I Keep Checking Derren's Twitter For A 'Later We Bought Him A Pony'.

[rionaleonhart]

Well, Derren Brown's The Gameshow was the most uncomfortable thing I've watched in a very long time. Probably the one thing of Derren Brown's I'd actively advise against watching. I felt quite ill. I shook all over. I almost cried at one point. It was meant to be horrible, of course, but - although it's obviously better than a programme that isn't

Comments

[kadrin]

Much though I love her, I might have to sub out Rainbow Dash for Fluttershy in that situation. Fluttershy can overpower sociopaths with her Unending Power Of Scolding, and that way you don't get Applejack and Rainbow Dash in the same room, which is a room in which no one will be able to get to sleep ever.

[rionaleonhart]

...that's actually an extremely good point. 'Rainbow Dash' and 'good night's sleep' really don't seem to go together. I shall take your advice! ...in the event that I have to choose three fictional ponies to protect me from a fictional sociopath.

[kadrin]

It's really mostly moot anyway. Applejack or Twilight Sparkle on her own could take down any number of fictional sociopaths, and the only reason I didn't include Fluttershy is that she might need to have a friend around to psych her up.

A friend who is, again, not Rainbow Dash. Again, I love her dearly, she's one of my two favourite ponies in the show (which are only very slightly above "equal second: all the rest of them"), but her attempts to psych Fluttershy up tend to have rather the opposite effect.

Anyway, my Googling is leading me no help; would you be able to say, in spoilertext or e-mail or something, what the reveal of the moral message was? I suppose it's just the Milgram experiment's "And you've all been manipulated into being bastards through peer pressure; you are all literally the Nazis at Nuremberg at this point and just lucky I'm not hanging you", but what were the specifics?

[rionaleonhart]

LJ, why have you disabled all the effective ways of rendering spoilertext in comments? I'm going to write this in white text, so it'll be invisible in LJ's default style. If you're viewing this in your own non-white-backgrounded style and you don't want to know what happened: look away now!

All right, so the audience, all masked for anonymity, have been making decisions about what happens to Kris, this poor guy who's being secretly filmed. At points they're given two options and they vote for which should happen by pressing A or B on a remote control. There's always a pleasant option and a less pleasant one, and the unpleasant options have been getting nastier.

So Kris has been accused of pinching someone's bottom, yelled at by her boyfriend, charged for drinks he didn't order, accused of shoplifting, told he's getting fired in a couple of days and now he's in the back of a police van. Also, the audience weren't actually offered this option, but when a producer was filming live inside the guy's house they started yelling 'SMASH HIS

[prologi]

I assumed that Kris WAS an actor, and portrayed as a bit of a dick on purpose, until the end. Uh. Wow. (Also wow: the continuity announcer. "Huh. Well then. And now, comedy!")

[rionaleonhart]

After the initial moment of shock at the end, I thought 'oh, thank goodness, he must have been an actor all along'. BUT NO. (The continuity announcer amused me quite a bit.)

[reipan]

I kept waking up in the night afterwards and having to imagine that Applejack, Rainbow Dash and Twilight Sparkle were gathered around my bed, ready to protect me from any Kevins that might come near.

<3

See, it's things like this that are the reason I can't really get on with Derren Brown's programmes. Somehow the fact that nobody gets physically hurt doesn't make up for the amount of mental distress he puts them through, in my opinion, and given that most of the experiments he does rely on the participant not knowing exactly what's coming there's only a certain level of informed consent he can obtain. Fascinating, yes, but that doesn't make it less ethically questionable.

Hugs to you, my dear.

[rionaleonhart]

I'm curious about why this programme in particular made me so uncomfortable, when he's done pretty awful things before. It seems that my mind draws a distinction between Derren's usual brand of evil - manipulating people into doing awful things, for example - and just plain ordinary bad things happening to someone; apparently the latter distresses me a lot more. I wonder why?

IN ANY CASE I AM SAFE FROM DERREN BROWN BECAUSE I HAVE MY IMAGINARY PONIES TO PROTECT ME.

[rionaleonhart]

On an unrelated note, the file on my computer entitled 'merlinponies.doc' now contains over five thousand words.

[reipan]

And that, my dear, is the best news I've had all weekend :D

[wolfy_writing]

Ooh, it sounds interesting! I'd like to see it, and in theory it should be on IFC in America, but they're currently stuck on a run of Human Centipede movies.

[thewaterbandit]

This might make you feel better! http://twentypercentcooler.net/lunaspiders an adorable Luna flash game based on the spider throwing game in 'Luna Eclipsed'. The fun has been doubled!

(Personally when I'm scared I like to imagine Princess Celestia backing me up, because there's not much that can stand against a physical goddess)