America’s Got Talent continues to be a powerhouse in reality TV competition so it was a no brainer that they would spawn spin offs such as Champions, Extreme, All Stars and now Fantasy League this year.
The concept is that the judges draft a number of performers each to compete with each other. But I don't care about any of that and mainly watched to see who the magicians were, what they did and any other acts I might enjoy. In this season there were seven magicians from previous shows competing with only two making it out of the preliminary rounds and into the semifinals.
Unfortunately, no magicians made it to the finals due to lack of votes but let’s look at the magicians, what they did and my thoughts on their act.
Jon Dorenbos
Former NFL player returns to the stage with a card trick that is all personality and presentation based. The trick itself is a straightforward sympathetic card plot with an extra wrinkle reversing a randomly chosen card.
Jon is a very confident performer, and it continues to come across in this act, the trick itself may be simple like his previous ones, but that’s also what makes him good, taking a tried and true card effect and adding a layer of presentation that’s unique and memorable. He talks about surrounding himself with great people, in this case the judges, and then on top of that adds how he wants to be a good father to his daughter, both very relatable ideals.
Jon excels at bringing wonder through magic and making you feel good with his presence and presentation.
Piff The Magic Dragon
Piff The Magic Dragon, who previously made it to the finals returned with an act that referenced his Golden Buzzer performance.
A sandwich was featured in that act and now, he was creating a sandwich with the judges randomly picking bread, ingredients, sauces and fillings. It was a confabulation style routine but instead of the generic “dream holiday” presentation, Piff literally creates a sandwich, which is edible and even includes a strand of Heidi’s hair that was previously plucked at the start of the act! Such a great and funny use of the hair given how often we may find someone’s hair in our food. I love seeing how magicians take existing plots and find a great new story to keep it original and fresh, something we all should strive for.
I really enjoy Piff’s dry, sarcastic sense of humour, you can’t help but smile when a real life magic dragon is roasting you, so it’s a shame he didn’t proceed to the next round where we could enjoy more of his magic and comedy.
Fritzy Rosmerian
I had not heard of 15 year old Fritzy previously, which made sense as she was featured on Indonesia’s Got Talent.
Fritzy is a mentalist with a super chirpy and positive demeanour, which is very evident in her performance. She performs a great physical prediction effect revealing the name of her teddy bear matching the name Howie wrote. Unfortunately, due to communication issues either with her accent or not being clear enough there was confusion among the judges as her performance progressed, but these are experiences she’ll stamp out with more performances. Or it could be a language barrier, not knowing how to clarify after the fact, I can’t say.
It was a fun act that I’m sure in a proper show setting would have more time to breathe and play better, but on TV, everything needs to be edited down where possible. It will be interesting to see if she continues pursuing magic as she gets older.
Yu Hojin
On the same episode as Fritzy, Korean magician Yu HoJin presented a paper airplane act that took up the whole stage, playing big with the theme of memories.
I really enjoyed this act and am a big fan of visual magic where things vanish, transform, reappear and float. Even though most people can guess or have an inkling of an idea how things are happening, it’s one thing to try and logic how things are floating and another to just enjoy seeing magic happen without CGI.
For his semi finals performance Yu Hojin went with the theme of love, turning various objects from books, photos, cameras and a ring into rose petals before restoring a rose stem with its fallen petals. Funnily enough Mel B and Simon didn’t fully understand the story being told, but regardless it was a beautiful act with many magical moments.
Another thing I really like about Yu Hojin is his choice of music, each song he uses fits the theme and mood of his act and aren’t generic, cliched magic music of old. Something we all can learn from when scoring our acts.
Cillian O'Connor
Cillian was previously on Britain's Got Talent and made it to third place and in this Fantasy League act he took elements from previous outings and formed a great story which highlighted autism as an ability and not disability.
The magic act itself had a great mix of close up and stage illusions, which shows how well Cillian understood the assignment when coming onto Got Talent shows. Who doesn’t have a good stage vanish and reappearance of a human!? It’s funny that he and Yu Hojin would end up using the same song for their acts, Snow Patrol really hit on a timeless song that further shows how important music can be in when paired with magic or any other artform.
Cillian didn’t make it to the next round, but his future of magic is set with the invaluable experience he’s had on these shows.
The Clairvoyants
The Clairvoyants are one of my favourite mentalist duos, and they put on a very fun act based off a hangover style premise where you struggle to piece together what happened the night before.
One of the best things about AGT is that they have the budget to allow for amazing set designs, allowing the audience the feel like they’re actually looking at a posh hotel room that’s been trashed after a heavy night of partying. The prediction effect is straight forward with a nice kicker referring to their audition performance, but the presentation and they way we get there is so fun. I hope that when they do this routine in their normal show it takes longer so they can interact more with their participant, throwing in jokes, reacting to their choices and building that rapport.
It’s a shame they didn’t make it to the Semi Finals, they were on an episode with Anna DeGuzman and Cillian O’Connor so three magicians vying for a spot means only one or potentially none make it through, in this case it was Anna would made it.
Anna DeGuzman
What can I say about Anna that I haven’t already written about a bunch previously!
Her preliminary performance was very fun, utilising the interests of Mel B and Terry, making drinks they enjoy and doing a trick with Terry’s credit card, which must have been fun for the editors to ensure the card details were blurred. Card to impossible location is always a fun plot, especially if you make it appear within a block of ice, which attacks so many senses you can’t not be impressed even if you don’t like magic.
Her semi-finals performance I’ve written about extensively previously so I won’t repeat myself.
Which magician did you particularly enjoy from this season of AGT Fantasy League? I wonder if next year they’ll do a similar concept or rename it something else as the performers are usually previous contenders.
A lot of people have a love/hate relationship with reality TV, but the good thing about these acts being on YouTube and social media means I can pick and choose what I want to watch and bypass all the sappy emotional stories I don’t want to see.