Derren Brown Investigates, does what it says on the tin. The mind boggling (how the hell he does what he does, I don't know. I suppose that's the point) conjurer follows a bald headed Liverpudlian psychic called Joe, in order to ascertain the validity of his claims about being able to contact the spirit world (and apparently John Lennon himself). Joe, self evidently regrets agreeing to the documentary, being chippy and evasive throughout, not being able to feign his contempt for the whole thing. We see Joe in action at a one to one reading or whatever they call it with a women. Surprisingly he gets some details right about the women's relatives who have "passed on." (more on this later.) Brown probes him on how he does it, and Joe claims its to do with energy transfers and and magnetic fields and what not. I imagine several physicists exploded in their front rooms at this point. Brown says it would be an astounding achievement if he really could contact the dead, and the concept is potentially staggering. How plausible that he can contact the dead is another matter completely.
They both try out (though Derren is reluctant to do so. He is emphatic, he has no psychic ability. He's a conjurer.) their ability on some Hollyoaks stars. On one girl; they deduce where she went on holiday, and what car she owns. Joe is irked that Derren can beat him at his own game, and is quite rudely dismissive of him (he is rather grating), claiming his readings have more factual basis. In a twist on this reading, Derrens driver claims that Joe might know she drives a Mini, as he was stood outside the car park when she pulled in! (Joe angrily denies this.)
Derren then sees Joe perform at a "Psychic Night" gig at a hotel, alongside a researcher into the practices of psychics. He explains "cold reading", whereby a person can use visual and vocal clues to fish for information about a stranger, ostensibly knowing more about them than they actually know. He analyses the use of abstracts;- random names to garner a reaction from the audience to establish a "grip." We see how the audience (who are almost all women, and credulous to his "abilities".) fill in the gaps for him, interpreting random numbers and names as related to their "spirit". How he dismisses stuff he gets wrong, and can shoehorn unrelated "hits" to form a narrative. So - called Barnum statements, general descriptives that can apply to anyone (something for everyone.). In fact one of the things I liked about this documentary was that you could see these in the other readings. Your mums happy in heaven (What else would people want to hear? She fucking hates it?) Old women suffer from joint problems. Hollyoaks girl is told her last relationship ended in heartbreak (what else was it going to end in? A merger with Tesco.) We also see him recap stuff relayed to him earlier, that he puts back out as "readings". And if all else fails, he blames any errors on "bad spirits", audience error, and bad vibes. Never the fact that he's either a shit psychic, or he isn't psychic at all. I never!
The researcher concedes that a casual observation can't prove / disprove his abilities alone. He will have to undergo some kind of test under controlled conditions. He (vigourously) refuses to take a controlled test, in which he never has face to face contact with his "customer" to rule out cold reading, - in order to give them messages from the spirit world. His rationale is lousy, he needs to see the person in order to send the celestial text message; or something. Derran accurately says this is like a bloke saying he has a UFO in his back yard, but it's invisible and intangible, so just take the blokes word for it. A pre arranged test takes place when a women who wants a reading off Joe, from a specific person (her sister) fails totally. He can't get anything right at all. He is outraged to find that she was approached beforehand (why didn't the spirits warn him.) and claims that Derren scared the spirits off. (the blame game.) He terminates the meetings after that.
Things like this are frustrating to watch sometimes. Joe is so evasive, and so full of weasel words, we end up with a one sided affair. (If you want to justify the tenacious, at least have a crack at doing so.) He can't justify the foundations of his ability, because the foundations simply don't exist in the first place. By his own admission we can't try to apply some kind of controlled conditions to evaluate his "powers" because the controls invalidate them by default. (This is a common qualm from homeopathists and alternate medicine people as well.) All we are left with is his word for it, and like the famous Carl Sagan quote "extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence", and the "that which can be ascribed without evidence, can be dismissed by evidence" leaves us with only one conclusion you don't have to be psychic about.
Some might say that if people are credulous enough to part with cash for this kind of thing, then so be it. But I always feel that this is far from victimless. There are real human emotions being trampled on by this sort of stuff. The night in the pub for instance. Liverpool has its fair share of social baggage. There was talk of drug deaths, alcohol deaths and suicides. There was something terribly intrusive about the whole thing. I don't really blame someone who lost a loved one, grasping at straws. The ability to contact the dead would bring comfort to many who felt they didn't get to say goodbye. But fake catharsis (that they've paid for.), on such tenuous evidence? Which leads us onto the conclusion of Joe's "abilities" It later transpires that the successful reading he had (the one I said I'd mention again.) was a neighbour of his sister. I'm not psychic but;-..... And if I'm honest I don't think Joe is either.
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