Quote
~lyser
It was bad if you were not entertained.
That was NOT stooge (pre-arranged) work. Stooge work would NEVER fly on a show like AGT, nothing was pre-arranged with the judges - I absolutely guarantee you that. As a member of the PEA and practicing professional mentalist, I felt it was a good performance.
Does that change your opinion of the performance?
Well, not sure if you're pulling my leg or not. But, it's absolutely impossible, for instance, that they knew before hand about the time on the clock (exactly 7:05, if memory serves). The only way to get that right is to make sure it was all scripted. Same with most of the answers from the other judges. The only one that might be an educated guess was the "I want a raise" from Howie.
The way to tell is if there are literally thousands of different possibilities and they get the right one, without a single attempt at a process of elimination. Any time there is a first time, one-off guess that is 100% correct, you know it's been pre-arranged.
So then, you have to ask if the presentation itself was "fun" or "entertaining." For me, all of that is spoiled by leaving out all the tricks one could use to gain personal information without the subjects even knowing it. The sleight of hand which the magician or mentalist uses to trick the subject, cleverly, etc.
The finalists didn't do that. They already knew everything without a single error.
Anyway, I start out with the premise that it's impossible to read minds.
Literally impossible. Other people may see that
as a possibility, in which case, they accept that the contestants are doing something "amazing."
Oh, well. To each their own.