Netflix Releases Trailer For New Reality Show ‘The Push’: What’s It About?

By Joey Keogh

Infamous "psychological illusionist" Derren Brown is at it again. Netflix has just revealed the trailer for a brand new reality show starring Brown.

Called The Push, the show's premise looks to push participants to their very limits. Brown seeks to find out whether someone who doesn't consider him or herself capable of killing someone would actually do so, which is the major hook of the show. Would the viewers do the same thing in this situation?

Morally Bankrupt

The trailer finds Brown testing out the limits of so-called "social compliance" to see how far someone can be pushed beyond the boundaries of their own moral construct. Its biggest selling point comes when one man, Chris, is put at the center of a setup, which sees actors trying to convince him to commit and then cover up a murder. All in good fun, of course.

Chris, a contestant of sorts, if one can even call him that, is tasked to "push" another guy to his death. If he doesn't comply, he "wins."

If he does, then he gets to explain his predilection for murder to therapists for the rest of his life. It's unclear why poor Chris has been chosen for this particular bit, but the outcome seems predetermined. Otherwise, this will be a very different show.

Entertainment Value

The Push promises an immersive experience unlike any other that will leave viewers questioning participants' humanity as well as their own. Brown himself is known for being pretty persuasive and has built his entire brand on barely legal coercion, so it's easy to feel bad for anybody he's inveigled into taking part in this reality show.

The trailer may be sensationalist on purpose. The murder scenario could be the worst one out of otherwise dull and run-of-the-mill daily tasks with strangers. This may even be Impractical Jokers, Derren Brown-style but it's most likely not.

Either way, this is an interesting time to push this new reality series on patrons. There is certainly an audience for this kind of show if the recent revelations about YouTuber Logan Paul are anything to go by.

Paul, who filmed a dead body and uploaded it online, didn't quite understand why that was such a bad thing. However, he gained a million more followers in the process and still hasn't been banned from the site.

Fans of Brown's shtick and the curious ones can check out The Push on Netflix starting Feb. 27.