Derren Brown – The Gameshow: Tonight at 9pm Ch4
Just a little reminder that the second episode in ‘The Experiments’ series airs tonight at 9pm on Channel 4.
Leave your thoughts on the show in the comments section below, or click here to watch a sneak preview 🙂
…I was honestly slightly disgusted at how over the top the crowd acted about something as tiny as a fingernail and how people were cheering as somebody’s TV was getting smashed up. But I actually couldn’t believe it when they were willing to let someone believe they were going to be fired or they were going to be kidnapped and feel as if they were potentially going to die. An extremely well thought out stunt, I urge anyone who missed it to watch it now: http://www.channel4.com/programmes/derren-brown-the-experiments/4od
My first & foremost concern was about Chris. After having the kind of night that he had & coming home to a letter I wondered what was his thoughts. I also wonder what are his thoughts now after watching the show & seeing how the audience reactions. I’m making assumptions that Chris has watched the show. As for the comments that people had about the TV I, for one, was very concerned when they had keys to his place my first thought was “Oh lord let them leave the tv alone”. I also was shocked when the crowd chose the kidnapped since Chris did have some training & that might kick in. However I was shock when he was hit I just thought that some of the production crew would come out as they had in The Heist when Chris had gotten away. I hope there is a follow up & I look forward to Friday.
I have to say that I absolutely loved this show, and it probably ranks among my favourite Derren Brown shows so far. It was really eye opening, and fascinating to watch how the crowd became more and more rowdy and wanting a negative outcome. The one thing that really sent shivers down my spine was the bit in the bedroom where people suddenly started shouting to trash the bedroom and smash the TV. It was utterly interesting to watch, and although I guessed the twist at the end, I thought the cleverness of the 50 minutes ending 3 minutes ago was genius.
Also I think that the opening was one of your best show openings for a long time, and would like to see more magic based openings like this in your future shows
Though I enjoyed the program, I would propose that there was more than deindividuation going on. Having painted the target in a negative light, having the host of the game appear fine with the choices made, placing it in a game environment where the audience knows that the choices don’t have “real” effects (e.g., they knew he wasn’t really being arrested), feelings of consistency (as in, “Well, I chose the bad option the last three times, I can’t switch to good now), among other variables. The choices given were not purely “good” vs. “bad,” but instead, the bad option always lent itself to more action than the good (getting some money vs. getting kidnapped!?) All the shouting to bash his TV was chilling, though.
I’m curious if the same would happen without the masks. I expect it would.
Having been an avid follower of DB I was a little disappointed in myself for being taken in & letting out an “Oh shit! !” when the stuntman tumbled across the bonnet of the car, then immediately realised I had been duped [again]. I concur with the view that the audience was likely to pick the option that would be “entertaining” regardless of the jeopardy involved .It was meant to be a gameshow so Im not convinced that the show backed up any theory about “mob mentality” but as a piece of entertainment [ which also sends me delving around t`internet to try & find out how he did it ] DBs shows are top notch IMHO. Looking forward to the next one.
I just thought I would say how wonderful (and disturbing) I found The Gameshow.
I also thought that the ideas which Derren explored might be able to tell us more about uncomfortable behaviour which we see right now in our society. I wrote this small post on ‘deinviduation’ and attitudes that people have towards benefit claimants if anyone is interested to read: http://tinyurl.com/69q6mh9
Thumbs up. Best DB show since the lottery prediction x
I enjoyed the show, though I felt like I’d have preferred it to have been edited with some other bits and pieces, rather than just watching the gameshow. I guess it was supposed to ramp up the tension but I did find it a little laboured. I agree that it felt like there were things in place which encouraged the audience to pick the negative options but I think that’s fairly unavoidable to do the experiment on this scale.
Was worth it for the spontaneous crowd-jeering when they got to the bedroom – found that fairly shocking.
Didn’t realise until the end we were supposed to buy into Chris being real. I’d assumed he was an actor throughout. So that kinda spoiled the ‘twist’! Great stuff though, looking forward to the next two…
Just watch it this morning even though could see what was happening & could predict it will only take somthing going to far before it will stop can’t believe how sick we can be & the ending I was in tears .well done Derren
Enthralled. Laughed along with the crowd at the start but backed off as things got heavy and nasty. Made a point of showing the program to my two sons in the hope that it will stick in their minds if they ever find themselves tempted to join in such behavior at some point, a deterrent hopefully. The reaction of the audience at the end said it all, the enormity and realization of what they had done was written all over their faces. I did find it interesting that some people put the masks back on, were they trying to hide or what?????
Not everyone is swayed by a group. Bit disappointed we did not hear the percentages of the vote.
i just watched this and was abit shocked when they broke into his house and smashed his xbox up i wuda gone mad cus of all my stuff saved on there and wudnt care if it was tv bloke i wuda sewd him till the end and then seeing him get hit by a car that was serious children may have been watching and would be disturbed by that i rang my mates straight away can any 1 tell us weither it was real or not sum 1 just told me it was a stunt man but how cud that av been a stunt man all day ??
At the start he says everything is absolutely “genuine and unfate” I dont know if it was ment to sound like unfake
Wow, I tuned in half way through cause i didnt realise it was on and I was really shocked when they guy got hit by the car, so much so that my boyfriend recieved a text saying “OMG SOMEONE GOT RUN OVER ON DERREN BROWN!” When I started watching and Derren was explaining what had been going on I was thinking, “Poor guys going to have a mental break down.”
Can’t wait to see the guilt trip, I would not like to be on the end of one of Derrens tricks lol, very impressionable and open minded and fragile lol. Although I was able to move my legs last week… maybe I’m not as easy to manipulate as i think 😀
I’m in complete disbelief.
Not at the show but at all you people commenting on how amazing Derren Brown is.
Anybody with even an ounce of intelligence could see it was completely set up, with the exception of the audience.
1 question for all you people that are convinced this is real.
We see Kris being dropped at his flat, and after all is revealed to the audience we are told that what actually happened was that he went straight into the flat.
There is a new TV waiting.
While the “producer” is in the room its an audience member who shouts to break the tv so it wasnt planned.
Where did they get a brand new tv from at night and in about 5 minutes???
And also, Kris’ “collegue” was one of the worse actresses ive ever seen.
While I agree that the entire thing could POTENTIALLY have been a set up start to finish, if you’d watched any of Derren’s other stuff, you’d know that he could have easily lead the audience into suggesting the producer smash up the telly by subliminal means. He showed a man in the start (the A/B imaginary coin flipping) and that was all done by Derren slipping subtle things into the conversations and his body language to make sure the guy made the right decisions. He vets his audiences and participants to make sure they are impressionable before any filming begins. I don’t feel that the apparent “spontaneous” shout out from an audience member alone dis proves the credibility of the show. Also, did you ever consider the fact that he could have just as easily planted an actor in the studio?
First let me make clear that I love derren brown and his shows. But i’m currently studying a masters and some recent research about ethics has made me question the ethics of this particular episode. I dont understand how it can be ethically right to have put that poor man under such stress and trauma (through the events which his was put through) without having his consent first and without him being aware that the events were not real and that he was being filmed. Surely participant consent is needed? The effects of those events on him needed to be considered. The same stands for the audience, surely it is again ethically wrong to make them believe they are particpating in a gameshow, when they are really the subjects of an experiment. Does anyone know how/who i can ask about this please?
Derren,
First of all, what a great show! It made me take a look at decisions I’ve made in the past and perhaps might make me behave a little better in the future – and I’m sure I’m not alone.
Second, I’m sorry if someone’s already asked, but I’m curious about these “fake police”. Are they real policemen, or former policemen, or actors who have never been policemen? And isn’t it usually illegal to impersonate a policeman? How do you get away with it?
Keep up the good work!
Even if the actors were among the audience, shouldn’t people use their own concious to vote but not follow others? This show was to prove how easily we stop thinking for ourselves but when we are in a certain group we just follow the majority mostly.
I agree that it wasn’t quite fair – because it was a game show, so they think it’s harmless and just because of tv it can’t be bad for a long distance. However you can’t deny that they wanted bad things to happen to him.
Plus, Chris was a negative character. He cheated and was a lad, plus not honest (Internet History) – that helped the audience to voted bad. Would they still vote bad if that would be a hardworking, kind and nice women instead of Chris?
Hannah: I don’t know who you should ask about the legalities and ethics of these things, but do keep in mind that ‘prank shows’ like MTV’s Boiling Points and Disaster Date essentially do the same thing — they put people in very uncomfortable situations to see how they’ll react (and pay them money if they keep their cool). And those shows don’t even have the redeeming value of being an experiment about crowd psychology, they just do it because apparently, some people like to watch others be miserable.
Katie: Two possible options, probably connected.
A) When Kris’s colleague made the call, the options were ‘tell him he’s fired’ and ‘tell him you’re giving him a TV’. The TV could be the one connected to that option.
B) There was a bat placed conveniently near the television (probably by the co-conspiring girlfriend). When the producer picked that up, he moved towards the television, setting the crowd up to think of smashing it. If nobody in the audience responded (although I believe they probably did), all you’d need was for one of the studio workers to cry out ‘smash it’ and see who picked it up — those masks would restrict people’s view enough for them not to notice it wasn’t one of them who said it.
In the bar when the barman is berrating Kris for not paying his bill, he is really quite adament he is in the right and is taking no excuses whatsoever. Cut bck to Derren who talks for 30 seconds then bck to the bar for the Michelle Bass stunt.The barman is away. What happened there then?After all the fuss he made did he just turn round and say “ill let you off this time” ….. In the short space of time from the camera leaving the barman asking for the money and going back to them for the Michelle thing, Kris and his friends are talking away normally as if nothing happened.If this had been real either the barman would still be there or Kris would be sitting complaining about it to his friends and trying to get the attention of the waiter he paid…why didnt he ask to speak to who he paid?
It doesn’t matter if it was actors or not! The friend from work didn’t seem real and it’s possible that Chris was acting but why would they need to put actors in there? There’s nothing he would do differently if he was an actor. And of course they’d create the good outcomes and film it all even if they didn’t use it it’s channel 4 think of how many pilots are made that never get shown.
The point of this isn’t to get the audience to vote or give someone a good or a crap night, the point is to educate viewers on mob mentality and the outcomes. And I’m sure it worked.
I am a massive fan of Derren Brown & thought this show was absolutely awesome. If you think about it, you can really relate to it.. it’s like a mix of peer presser & the mob mentality he was talking about. The first options start quite ‘soft’, i.e. no harm coming to him, just a bit of a laugh right? People who think “oh, I don’t like this, I want something nice to happen to him” can often be swayed by someone saying “but no harm will come to him, it’s just a bit of a laugh!” so they pick the nasty option. Then, as the nasty option’s get increasingly worse, they have lost their identity & are in full swing of the mob mentality. Shouting for someone to smash up their posessions & the like, & then the final option, wanting him to get kidnapped & took to a disused warehouse???
Actually LAUGHING OUT LOUD as he got chased down a street???? That, ladies & gentleman, is mob mentality at it’s ‘finest’. It doesn’t matter if Derren told them things about Chris to, how you say, sway their opinion, they are all individuals & should KNOW the difference between right & wrong. That, I think, was the whole point of the program. Being part of a crowd, however much you deny it, DOES change your perspective of right & wrong, because you will always have that one person saying “it’s only a laugh!!” As someone said earlier, an extreme example of this is the KKK. I’m sure we have all been part of the mob mentality at one part of our lives, whether through peer pressure or not, & all of us will have had varying levels of extremist behaviour.
Great show – Milgrim and Zimbardo spring to mind. If I were in the audience, I’d have been voting for positive choices just to be a smartarse. I’m not sure but i think I saw a couple of grins at the end – audience members who weren’t taken in?
It was mentioned that it was “convenient” that Chis had deleted his internet history – this isn’t as suspicious as you may think. Some browsers have high default privacy settings (e.g. Firefox), so if you use them “out of the box” then you’ll have no internet history. When I set up computers for friends, that’s how I set them up.
I’m not saying he wasn’t an actor, just that his browser settings aren’t evidence or an indication of him hiding anything. Just to amplify the point – I see other commenters have already raised this issue.
I thought the show made the point it set out to, about how easy it is for people to lost their morality in a mob, very well. I see David Aaronovtich referred to it in a Times Opinion column.
But what I found really frightening was how good Derren Brown is as a gameshow host. If he ever loses all sense of morality himself we may have the next Michael Barrymore…
Why were there so many “p” words? Just a curious diversion? Panty liners and peas?