Sunday, January 10, 2016

How is Pushed to the Edge different from Derren Brown's The Heist?

We are all looking forward to Tuesday night's "Pushed to the Edge," in which Derren Brown will attempt to influence an ordinary person to push a another human to his/her death. But how will this special differ from Derren's previous work?

The concept sounds a lot like Derren's 2006 special, The Heist. In that program, we saw Derren testing whether he could influence people to rob an armored truck using various hypnotic suggestion techniques (he could).

Pushed to the Edge sounds the same, but I am hoping Derren will put a twist on the concept. Here are some possible twists:

1. The person may decide not to comply (anti-climactic, but fresh),
2. Derren may use a new, even tricker form of persuasion to achieve his result, or
3. It could be a repeat of The Heist, but with better, more dramatic execution.

To that last point, the new special does remind me of a particular movie -- the Michael Douglas film, The Game -- except that Derren is trying to get the person to push someone off a building (as opposed to getting Michael Douglas to jump off a building). Critics complained that The Game was implausible, and I'm guessing they'll feel the same about Pushed to the Edge. But I, for one, plan to enjoy it.

What do you think? How will Pushed to the Edge differ from The Heist? Leave your theories in the comments below -

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