teenagers from remote aboriginal reserves in Northern Ontario fly into the city of Thunder Bay looking to get a high school diploma. But in recent years, that struggle has been tainted by tragedy. Seven of those students have died sudden and unexpected deaths.
10. Murder, He Wrote
Aired 18 November 2011 • 60 min
An aspiring filmmaker working on an all too convincing screenplay about murder, turns fiction into fact by killing for real.
11. A Cold Case
Aired 25 November 2011 • 60 min
The chilling final chapter in the fifth estate's investigation into the true life mystery of how a Canadian hockey player, missing for fourteen years, ended up frozen in a glacier crevasse in Austria.
12. Holiday Hell
Aired 2 December 2011 • 60 min
Each year millions of Canadians set off on what they hope will be the vacation of a lifetime.
13. Behind the Line
Aired 9 December 2011 • 60 min
An investigation into sexual harassment allegations at the RCMP. The inside story of women who signed up to serve and protect and now claim Canada's pre-eminent police force failed to protect them.
14. Escape From Justice
Aired 6 January 2012 • 60 min
'the fifth estate' unveils a new chapter in the murder of Jassi Sidhu, with startling revelations about those who planned and paid for the killing, and how the murderers got away.
15. Diagnosis Murder
Aired 13 January 2012 • 60 min
the fifth estate investigates shaken baby syndrome. For decades, the diagnosis virtually guaranteed convictions, shattering the lives of thousands of parents, babysitters and families. Now new evidence questions whether the syndrome even exists and whether some of those convictions may have been wrong.
16. The Lies People Tell
Aired 20 January 2012 • 60 min
They are pathetic, weird and sometimes dangerous; 'the fifth estate' searches for the truth behind the lies told by some of Canada's most memorable and imaginative con artists.
17. Who's Killing The Rizzutos?
Aired 27 January 2012 • 60 min
Bob McKeown presents the latest chapter in the bloody war that has decimated Canada's first family of crime.
18. The Wreck of the Costa Concordia
Aired 3 February 2012 • 60 min
A minute-by-minute reconstruction of the Italian cruise ship disaster, with first-hand accounts from the survivors and the rescuers, along with the stories of those who perished.
19. The House of Shafia
Aired 10 February 2012 • 60 min
How the four women found murdered in a Kingston canal lived as virtual prisoners in their own home.
20. The Lost Boys
Aired 17 February 2012 • 60 min
The new chapter in the explosive allegations against Scouts Canada.
21. Fearless
Aired 24 February 2012 • 60 min
Are they chasing extremes dreams or are we pushing them over the edge? A look at the life and death of freeskier Sarah Burke and other top athletes who seek fame and fortune and risk life and limb to compete in high performance sport.
22. Fast Break
Aired 2 March 2012 • 60 min
Canadian kids and their parents risk everything to chase NBA dreams. Bob McKeown reveals the huge money -- and the scams -- at play for those trying to break into pro basketball.
23. Time Bomb
Aired 9 March 2012 • 60 min
The OxyContin epidemic: a pill that promises temporary relief has cost many Canadians a lifetime of addiction. the fifth estate investigates one of the most successful marketing campaigns in pharmaceutical history.
24. Lost on the Ice
Aired 23 March 2012 • 60 min
A boy lost on the ice, and how Canada's Search and Rescue service failed to bring him home.
25. Kidnapped
Aired 6 April 2012 • 60 min
the fifth estate recreates a real-life kidnapping minute-by-tension-filled-minute and lets viewers decide what to do to catch the perpetrators each step of the way.