NBC's "Phenomenon" - Week 2
If week two of NBC's "Phenomenon" is any indication, we don’t need Criss Angel to act as a voice of reason.
Despite the show's hype about extraordinary powers, the show opened with each of the contestants performing stunts that were pure magic trickery - many of the type that you can find competent magicians regularly showing off at nightclubs and restaurants. And after a tepid initial show last week, it was a surprise to find that week two, a two-hour show no less, was able to ramp-up the energy and interest.
The show opened with magic tricks that included: a predicted card in a lady's blouse, moving sunglasses using the power of the mind, levitating a spinning credit card and more. There was seemingly no line between tricks and feats of mentalism. These were clearly tricks.
Even Uri Geller himself presented a great interactive trick that involved planets. It's odd to find Geller presenting tricks. I thought he was supposed to be the real thing.
Not Idle
Maintaining the "American Idol" angle, two contestants, Jim Karol and Ehud Segev, were eliminated. Last week’s nail gun stunt was enough to keep Eran Raven in the game, while voters ultimately connected with Gerry McCambridge. I liked McCambridge's performance from last week but was surprised that the general public agreed.
Highlights of the evening came from Guy Bavli and Angela Funovits. Bavli created a dramatic showstopper by halting his heart. He's clearly got the talent and knowledge to take this thing.
Among a cast of contestants that's tilted towards the "Y" chromosome, Angela Funovits performed "Russian Roulette" with a knife and paper cylinders. When I first heard about "The Phenomenon," I expected someone to feature this trick. Funovits offered an entertaining, dramatic and compelling performance. If this week is any indication, she may be a standout.
The Lighter Side
After the serious performances of the first week, two contestants: Wayne Hoffman and Mike Super, took a lighter tact. 
These guys entertained as if they were in nightclubs and brought a refreshing change of pace. Mike Super even dressed in jeans and casual clothes. Win or lose, the show will enhance the careers of Hoffman and Super and probably allow them to add a zero to their fees
Hoffman did a cool prediction that involved a tattoo on his arm while Super performed a prediction effect where spectators outlined the parameters of a murder and that served a surprising and baffling kicker.
"I See Dead People"
The other memorable moment came when Jim Callahan claimed to communicate with a dead spirit to identify a chosen object. If controversy is what the show wanted and needed, Callahan's self professed trip to the other side and bizarre trancing gave Criss Angel the perfect moment to challenge the "phenomena."
Angel referred to the performance as "comical" and Callahan called Angel an "ideological bigot." While the producers may have loved the bench clearing, potential brawl that seemed to ensue, I couldn't help but wonder whether this was some scripted "reality" stunt that was done to play to viewers.
The Saga Continues
Week two was a definite step up. It's going to be interesting to see what the contestants have in store for later weeks. Did they do their best material too early? Or have the survivors saved something significant? We’ll see.
More Reading:
NBC's "Phenomenon" - Week 1 and Readers' Comments
Between 2 Minds by Guy Bavli and Haim Goldenberg
Comments
I don’t think that argument was scripted–Criss embarrassed Uri too!
I totally think that the argument was scripted. Maybe not word for word but at least planned.
I think the whole show is staged, honestly. It’s an absolutely terrible show… it reminds me of so many daytime soaps, only with less class. My favorite part was how the “doctor” assigned to the “heartstop” illusion was dressed in a white labcoat with a stethoscope around his neck, while in the studio audience. No, not staged at all. Honestly. This is the first television show I’ve seen that actually offended me so much in terms of insulting my intelligence that I felt compelled to find somewhere to complain about it. I can’t believe money is being wasted producing this piece of crap, when people are starving in Africa, kinda deal.
This show gives magicians a bad rap.
Mentalism doesn’t play well on TV and the contest format is just a contrived distraction.
As far as Cris Angel’s stupid rant, hell, the show is called looking for the next great mentalist isn’t it? Isn’t that what Jim C. was pretending to be? — a mentalist. If Cris Angel was TRULY against mentalism, he wouldn’t have been on the show to begin with. I agree with Jim — Cris is an ideological bigot.
Criss Angel seems to have forgotten that the show is about the contestants, not him. It became a Jerry Springer magic and mentalism show. James Randi surely put Angel up to attacking Uri. Randi hates Uri and since Randi devotee Banacheck is an Angel advisor it was easy for him to influence Criss to attack. They all are scum.
Remember..Randi received that million dollar free gran-gift a few years ago for proving mentalists are fakes. Copperfield is in personal trouble. Criss dresses un,and Uri
s effect of spoon bending has been done by Randi and others. Now,how many viewers believe super-natural talents performing on network TV..? Straight Magic-Mental tricks are for fun and enjoyment. The show is falling flat forgetting that. Let’shave a little mor “show-biz” –”tongue in cheek” pefroeming..make it entertaining-fun to watch..! Trying to make viewers believe this to be real is a trick going wrong..
This show is hurting mentalism more than it helps. And it is giving magic as a whole a bad name. The show is boring and disapointing and most of all, sadly revealing that there are no true mentalism powers, but that it is all cheap tricks.
It seems that away from their comfortable fields, put on live stage and without any camera tricks or dramatic editing, mentalistis cant do much at all, but repeat the same few tricks based on the same principles.
And to top it all off, Chris Angel might wish he never got on that show. This show is taking away the mystic of mentalism, the supernatural secrets we all want to believe there are. Chris Angel himself, in confronting Callahan, - who so far was the only one, actually trying to sell to us that he had real supernatural powers - calling his performance comical and adding “I give you a million dollars if you can tell me what is in this envelop”, exposed his own trade and revealed that he himself does not believe that there is a true power of mentalism, and that therefore all his great performances are based on simple tricks as well.
No wonder that he has not yet given us any taste of levitating from person to person or across the stage. While in his own show he so easily lavitates from building to building, in this live show of supposedly finding a mentalist phenomenon, he has not even been able to even lavitate 2 inch out of his seat…
Hello, I have flash backs actually I have visions, I was driving my car and was having a vision and it was just as plain as black and white, I saw things I did not really want to see but I do not regrret seeing what I saw Au revoir Yvonne