Admitting to another occasional guilty pleasure here. I tune into talent competitions like American's Got Talent from time to time. But one aspect of the show that really bugs me -- or any show that deals with magic acts? Calling something amazing and voting it through that clearly and obviously requires inside knowledge. Calling something amazing that requires that and presents no interesting sleight of hand tricks to go through process of elimination to uncover information. To trick people into divulging that info, etc. etc.

The Clairvoyants, a prime example, were on the other night:





Everything has to be pre-arranged with the judges for this to come off. The contestants don't go through any clever process that could uncover any of this. There is no "magic" involved, because it's 100% dependent on a set up.

To me, it's the same thing with card tricks that are obviously absolutely reliant on pre-arranged knowledge. Not skill. Not sleight of hand.

I have no idea why so many people are impressed by this -- and they made the finals.