Fall TV Blog

Sometimes, when America doesn’t have talent, it’s more fun than when the contestants actually do. Who doesn’t mind the occasional face-plant? Thankfully, Wednesday’s episode of America’s Got Talent, which stopped in Houston and Miami, drew the weakest of the first round of auditions so far. A parade of mediocre acts set off buzzer after buzzer, from a bad blond singer to a man’s off-color poems. Although there were a few bright spots — a tightly choreographed 27-dancer troupe called Lake Houston Performing Arts Center and a dancing dog come to mind — it was a fun night to revel in the lesser talented parts of America — at least on this show.

The most entertaining of the slip-ups was the overconfident, 25-year-old magician Marti Brill from Miami. After telling the judges that they would never see a better magician, he created insurmountable expectations. He tried to get the audience on his side, starting a clap-along, and they reluctantly obliged. But his tired magic act of eating and tossing up cards cards, making a cup of soda and beautiful assistant levitate, and over-exaggerated physicality quickly drew the audience’s ire. Speaking for the crowd, judge Pierce Morgan called Brill, “the most annoying man in Miami.” This comes as a shock to Brill, who is convinced of his own awesomeness, which made for totally awesome TV.

Of course, it helps that America’s Got Talent showed its good side on Tuesday’s show, which featured the best of this season so far with a chicken catcher who can sing. We’ll see what’s in store next week. – Nicholas White

Tell us: Do you like to good or the bad of America’s Got Talent?

Hiding behind a backwards cap, Kevin Skinner, 35, wowed judges with his brilliant guitar playing and singing. But expectations were low when the “chicken catcher” from Mayfield, Ky., stepped out onto the America’s Got Talent stage Tuesday. He drew mostly snickers from the crowd for his folksy wit when he said he likes to hunt and fish, “take the truck muddin’,” and count the stars under the open sky.

His version of “If Tomorrow Never Comes” by Garth Brooks had such a sophisticated and tortured sound, the unemployed farmer beamed with pure talent in a Susan Boyle-like breakout moment that may not become a YouTube sensation, but is definitely worthy of top-ranking performance of the season.

Piers Morgan, who sets the tone on the judges’ panel as the cranky expert, had nothing but praise for Skinner. “There is a moment in every season and I can remember them all, where somebody comes onstage dressed like you are, and your cap is on the wrong way around, and … then you start to sing and within about 20 seconds, you had me,” he said. “By the end of it, that was one of the most emotional powerful performances I’ve seen in a long time.” Read the rest of this entry »