Derren Brown: The Experiments – THE ASSASSIN
Derren Brown returns to our screens with “The Experimentsâ€, a brand new four part series for Channel 4. Each stand-alone episode asks and answers a single question featuring the usual inventive and jaw dropping Derren Brown mixture of stunts, suggestion and thought-provoking entertainment combined with tried and tested psychological experiments to illustrate how easily our behaviour can be manipulated.
In “The Assassinâ€, the first show in the series, Derren Brown investigates hypnosis and asks if someone could be hypnotised into a killing a celebrity. Is this really possible? And who will be the celeb?
The Experiments – The Assassin, airs Friday 21st October at 9pm on Channel 4.
Wouldn’t miss this for the world! Derren is de BEST! =D ^_^
Derren my good man!
Greetings from Seattle :-o)<
Live long and prosper in all good things.
I know my screaming an annoying celebrity’s name is not going to influence the choice in any way (besides, it’s already been made,) and the celeb in question if probably going to be Derren, but…
KATIE PRICE, KATIE PRICE, KATIE BLEEPING PRICE!!!!
(Joke 😉 )
….OR, failing that, the entire cast of ‘The Only Way is Essex.’
Am now even more excited than I was yesterday. May wet oneself in the minutes before the show, but that is 16 days away yet 🙂
Will it be shown in the USA???
not much of a challenge to kill jedward. i mean, you wouldn’t to hypnotise me or give me a weapon to do jedward. just a sack next to a swimming pool, a couple of bricks and a mars bar. chuck the mars bars and the bricks in to the sacks before you tie the sack up. they’d jump in to the water themselves. while they were sinking they’d be singing “isn’t this ice, ice baby?”.
The woods are lovely, dark an deep ….
OMG sounds good 🙂
think it should be Sean Batty off the weather…… or mabye the gocompaire man, ovious choice tho:/
joking, but sounds interesting
It has to be Jedward, two for the price of one!
I can’t imagine why a concept as horrible as murder should be used as light entertainment. I really don’t think anyone would be excited if Derren were creating a show where he actually gets someone (even if it’s only just to agree) to rape a celebrity. Why is murder any different and how do you think families of people who have actually been murdered feel when they see things like this?
Derren is clearly an exceptional fellow. There’s no doubting that. I just find this concept distasteful.
Bubba: I don’t think it should just be considered light entertainment. The medium is entertainment, sure, but from what I’ve read, I think there will be a deeper layer. It sounds like an exploration of human nature. I’ve always disliked the way society dehumanises killers by branding them ‘monsters’ or ‘inhuman’. That’s a cop-out. People turn their backs, saying ‘THAT is a monster, I’M not like that’.
This program seems to explore the fact that every human does, in fact, carry that ‘monster’ inside and given the proper circumstances, it can be brought out. I expect this show, in some ways, to shed light on the phenomenon of suicide bombers and similar ideologically brainwashed murderers.
If it can make people aware of the fact that killers ARE human like them, I think that’s a good thing.
Berber, I understand your point that killers are human and I agree that it is not helpful to demonise people. I don’t think the points I submitted have been addressed:
Would you feel the same if Derren was influencing a person to make them want to or believe they want to or attempt to or believe they were attempting to rape someone instead of murder them?
How do you think people who have a close friend or family member who has been murdered will feel when someone is (for entertainment’s sake) playing with the deep dark layers of a person’s psychology or nature or whatever you like to call it to make it appear they could murder?
My best hope is that this is all handled with extreme care.
If a murder is achieved, who is criminally liable? Is Derren the murderer or the murderer the murderer?
Is the murderer also a victim of Derren?
How far does this call into question our laws on criminal responsibilty?
Do we have our own free will?
I will watch with intrigue.
Susan
Forensic Psychologist
Yes, I’d feel the same about that, but I suspect the network wouldn’t. Rape is also not as poignant as murder, it makes less of a point (some sick people would probably even expect rape porn if they saw a show like that advertised). And I’m not sure, but I have a feeling it’s somehow safer to make someone attempt murder than it is to make him attempt rape. Murder is so rare and such a violation of social norms that it might be easier to ‘deprogram’ the subject. It’s often a more overt crime, too, so you’d be more able to verify that the subject has been deprogrammed (won’t react murderously to his target anymore).
(cont.)
As for friends and family of murder victims, I think that would depend entirely on their personality, and I can’t speak for someone else. Personally, while I’d be hurt by the reminder, I’d be interested in the mechanisms behind the act. If it was too raw a subject, though, I just wouldn’t watch the show.
I have no doubt it will be handled with a lot of care. Derren’s shows are a lot of things, but they don’t tend to be callous.
I do hope you’ve got a good way of showing that the person didn’t actually want to kill the celebrity anyway.
noone can be made to do something against their beliefs.
but you can change what they believe in…
E:-)>
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I agree with vicci d, I got the same email from Objective and thought it was a bit fishy…
Makes you wonder, if someone is arrested for murder but says they were hypnotised – do they have the ‘mens rea’ or ‘malice aforethought’ which would make them a criminal…? Can’t wait for this!
I think it is safe to say that Justin Beeber will not be the target. Frankly I hope the target is made up.
Bubba/ Berber Anna
You both make interesting points, but I think it is relevant that the title chosen is The Assassin’, not ‘The Murderer’. In a sense an assassin is someone who has been persuaded (or persuaded themselves) that the act of taking a life is morally justifiable because it somehow serves ‘the greater good’. A murderer may be motivated by anger, envy, resentment, personal advantage or profit, revenge etc. but, I suggest, in all cases it is deeply personal.
This show, as far as we can see so far, seems to be about asking if an ordinary, non-murderous person can be persuaded to kill someone against whom they have no personal antipathy.
Omg will be awesome! i cant wait… would be funny if the celeb was derren himself ;D
I know who the celebrity will be! It’s Bill Bailey!!! I Need someone to recognize this, because if it is Bill Bailey then I will at least have proof that I did in fact call it.
I can’t wait, Derren’s mind is super dooper!
@Thomas Leyland Torr – Is that from the fact they did the Radio 4 show the other day? If it’s Bill, not only would that would be great, but I will buy you a pint!
When will this program b repeated?
“a levered action rifle such as every American child is issued with” lol this guy is so flucking funny,..
Derren is a genius, I was blown away last night.
Why did the audience at the end just stand and watch as Mr. Fry got shot before their very eyes? Loved the show but I can’t just explain that last part… you’d think they would of reacted differntly to a “national treasure ” being shot….
Great. i really want 2 hipnotise people because i want my nanna 2 stop smoking
A few of these were really good to watch. But for a random celebrity you’d have to get consent to air the material if the ‘sleeper agent’ actually comes close enough for the celeb to be on film. Which would cut into the budget quite a bit, I’d imagine. Or, well, they could of course have hired an impersonator. That’s a distinct possibility as well.