Zone Xtrême is a reality TV show in which the contestants, when they get answers wrong, are hit with an electric shock. The shocks get more and more powerful as the contestants scream with pain until, on occasion, they appear to have died.

But there's a twist: in fact, Zone Xtrême is a set-up, and it's the people administering the shocks that are being tested -- the "contestants" are actors, the audience is fake, and the entire series isn't reality TV but a documentary.

It is, in essence, a repeat of the famous experiments by Yale psychologist Stanley Milgram, who, in the wake of horrifying revelations about Nazi Germany, was studying people's obedience to authority.

French commentators see in the documentary (called Le Jeu de la Mort, or "the game of death") a terrible revelation about the effect of reality TV on society -- has reality TV come to the point where it can convince people to kill?

I’ve previously written about the dangers TV pose to the young minds growing up in society today, and if this faux show-documentary is any indication, it seems most people are in dire need of redirecting their attention to healthier pursuits.

Research has shown that watching TV has a major impact on your brain chemistry. The longer you watch the TV screen, the easier your brain slips into a receptive, passive mode, meaning that messages are streamed into your brain without any participation from you.

This is an advertiser’s dream, and could be used for more nefarious purposes as well – creating and maintaining passive, dumbed-down citizens, who, as this show illustrates, may be capable of little more than following orders, no matter where they come from.

It’s a great reminder to THINK about what you and your children are watching, and how much…