Derren Brown Live: Hero at 30,000 feet, C4 10pm

This is all referencing Donnie Darko as well.

From the countdown, to being woken up and spoken to by someone telling you your world was going to end, it even involved a plane ...
 
This definitely wasn't Derren at his best, but he's hardly jumped the shark. His earlier series this year (particularly the one with Joe Power) was great.
 
This is the whole problem for me. Whoever was moaning on about the new generation being too critical etc. you just don't get it. Back in the 70's and 80's the magicians didn't have the same arsenal of TV trickery to work with so even if you didn't believe what you were seeing was magic you might still be impressed with the spectacle. This rubbish that we saw last night was just too easy,..there was no skill, just blatent staging, lies, actors (including Matt) and film editing. As you become more and more aware of that while watching the whole thing just becomes pointless and loses every last bit of entertainment value.

I draw an analogy to modern films. To me something like Jaws is still much more entertaining than Jurrasic Park because the latter is nothing but graphics, whereas in Jaws it was clearly a real massive shark going around killing peolpe.:D Well,..you get my drift maybe..
 
The most reasonable explanation I can come up with for this bad excuse of a show is that C4 have chucked a lot of money DB's way and - though bereft of new ideas - he has simply been forced to make it to fulfil his contract

One of the unforeseen consequences of producing drivel like this is that people will look back at his past stunts and feats with very different eyes.

DB initially shot to fame on the promise that he didn't use stooges or camera trickery.

Now that he has quite blatantly broken that promise (although he still maintains the fiction that he hasn't) I don't see how his reputation can survive.

Sure, there are a few children and childishly gullible adults who can't or won't admit to the obvious fakery... and maybe that's the market he is now aiming at. :?
 
The whole audition thing bothered me too. Unless you've been on Mars for the past, say, five years, surely anything you knowingly participate in connected to Derren Brown is going to plant a seed of 'what's this really about?'. How does Matt supposedly not see any connection between auditioning for a game show to be hosted , hello, by Derren, and the odd things that subsequently started happening, such as the Jack-in-the-box's and the 'dreams'? It all lenRAB credence to the theory that no-one could be as gulliable/ naive/ stupid as Matt was made out to be. I was also puzzled why, if he was terrified of flying, his g/f didn't accompany him on the flight, not only to keep him calm, but just to watch the recording? Surely she would have wanted to and would have done whatever necessary (work wise etc) to be there for him? What excuse are we to assume she gave him?
 
The other events yes, but the petrol station robbery happens right after he is at the fake interview process, the one with the smoke. So I don't think it's a huge deception to have him still in London at that point in time. They may have sent him off to get some lunch or something like that.

Having spent far too much time on Google this morning I've confirmed all the other events do happen in LeeRAB. He does live right next to a golf course and he does get a bus down the road from his house.

The more I think about it all the more I think this chap is just a highly suggestable person who probably did "go with the flow" with what was happening around him. He himself tells the party van driver, again, not cut out, that he has found himself taking a look at himself and his life recently.

Was he totally 100% oblivious? No. But that isn't hidden either. Why would he meet up with Derren in a field prior to the train tracks bit and let him straight jacket him up if he was unaware he was part of SOMETHING. At the end he is surrounded by about 3 camera people.

I honestly do believe Derren took a real person, took him on a journey, the chap went along with the journey, and he came out the other end a better person with more confidence. I don't think he was an actor, but I do think he did go with the flow and is highly suggestable. He is the perfect person for this type of show. Did the producers add a fair bit of fluff to the whole thing, yes. But then that's television.

So to sum up, I believe:

- He wasn't an actor, he does have a family and girlfriend called Liv
- He did go with the flow and did know he was part of a process
- Did he still transform? Yes
- Was it all scripted? No

I actually think we're being too critical of Derren. I don't think we'd have been this critical about his earlier work, such as "The Heist". Perhaps he has become a victim of his own success or perhaps we're just annoyed at the quality of the recent shows. But it's television at the end of the day.
 
Yes I have read it. (Did you know that Derren Brown is not the leading expert in hypnosis, not even just in this country?)(Remember he has also told many that a certain psychological thing was the explanation for a simple magic trick)

Willing to be hypnotised: Certainly helps! (I have found that drugging people and chaining them down is not very productive)
Have to have a belief in that hypnotism is real: Not necessary at all.
 
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