BBC Two's new daytime pop-psychology series sees a group of psychologists use hidden camera experiments to demonstrate human behaviour, in the process explaining why we do the things we do, what tricks are sometimes used to influence us, and how or why we should avoid them. It's a little bit of Derren Brown mixed with The Real Hustle mixed with Dragons' Den mixed with Trigger Happy TV (or any other hidden camera show you care to mention). Sometimes it works and there's something to be learnt, other times it seems to be an excuse to pull off hidden camera stunts -- not necessarily a bad thing, but not quite what was advertised. At its worst, however, it's utterly misleading -- some of the experiments are very obviously being rigged.
Today's fourth episode saw two of the worst examples of this. In one, they asked mothers to predict if their child was lying (all of them were), to see if mums could really tell when they were being lied to. Their extensive survey covered three mothers, two of whom guessed correctly. Apparently this showed an "almost even split" between mothers who could tell and mothers who couldn't. Except you could equally (and almost more accurately) say that these results prove that twice as many mums can tell their child is lying as cannot -- a very different implication. Occasionally the show admits that its test samples are too small to really demonstrate the point, but in this case it was just glossed over.
But far worse was to come. In an experiment to demonstrate reverse psychology (or something along those lines), one of the team held two seminars on healthy eating. With the first group -- the Nice group -- he behaved in a friendly manner, and took an "everything in moderation" approach to what they should eat. With the second group -- the Naughty group -- he was sterner, more patronising, and took a "bad foods should never be eaten" approach. To see the effect on their behaviour, when the group members left the seminar they were confronted around the corner by two other team members giving away free food, apparently as part of some marketing thing. Would one group be more tempted than the other? Allegedly, yes -- the Nice group all resisted temptation with ease, while two of the Naughty group actively took something and the other member seriously considered it.
All well and good. Well, no. Because as the members of the Nice group passed by the two team members with the food simply stood around and let them go, but when it came to the Naughty group they actively sought them out and offered them something! It doesn't take a genius to tell that this completely skews the results of the experiment. I wouldn't be surprised if this kind of result is supported by more extensive properly conducted research, but when the demonstration we're shown is so blatantly flawed it does rather undermine the point.
It's a bit of a shame, as a populist show about human psychology presented in a broadly entertaining way is no bad idea, it could just do with a little more integrity in its execution.
Thursday, 31 January 2008
TV: Torchwood - Season 2, Episode 3
To the Last Man by Helen Raynor
The second season of Torchwood just goes from strength to strength, and one of its main strong points is variety. Episode one was a suitable season opener -- it was light on plot, just a simple MacGuffin chase designed to facilitate a display of characters and the show's style, with suitable amounts of humour, violence, language and snogging present. Then there was Sleeper, with its creepy sci-fi mystery and apocalyptic ending working alongside a strong character-based plot.
Now we have Helen Raynor's latest contribution to the Whoniverse (after last season's rather good Ghost Machine and Doctor Who's rather bad Evolution of the Daleks two-parter). The characters are even more central here than in Sleeper, and, where last week's episode gave the great part to a guest star, here it goes to Tosh. It's nice to see Naoko Mori at the centre of an episode again as, with the exception of last season's Greeks Bearing Gifts, Tosh seems to be mainly relegated to a supporting technical role. Here she's front and centre, in love with a World War One soldier who's awake for just one day every year... and who she must send back to 1918, to face certain death.
It's a decent sci-fi plot, actually, with a nice explanation involving scrunched up paper. But where Sleeper's sci-fi story was the main thread and the human impact a subplot, To the Last Man reverses things -- in fact, the mystery is so reduced that the solution is literally handed to the team in time-sealed orders from 1918. But it's the execution of those orders, tied inextricably to the relationship we've seen develop between Tosh and Tommy, that provides the drama of the story's climax. Both Mori and Anthony Lewis as Tommy give excellent performances, creating moments of intense happiness and sadness in such a short space of time. There are no easy answers to the dilemmas they face.
It's this, and the downbeat ending that develops from it, which makes Torchwood a show for grown-up audiences this week. Yes, some episodes may use the adult-focus remit to provide violence, gore and sex, but when others use it for affecting human drama it's clear that the show can be, and now often is, a lot more than some would care to give it credit for. In an earlier review I expressed hope that they keep up the level of variety and experimentation; on the evidence of this opening salvo of episodes, and the trailer for next week's, I'd say they're doing a good job. Long may it continue.
The second season of Torchwood just goes from strength to strength, and one of its main strong points is variety. Episode one was a suitable season opener -- it was light on plot, just a simple MacGuffin chase designed to facilitate a display of characters and the show's style, with suitable amounts of humour, violence, language and snogging present. Then there was Sleeper, with its creepy sci-fi mystery and apocalyptic ending working alongside a strong character-based plot.
Now we have Helen Raynor's latest contribution to the Whoniverse (after last season's rather good Ghost Machine and Doctor Who's rather bad Evolution of the Daleks two-parter). The characters are even more central here than in Sleeper, and, where last week's episode gave the great part to a guest star, here it goes to Tosh. It's nice to see Naoko Mori at the centre of an episode again as, with the exception of last season's Greeks Bearing Gifts, Tosh seems to be mainly relegated to a supporting technical role. Here she's front and centre, in love with a World War One soldier who's awake for just one day every year... and who she must send back to 1918, to face certain death.
It's a decent sci-fi plot, actually, with a nice explanation involving scrunched up paper. But where Sleeper's sci-fi story was the main thread and the human impact a subplot, To the Last Man reverses things -- in fact, the mystery is so reduced that the solution is literally handed to the team in time-sealed orders from 1918. But it's the execution of those orders, tied inextricably to the relationship we've seen develop between Tosh and Tommy, that provides the drama of the story's climax. Both Mori and Anthony Lewis as Tommy give excellent performances, creating moments of intense happiness and sadness in such a short space of time. There are no easy answers to the dilemmas they face.
It's this, and the downbeat ending that develops from it, which makes Torchwood a show for grown-up audiences this week. Yes, some episodes may use the adult-focus remit to provide violence, gore and sex, but when others use it for affecting human drama it's clear that the show can be, and now often is, a lot more than some would care to give it credit for. In an earlier review I expressed hope that they keep up the level of variety and experimentation; on the evidence of this opening salvo of episodes, and the trailer for next week's, I'd say they're doing a good job. Long may it continue.
TV: Wonderland - Virtual Adultery and Cyberspace Love
What if your partner spent anything up to 16 hours a day living in a virtual reality world on the Internet, spending all her time with someone from the other side of the world, and neglecting you, your kids, and all other duties in the process? That's one of the fundamental questions behind this documentary in the BBC's new Wonderland series, which is apparently something to do with the weirdnesses of modern life but seems more like an excuse to lump together a collection of unrelated documentaries under a heading that isn't Horizon.
Anyway, this particular episode is about Second Life, which most people have heard of by now; more specifically, it's about relationships in Second Life. Far from being the vitriolic criticism of such things that you may have expected from the programme's blurb -- or, indeed, it's first ten minutes -- it winds up showing a fairly balanced portrait of the effects of such things. Yes, there's the American couple whose life is being destroyed by the wife's obsession with the game and relationship on it with a British man, but there's also the pair from Nuneaton who are now happily married and expecting a child, after having met on Second Life.
This latter couple are the Positive Side: the game allowed the woman to escape an oppressive relationship, the man left his former partner as soon as he realised what he had in the game was actually something serious. They may be a subplot beside the Negative Side of the main 'love triangle', but the unreserved success of their pairing goes a long way to combat any accusation of bias. As for that American-Brit thing, after ruining their lives for 10 months the American finally meets the Brit, they don't get on as well, and that's that. She returns to America intending to give her marriage another go. It's not as happy an ending, but considering how poorly she's been treating her husband for nearly a year it's hard to feel any sympathy for her.
It's a wonder he stuck by her for so long -- and, in this case, there's the answer to the question. In a modern age where divorce can be all too easy, it's almost miraculous to see a partner prepared to stick by their spouse for so long and through so much. Whether she deserves such care is another matter.
Anyway, this particular episode is about Second Life, which most people have heard of by now; more specifically, it's about relationships in Second Life. Far from being the vitriolic criticism of such things that you may have expected from the programme's blurb -- or, indeed, it's first ten minutes -- it winds up showing a fairly balanced portrait of the effects of such things. Yes, there's the American couple whose life is being destroyed by the wife's obsession with the game and relationship on it with a British man, but there's also the pair from Nuneaton who are now happily married and expecting a child, after having met on Second Life.
This latter couple are the Positive Side: the game allowed the woman to escape an oppressive relationship, the man left his former partner as soon as he realised what he had in the game was actually something serious. They may be a subplot beside the Negative Side of the main 'love triangle', but the unreserved success of their pairing goes a long way to combat any accusation of bias. As for that American-Brit thing, after ruining their lives for 10 months the American finally meets the Brit, they don't get on as well, and that's that. She returns to America intending to give her marriage another go. It's not as happy an ending, but considering how poorly she's been treating her husband for nearly a year it's hard to feel any sympathy for her.
It's a wonder he stuck by her for so long -- and, in this case, there's the answer to the question. In a modern age where divorce can be all too easy, it's almost miraculous to see a partner prepared to stick by their spouse for so long and through so much. Whether she deserves such care is another matter.
Wednesday, 30 January 2008
TV: My Fake Baby
Channel 4's recent documentary about Reborns, a product that's not widely known about (until now, anyway) but which has a surprisingly large and dedicated community around it. Reborns are essentially dolls that look and feel (when done well) exactly like a young baby. Don't go calling them "dolls" or "fake babies" to those who make and enjoy them, though, as they don't take especially kindly to it.
It's a tricky area to cover. It would be all too easy for the filmmakers to paint the women who buy these reborns as mad or weird, but instead they take a more hands-off approach, showing them in a balanced and sensitive way and allowing us to draw our own conclusions. The film takes a fairly broad view of why people choose to get these reborns too, from a woman who has several that she likes to dress and take out, to another who wants a replacement (for want of a better word) for her grandson who now lives in New Zealand, via a woman who makes them and another who has a collection of dozens. There's also their partners, who invariably take a fairly dim view of such things.
The film doesn't go into much detail on the wider scope of the reborn community -- there are dozens of people who make them, mostly selling on eBay as either pre-made or made to order; there's even a guild of reborn creators. But rather than tackle the intricacies of this the film focuses on the more interesting human aspect -- what leads these women to want a reborn, and what is the pleasure they derive from it? Despite C4's usual shock-doc titling, it's an appropriately made look at an interesting emerging phenomenon.
It's a tricky area to cover. It would be all too easy for the filmmakers to paint the women who buy these reborns as mad or weird, but instead they take a more hands-off approach, showing them in a balanced and sensitive way and allowing us to draw our own conclusions. The film takes a fairly broad view of why people choose to get these reborns too, from a woman who has several that she likes to dress and take out, to another who wants a replacement (for want of a better word) for her grandson who now lives in New Zealand, via a woman who makes them and another who has a collection of dozens. There's also their partners, who invariably take a fairly dim view of such things.
The film doesn't go into much detail on the wider scope of the reborn community -- there are dozens of people who make them, mostly selling on eBay as either pre-made or made to order; there's even a guild of reborn creators. But rather than tackle the intricacies of this the film focuses on the more interesting human aspect -- what leads these women to want a reborn, and what is the pleasure they derive from it? Despite C4's usual shock-doc titling, it's an appropriately made look at an interesting emerging phenomenon.
Thursday, 24 January 2008
TV: Torchwood - Season 2, Episode 2
Sleeper by James Moran
The central premise of this second episode is an excellent one: there are a group of aliens in Cardiff, who don't know they're aliens, gathering information to eventually mount an attack so their race can seize the planet. It's a play on the idea of sleeper cells -- groups of terrorists in hiding in a country, working on plans to attack. Thankfully this analogy is never made too blatant: rather than using sci-fi to make a 'clever' comment, it uses a very modern, real concept to launch its own strong tale.
The episode is a bit of a slow burn, surely closer to the sort of adult drama many critics were demanding of Torchwood, though it's neatly decorated with action, blood and gore when appropriate. The whole episode hinges on Beth, who is magnificently portrayed by Nikki Amuka-Bird. I've seen her in a few other things and not always been that impressed, to be honest, but here she shines, carrying all of the episode's emotion -- and there's a lot of it. Beth is one of those aliens-who-doesn't know, who comes to the attention of Torchwood following an accidental manifestation of her alien abilities. The plot then makes a beeline through their discoveries about her true identity to a plot involving a secret nuclear missile base and the destruction of the planet.
This is the sort of episode where Torchwood can really shine: a mix of powerful human emotion, original and well-considered science-fiction, and a nice bit of action and gore to round things off. The adult time slot and focus also allow it to be more uncertain than Doctor Who ever will be, in terms of the moral compass of the characters (even the good guys) and the sorts of endings we might find -- in this case, one both downbeat and with several key threads unresolved.
If Torchwood can keep up the level of quality and variety displayed in the first two episodes then we're in for an excellent season, one where the show doesn't so much find its feet as pull on its boots and sprint off. With a gun. To kick some alien arse.
The central premise of this second episode is an excellent one: there are a group of aliens in Cardiff, who don't know they're aliens, gathering information to eventually mount an attack so their race can seize the planet. It's a play on the idea of sleeper cells -- groups of terrorists in hiding in a country, working on plans to attack. Thankfully this analogy is never made too blatant: rather than using sci-fi to make a 'clever' comment, it uses a very modern, real concept to launch its own strong tale.
The episode is a bit of a slow burn, surely closer to the sort of adult drama many critics were demanding of Torchwood, though it's neatly decorated with action, blood and gore when appropriate. The whole episode hinges on Beth, who is magnificently portrayed by Nikki Amuka-Bird. I've seen her in a few other things and not always been that impressed, to be honest, but here she shines, carrying all of the episode's emotion -- and there's a lot of it. Beth is one of those aliens-who-doesn't know, who comes to the attention of Torchwood following an accidental manifestation of her alien abilities. The plot then makes a beeline through their discoveries about her true identity to a plot involving a secret nuclear missile base and the destruction of the planet.
This is the sort of episode where Torchwood can really shine: a mix of powerful human emotion, original and well-considered science-fiction, and a nice bit of action and gore to round things off. The adult time slot and focus also allow it to be more uncertain than Doctor Who ever will be, in terms of the moral compass of the characters (even the good guys) and the sorts of endings we might find -- in this case, one both downbeat and with several key threads unresolved.
If Torchwood can keep up the level of quality and variety displayed in the first two episodes then we're in for an excellent season, one where the show doesn't so much find its feet as pull on its boots and sprint off. With a gun. To kick some alien arse.
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