Derren Brown and Simon Dinsell, “Derren Brown – Apocalypse (Part 2)” (2012)
Second and final part of a mini-series in which Brown conducts an experiment on an unsuspecting young man called Steven, in which Steven is led to believe that civilisation in Britain has crashed after a meteor strike hits it, releasing a deadly virus that turns people into ravenous, flesh-eating zombies, and he is one of a few uninfected survivors. The purpose of the experiment is to help turn around Steven’s life and set him on a more positive course than one he has led so far in which he has lacked direction, motivation and confidence in himself. In the course of the experiment, various scenarios Brown sets up with the help of three actors and his technical crew enables Steven to discover inner qualities he never knew he had, and he almost literally transforms from overgrown immature teenager into self-confident and bright-eyed young man in 48 hours under one’s very gaze.
The episode is quite predictable: apart from the smooth (and heavily edited) running of the post-apocalyptic part of the experiment in which the actors (under Brown’s instructions) gently nudge and guide Steven into situations where he must take the initiative and show leadership, courage and compassion, you have the “emotional reunion” between one of the actors and his “wife” which tears at everyone’s heart-strings, the breathless wait for the rescue helicopter, the dramatic rescue itself which of course has to be jeopardised by the “sudden” arrival of hordes of zombies, the little girl Leona’s fear which causes her to hide in the compound rather than risk being chased and run down by the creatures, and Steven’s heroism in guiding Danny to the helicopter and sacrificing his own chances of being rescued by running back for Leona. All very dramatic, often too much so, and very tear-jerking soap-opera drama this “28 Days Later” experiment wrings out as we see Steven trying to persuade Leona in vain to come with him or convince Danny that the helicopter pilot must wait for Leona and Danny is shaking his head and admitting his own cowardice all the while. There are moments in the documentary where it appears the actors must shove Steven into action as he seems slow in taking the initiative but that could be due in part to the way the editing was done which might have had the unintended effect of “prolonging” certain scenes.
Of course the whole thing is resolved and explained to a very relieved and embarrassed Steven who meets all the actors and the crew who participated in the experiment at his belated 21st birthday party. Funniest part has to be when the actor who played the 14-year-old Leona tells Steven she is actually older than he is! About 28 days later, Brown checks up on Steven to see how much the episode has transformed Steven’s outlook on life and character, and he finds a very changed young man indeed. What would be even more interesting is if Brown were to visit Steven 28 months after the experiment or when Steven is 28 years old, to find out how deeply the experiment has changed him and he has developed other qualities as a result that Brown hadn’t anticipated: qualities such as resilience, determination and taking reasonable risks. The other thing Brown should check up on with Steven is to see whether the lad has broadened his media search networks and changes them often enough so that it would be difficult for Brown to try to control his access to news and information!
As to the worth of the experiment, it would be difficult and expensive to replicate just for one person in need of cognitive behaviour therapy to turn around his/her life, and to be worthwhile it would have to be repeated on a small group of people, say, corporate executives as part of a corporate team-building exercise, who haven’t already seen “28 Days Later”, “Day of the Triffids” or any other movies in the post-apocalyptic survival genre. The exercise would need to be run over several days to test all participants’ mettle and people would need to undergo psychological testing to ensure they are mentally and emotionally prepared and robust.
The creepy aspect of the “Apocalypse” experiment as shown in its two parts is that people can be much more malleable than they realise and that what they rely on for news and information to form and reinforce their concepts of the world and how its systems and networks operate is readily subject to manipulation by governments, corporations and others in whose interest the public should not have access to all information about a range of issues that affect their lives.