The Experiment (BBC2), Inside Out (Tyne Tees)

THE 1971 Stanford Prison experiment showed a group of men becoming tyrants after being made guards. The BBC's The Experiment is being run along much the same lines to see what happens when one group (guards) is given power over another group (prisoners).

Billed as "a unique scientific experiment into power and rebellion", the opening instalment came across more like a naff episode of Big Brother.

Far from discovering that power turns a good man into evil, it showed prisoners outsmarting their guards psychologically at every turn.

And just in case you couldn't see this for yourself, the programme kept cutting back to the two British academics monitoring events so they could state the obvious.

The set-up of this two-week experiment was intriguing. Participants were promised hunger, hardship and anger. Putting a Christian evangelist in the same cell as a reformed crack addict seemed a recipe for conflict. Far from it, prisoners maintained a united front while guards, clearly uncomfortable with power, contradicted and undermined each other.

Mealtimes illustrated the weakness of the guards. When prisoners were served small portions of badly cooked food on the orders of the academics, guards offered them their breakfast sausages. When inmates said they wouldn't allow more than one guard at a time into a cell, guards obeyed them.

There was a stronger drive towards rebellion by prisoners than tyranny by guards. By the end of the first episode, the lunatics running the asylum, if you see what I mean.

This all sounds more fascinating that it was. Big Brother or The Edwardian Country House offer more insight into people's behaviour when forced into an unfamiliar situation.

Coincidentally, Inside Out visited a place - Kirklevington Grange Resettlement Prison near Yarm - where prisoners are given the keys to their cells and allowed to go outside to work.

There are only three prisons like this in the country where, as governor Suzanne Anthony explained, criminals are given the chance to change and make a fresh start.

Not everyone is welcome. Sex offenders, arsonists and drug users aren't allowed. "You get interviewed to come here. It's quite difficult to get in," explained one prisoner.

Privileges include mobile phones and driving lessons. They're encouraged to seek work in local industry and commerce, and to work in the community. This certainly seems a more worthwhile experiment than what's happening in the BBC2 series