Derren Brown’s latest murder stunt nets less than 1m
Tuesday night saw the UK’s premium ‘mentalist’ Derren Brown crash back down to earth on Channel 4 with another shocking Tweet-generating stunt, as the naughty entertainer attempted to turn ordinary members of the public into cold-hearted killers.
After seeing atheists crumble into a weeping ball at the sight of a ‘spirit’, teaching pensioners to steal a priceless painting and convincing a young layabout he was living in the zombie apocalypse, last night’s mean trick seemed fairly straightforward in comparison.
Derren Brown: Pushed to the Edge (Channel 4, 9pm) saw the top-shelf illusionist arm himself with the persuasive weapon of social coercion in order to prove what some dim whelps will do when asked to by an OTT actor with a posh comedy accent. Or something like that.
Last night’s lucky star was Chris, a man so in-over-his-head at a high class charity auction that it wasn’t long before he was willingly carting a ‘corpse’ through the service corridors in hilarious throwbacks to Weekend at Bernie’s.
It all culminated in a tense roof top stand-off as a gang of rich young charity directors harassed seriously flustered businessman, Chris, to push an enemy off the building in a highly silly yet thoroughly captivating scenario.
Yesterday marked Brown’s return to the small screen after over two years of touring with his various live shows, with his last TV special The Great Art Robbery netting 1.6 million viewers in December 2013. Before that, super mean and highly suspect prank Apocalypse did even better with 2.3 million viewers in October 2012.
A total of 943,000 viewers tuned in last night to be unwittingly sucked into the psychology of the latest experiment, with the shocking revelation in the closing minutes that three out of the four possible subjects actually pushed an innocent man to his death.
This resulted in a 5% share and was the second most-tweeted about show of the day.
There were plenty more fake corpses on offer over on BBC one as Silent Witness (9pm) kindly gave viewers answers in the second half of the nineteenth series’ second case.
The fourth episode in the current run saw Dr Nikki and her team of clever forensic types tackle some fundamentalists with the usual amount of tension, gore and sprightly hairstyles.
6.2 million viewers were watching on Monday as the first part played out, jumping slightly last night to 6.3 million viewers and a 27% share for the controversial and topical tale.
Over on BBC Two, Dara O Briain and Prof. Brian Cox were back to prove that witnessing a star go supernova a million light years years ago/away was actually about as interesting as watching paint dry.
The first episode of the sixth series of Stargazing Live (9pm) saw the science bros interview Tim Peake from the international space station and attracted 1.6 million viewers and a 7% share.[advert position=”left”]
On ITV, dramatised accidents mixed in with emotional real life testimonials resulted in another instalment of saved-by-a-stranger shout-out show Saved (9pm).
The second of four episodes saw another group of thankful survivors detail their near-death experiences and the chance encounters that saved them, resulting in 1.3 million viewers and a 6% share.
Meanwhile on Channel 5, insanity descended on the Celebrity Big Brother house as demented American reality star, Tiffany thought it was a sleeping David Guest who had passed away and not an iconic rock legend.
2.2 million viewers tuned in to see the bizarre meltdown, resulting in a 9% share and more tweets than that show about pushing a man off a building.
At 8pm, Holby City did its thing and brought 4.8 million viewers and a 22% share to BBC One.
On BBC Two there was Victorian Bakers (8pm) which wasn’t exactly Bake Off and featured mostly manky produce. 2.2 million viewers and a 10% share tuned in to not be tempted.
At the same time, Channel 5 offered up Bargain-Loving Brits in the Sun (8pm) which was probably better than spending a Tuesday night staring out the window at the rain, I guess. 1.2 million viewers and a 6% share watched as Brits packed it all in for a fresh start abroad.
Earlier on ITV, the latest trip to grubby rural hamlet Emmerdale (7pm) bagged 6.2 million and a 31% share.
At 7:30pm on BBC One the inhabitants of Albert Square continued to trundle through their depressing existences in increasingly dramatic ways.
A whirlpool of brain tumours, cirrhosis, stolen babies, postnatal psychosis and a dead Charlie Slater secured the day’s biggest audience for EastEnders, resulting in 7.2 million viewers and a 33% share.
Overnight data is available each morning in mediatel.co.uk’s TV Database, with all BARB registered subscribers able to view reports for terrestrial networks and key multi-channel stations. Overnight data supplied by TRP are based on 15 minute slot averages. This may differ from tape checked figures, which are based on a programme’s actual start and end time.
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