It was PHENOMENON!

On Halloween night instead of going out, I stayed over my friend's place and switched on the TV. Phenomenon was on NBC and it was their Halloween special edition. After watching 2 hours of the show instead of doing my chemistry homework, I admit that it was worth my attention spam.
For those of you who have no idea what I'm talk about, I'll fill you in. It's worth the knowledge.
Phenomenon is the new hit TV show on NBC. It features the famous mentalist Uri Geller, and one of the world's greatest mystifier, Criss Angel (We will tie him in with Britney Spears later). Geller and Angel are on the search for America's next top mentalist. The show starts with 10 fine contestants who battle against each other for the ultimate glory and $250,000.00 cash award. Wednesday was my first time watching the show so I cannot comment much about the previous competitors. However from what I saw on Wednesday, all the remaining contestants are strong players.
Some of the acts are truly amazing. If I recall correctly, the last contestant- Guy Bavli blew everyone away by his murder prediction. Unlike other contestants, I cannot think of an excuse for him to cheat the act. Bavli selected four members from the audiences (maybe it was preplanned) and asked them each to add to a murder case. The case was: Tom Hanks was killed by a dresser in Hawaii at 3:13. Then, Bavli unlocked the hanging box and took out a sealed clear container. Oh, the box was in full view to the audience the whole time when the murder case was created. Bavli opened the clear container and took out the piece of paper. Bavli claimed that he had predicted the murder case just before the show and wrote down on this paper. He unrolls the paper and read out the exact murder scenario! What surprised me the most was when Bavli told the audiences that the time of the murder is in their hands. Then the white light turned on. Who could of guessed? Indeed, everyone had "3:13" in their palm.
Sadly his performance was the only one that really amazed me. Even Geller and Angel claimed that it was the best they've seen all night. Most of the mentalists did well on their acts, but none of the performances was as indulging and unoriginal as Bavli's. But the fight of Criss Angel and Jim Callahan (contestant) was the other thing that I enjoyed. Callahan's performance didn't sell too well. I don't know about the audiences, but apparently Angel, Geller and I wasn't convinced by his performance. Callahan had Raven Symone picked out one of any 100 objects backstage and instructed her to place it in a box. He claimed that the spirit of a ghost will float into his body and the ghost will direct his hand and write down the hidden object. The audiences watched Callahan faked a seizure on stage for 5 minutes as he wrote on a whiteboard. After a big gong, Callahan "awakes" panting and sweating. He then placed the whiteboard under an mirror. The reflection of the sentence he wrote referred to the object that Symone had placed in the box. Props there. After Geller's weak comment about the performance, Angel held out a fold paper and challenged Callahan to ask his ghost friend to tell him what's the message inside. "I will personally give you my $1million dollars if you can tell me what I wrote in here," Angel said. But before he could finish the sentence, Callahan argued that Angel doesn't believe in spirits. The two started to argue in profanity and security guards jumped on stage keeping the two apart from turning the show into WWE. Then Tim Vincent, the host, quickly cuts to a commercial break.
Some magic acts can easily be figured out. Those ones are just boring. The problem with Callahan's performance was that it's just too realistically fake for most people to actually believe (Maybe he over did the seizure act, who knows). Performances like these cause many controversies because not everyone accepts spirits and ghosts. Unlike spiritual magic acts, simple magic tricks (such as cutting a person in half, making an elephant disappear or swallowing knives) are accepted by everyone because it's a well defined as entertainment.
I encourage all to watch the show. There might be better magic shows out there, but it's got Criss Angel in it! I hope he will perform sometimes during the show. But nevertheless, the show is truly Phenomenon.