General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

You Can't Ask That

You Can't Ask That is an Australian documentary television series in which members of marginalized or misunderstood groups answer frank, anonymous questions submitted by the public. Each episode focuses on a single minority or sub-cultural group, such as people of short stature, Muslims, sex workers, transgender people, suicide attempt survivors, or former cult members, and the show deliberately excludes celebrities, commentators, and experts so that only people with lived experience speak to the camera.¹

Key fact	Detail
Created	2015 by Kirk Docker, Aaron Smith, and Jon Casimir²
First aired	August 3, 2016 on ABC TV; seven seasons ran to July 13, 2022³
Format	Each episode seats roughly eight participants from one group, who answer anonymous public questions on camera²
Scale	64 episodes across seven seasons; the format has been licensed to 12 countries, totaling 42 seasons in 9 languages¹
Audience	Averaged 710,000 viewers per episode in Australia⁴
Awards	Rose d'Or 2017 winner (Reality & Factual Entertainment); AACTA 2019 winner (Best Factual Entertainment); AACTA 2022 winner (Best Direction in Non-Fiction Television, Kirk Docker)¹
Status	Returning for an eighth season produced by Docker Media, with a new season announced for 2027⁵^•⁶

Spoilers

Episodes and topics

Season 1 (2016) covered short statured people, wheelchair users, transgender people, Muslims, polyamorous people, ex-prisoners, fat people, Indigenous Australians, sex workers, and the terminally ill. Season 2 added blind people, people with Down syndrome, suicide attempt survivors, recent war veterans, refugees, homeless people, and others. Later seasons took in priests, former cult members, swingers, people with schizophrenia, sexual assault survivors, drag performers, people with eating disorders, intersex people, African Australians, firefighters, nudists, Olympic and Paralympic gold medallists, people who have killed someone, adult virgins, Chinese Australians, lesbians, amputees, families of missing persons, cheaters, bogans, gay men, models, porn stars, people with postnatal depression, juvenile detainees, and people with dementia.⁶^•⁸

Some episodes took years to assemble. The "Killed Someone" episode, about ordinary people who caused a death by accident, took two years to put together because no advocacy organization exists to find such participants; the "Cheaters" episode also took two years because of the stigma involved.²

Origin

The series grew out of a vox pop segment Kirk Docker and Aaron Smith made for the ABC show Hungry Beast, in which they asked ordinary people universal questions about life rather than testing political opinions. Docker, Smith, and Jon Casimir, co-creator of Gruen, pitched the show together in 2015. Docker has said the concept also drew on the "ask me anything" format popular online at the time, and on the political climate of 2015, when anxiety about causing offense was high; the creators wanted to pass the microphone to the people who never get a voice instead of experts speaking on their behalf.²

The ABC commissioned a first run of ten episodes of about ten minutes each for its iview streaming service. The network's internal response was strong enough that the show was moved to the main channel, and it ran from there.²

Format and production

Each episode gathers participants from one group, seated on stools in a simple studio setting, answering questions that Australians wanted to ask but were too embarrassed or afraid to ask in person. Questions are sourced from the public and can be blunt or prejudiced; examples include "Why are you so fat?" to fat participants and "Is dwarf tossing OK?" to people of short stature.¹^•⁷

Casting and filming. Producers think of topics in "buckets" such as mental health, gender, sexuality, and disability, then test whether ten burning questions exist for a group. Producers may speak to up to 100 people before choosing the eight who appear in an episode, aiming for a mix of age, gender, ethnicity, and sexuality, and for participants who challenge assumptions. Docker interviews each person for two to two and a half hours, and the portable set packs into eight bags so filming can happen in homes, hotel rooms, or town halls around Australia.²

Editing. An episode may draw on about 15 hours of footage cut down to 30 minutes. The editors aim for one unified story in which each participant links to the next, rather than eight separate portraits. Docker tells participants at the end of interviews that they can flag anything they do not want included.² A complete eight-episode series takes about six months of research, filming, editing, and post-production.²

International versions

The format has been localized rather than simply exported: each country films its own misunderstood groups answering its own questions. Versions have been made in France, Italy, Spain, Norway, Israel (in both Hebrew and Arabic), the Netherlands, and Canada, where a CBC Gem adaptation ran from 2019 to 2024 with eight themed episodes per season focused on people living with disability.¹^•⁹ Including the original, the format had delivered 42 seasons across 12 countries in 9 languages, and ABC describes it as its most successful format ever.¹

Reception and return

Australian critics responded positively. Junkee called it "easily the least politically correct show on television" while also possibly "the most kind, educational and open-hearted," and noted its average audience of 710,000 viewers per episode.⁴ A Guardian columnist who began as a skeptic of the premise wrote that the show treats questions about sex, drugs, and crime as normal parts of people's lives rather than scandal, and puts a human face on groups often discussed in the abstract.⁷

After the seventh season ended in July 2022, the show went off screens for several years. In March 2026 the ABC announced an eighth season, produced by Docker Media with Docker returning as executive producer, covering topics including scam victims, voluntary assisted dying, and survivors of war; the iview listing states a new season is coming in 2027.⁵^•⁶^•¹⁰ Docker said part of the reason for the return is that hearing several people with lived experience disagree reminds audiences that life is not monotone, in contrast to the summarized answers of chatbots and search engines.¹⁰

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026