A Tale of Two Brits -
August 25
Before I start this article, I would like to
congratulate Bianca Ryan for winning America's Got
Talent. She won this tournament for two reasons. #1. She
was by far the most talented in the finals, and #2. She
did not have to compete against magician Nathan Burton,
who surely won more than a million dollars worth of
publicity when he got himself all of that television
time.
It's obvious, however, that Nathan Burton should have
been in the finals. Chances are that even if he didn't
win the million, he would have at least placed himself
in the Top Three and won himself a pair of wheels. Why
didn't Nathan get there - or more importantly, why did
acts such as The Miller Brothers and Celtic Spring get
there instead? There is one answer to this - Piers
Morgan.
Piers Morgan is the obligatory cranky judge on America's
Got Talent. Although other shows have proven that you
don't need a cranky judge (such as Dancing With The
Stars), almost every other show, seeing the success of
Simon Cowell on American Idol insists on getting the
mean old judge. Only Nashville Star seemed to make it
work. Every other show (the main culprit of this being
Star Search) has a judge that winds up being either
Simon-lite or way too mean and out there.
Let's face it. There is only one Simon Cowell. What
makes him so good at what he does is very simple, yet
he's the only one that masters it. He follows one rule,
and makes it stick - you can savage the performance, but
not the performer. He may attack the performer, calling
something karaoke or 'Cruise Ship Singer' or a hideous
song choice. He may even attack the appearance of the
contestant - the hair, or the clothing. He may even call
you the worst singer in America.
But the one thing he will not do is attack you as a
person. He will not call you anything to personally hurt
your feelings. And he certainly won't call you dumb,
like he did to David of Quick Change. Now granted, David
created his own downfall by going after Piers, and maybe
he is hilariously arrogant, but as a judge, you do not
go after a performer personally - and you certainly do
not take any back stage feelings you have against the
performer and include that
in your judging, something that Piers certainly did.
One of my biggest complaints in talent show judging is
that America loves the underdog. Tears and sympathy will
get votes. In American Idol, it worked for both Nikki
McKibbin and Jasmine Trias. You can always move further
in a competition if you are likable.
Now both Simon Cowell and Piers Morgan have
inadvertently advanced people through their respective
competitions due to their negative feedback. The
formats, however, differ greatly. In American Idol,
tears can only get you through an extra week, and 95% of
the time, thanks to the Chaos Theory, you are going to
be booted off of the show the next week. AGT, however,
is different only because the sympathy vote not only
gets you past a week, it will get you straight
to the Finals...or better.
Why does Nathan not make the finals? Because he gets
knocked out by Quick Change in the Wild Card. Nathan
came in second, while Quick Change, spurred on by Piers
calling David dumb, sneaks out past Nathan to grab the
final coveted spot.
Ironically enough, the reason why Quick Change needed to
get to the finals by using the Wild Card can also be
traced to Piers. In their preliminary round, Quick
Change comes in second to...Celtic Spring, who gets the
bonus votes thanks to Piers decimating the family by
telling them that they should leave the kids out of the
act. In this case, I happened to agree with Piers, but
the way that he said it made the little kids cry. Going
back to the 'America votes on
Tears' mantra, how aren't you going to get sympathy
votes from crying kids? The answer is that you are, and
hence, a Celtic Spring group that didn't sound great
(and only landed in the Middle of the Pack in the
finals) beats out an amazing magic act, who in turn also
uses Piers's comments to get themselves in the finals.
So thanks to Piers Morgan, instead of the best groups
getting into the finals, we have instead Nathan Burton
out while two groups that did not make the Top 4 in the
finals in. All we need (and can hope for) is Simon
Cowell telling Piers, 'You are the Worst Talent Judge in
America'.
Gordon Pepper feasts on the tears of the insolent. E-mail Gordon at
gordon@gameshownewsnet.com.
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