Killer Magic - The Last Two Episodes

I’m sorry that these two reviews are being published 2 months after these episodes aired, but better late than never. With Penn and Teller: Fool Us returning to American television next week, and numerous magicians auditioning for the tenth season of Americas Got Talent (hoping to emulate last year’s winner, close-up magician Mat Franco), there is going to be a lot of activity on this blog during the summer, so I decided to get my reviews of Killer Magic out of the way beforehand.

The rules of Killer Magic are the same as ever. Five magicians (Ben Hart, Chris Cox, Damien O’Brien, Dee Christopher and Jasz Vegas) each perform a routine fitting a weekly theme. The other magicians give them a score out of 10, and the magician with the lowest total score has to do an incredibly dangerous “Killer Trick” as a forfeit.

The fifth episode of Killer Magic was themed around “Sports” and the theme of the sixth was “Gadgets”

(The Following May Contain Spoilers)

Killer Magic – Episode 5

The Tricks

•  Ben went first, and performed his routine at a tennis club. He began by telling his volunteer to sign a key. He then threaded the key onto a shoelace, and appeared to remove it by making it pass through the lace, then restored it to its original position. Ben then made the key vanish and reappear attached to the strings of a tennis racket that had been held in the volunteer’s hands. After removing the key by smashing the tennis racket against a bench, Ben then put the pieces of the Racket’s head inside a head cover, with the handle sticking out and held by the volunteer, and restored the tennis racket to its previous undamaged state. This was a very creative routine, with Ben’s tricks becoming more impressive as his performance progressed, and the climax was very strong. The other magicians enjoyed Ben’s performance, and gave him a total score of 30.

• If there was one magician who looked like they would struggle with the week’s theme, it was probably Chris, whose routine was inspired by his attempts at avoiding P.E lessons at his school. He used a P.E teacher as his volunteer, and gave him a “Sick-note” to put in his pocket without reading. Chris then told the teacher to pick items of clothing at random from a Lost Property box to serve as his P.E kit. After getting dressed in the chosen clothing, Chris did a mentalism trick in which he went onto a trampoline blindfolded and correctly predicted the trampolining positions chosen by the teacher. At the end, Chris told the teacher to open read the sick-note he had been given at the start of the routine – it featured a perfect prediction of the clothing which Chris had been made to wear. The tricks were impressive, and Chris provided a unique spin on a theme that did not appear to suit him, but he seems to be relying solely on mentalism, and the problems with this style of magic (Such as the lengthy set-ups) become increasingly apparent the more it is used. Ben said that Chris’ routine was too confusing, and Damien criticised his costume, but Chris received a total score of 27.

• Under pressure to end his streak of poor performances, Dee performed an attention-grabbing trick at a shooting range. He loaded a gun with red ribbon, then borrowed a ring from a volunteer. After appearing to swallow the ring, Dee then got an expert shooter to aim the gun at his chest and fire, causing the ribbon to fly through his body and hit the wall behind him. The volunteer’s ring reappeared threaded onto the ribbon behind Dee, and when he walked forward and released himself from the ribbon that had appeared to pass through his stomach, it was clear that he was unharmed.  This trick is a relatively old and obscure one (I remember seeing the masked magician do it and expose the secret in his controversial show Breaking the Magicians Code) but it is still interesting to watch, and I believe that Dee brought it up to date. The other magicians also expressed this opinion, and gave Dee a total score of 28.

• For her performance, Jasz aimed to combine Synchronised Swimming with magic. She dived into the deep end of a swimming pool and performed a Linking Rings routine underwater. Jasz performed the trick well, and the decision to do it underwater provided an unusual, pretty performance, but it was not very impressive, because she did one of the oldest and most conventional magic tricks of all time without any major twists or subversions (With the exception of the setting) to make it more spectacular or harder to figure out. The other magicians were critical of Jasz’s performance, with Dee saying she wasn’t edgy enough, and received a total score of 24.

• Damien was the last magician to perform, and did a routine themed around his favourite sport, football. He showed an empty Scottish Football-themed sticker album to his two volunteers, telling one of them to hold it between his hands, and telling the other to pick one sticker from a set held in Damien’s hands. The volunteer chose a sticker of the Scottish footballer Barry Nicholson. Damien then waved the sticker book over the stickers, and the faces on the stickers vanished except for the one showing Barry Nicholson, whilst the sticker album was filled with stickers for every player except for Barry Nicholson. For the climax of his routine, Damien told his volunteers to hold the sticker album up to their faces and repeat Barry’s name. As they did so, Barry Nicholson himself emerged from a nearby box, and Damien took his place inside in time for the volunteers to put down the Sticker Album and realise that Barry had appeared in front of them. Barry then went to the box and opened it up to reveal that Damien had vanished and left a football behind. I liked the presentation, the decision to use stickers in a manner similar to playing cards in the first part of the routine was creative, and the climax was fun to watch, although it was designed to surprise the volunteers more than Damien’s fellow magicians. Although Ben was a bit critical, saying that the volunteers were more interested in Barry’s presence then the trick, the magicians generally liked it, and Damien received a total score of 29.

The Forfeit

Ben was announced as the winner and Jasz the loser, so Jasz had to do the “Killer Trick”, which was The Buzzsaw. This involved Jasz being placed on a table, and Ben appearing to cut her in half with a giant buzzsaw. As with the Guillotine, the “Killer Trick” from the third episode, this routine appeared to end with Jasz’s demise. It was played for a significant amount of black humour, with the song “If I Die Young” being used in the end credits. Both Ben and Jasz acted their parts well, and some of the narration was funny, even if this version of the trick was not particularly advanced (especially when compared to the variation performed by Penn and Teller). However, the main problem with this “Killer Trick” was pointed out by Jasz. After she was announced as the loser, she said of the trick she had to do:  “That’s so typical. Cut the girl in half”. Given the scorn for conventional tricks shown by the magicians (as epitomised by Ben’s comment “You shouldn’t have done Linking Rings” after appearing to bisect Jasz), it does not make sense for the show to resort to outdated Grand Guignol clichés by making the only female magician on the show a consistent victim of “fatal” routines which go wrong in an incredibly gruesome manner.

The Verdict

Criticisms of the “Killer Trick” aside, this was a fun episode, with an interesting theme and good tricks. However, the series has reached a point where things are getting a little predictable. The magicians all perform certain styles of magic (With Chris in particular focusing almost exclusively on his signature mentalism ) and reveal their scores in manners relating to their personalities (For example, Jasz reveals her scores on silks, and Chris reveals his inside fake books with amusing titles). Whilst these are understandable (The magicians should always be allowed to demonstrate their own personalities and approaches), the clear divide between stronger magicians (Damien and Ben) and weaker ones (Dee and Jasz) makes the competition a lot less exciting. Where’s the fun if you know who is likely of doing the “Killer Trick” as soon as the episode starts? If Killer Magic airs again in the future, the producers should encourage the less impressive magicians to up their game, or find new ones who can compete with the star magicians.

Killer Magic – Episode 6

The Tricks

• Damien went first, using Radio DJ Sarah-Jane Crawford as his volunteer. He got Sarah-Jane to pick a card (The King of Hearts) and write the name of it on a sticker attached to the back. He then took several photos of Sarah-Jane holding the card. He then put the card face-down on a table, making the message on the sticker change from “King of Hearts” to “Gone” without touching it, and making then face of the card vanish as well. After Damien did this, he showed one of the photos he had taken on a TV screen, claiming that it represented the only evidence that the chosen card had ever existed. He then put his hand over the image of the card, and appeared to pull it out of the screen, with it vanishing from the photo and appearing in his hands, with both the face and the sticker on the back completely restored. The two things that made this trick great were the initial vanish and the climax. The vanish was impressive because Damien carried it out in an unusual and striking manner without appearing to touch it, and it goes without saying that the climax was very impressive. The other magicians praised the creative presentation, and gave Damien a total score of 31.

• Chris was next to perform and did a trick themed around the internet. He used video bloggers and DJ’s Dan and Phil as his volunteers, communicating with them over a webcam. He gave them a personality test from a “Generic Magazine” (Really an issue of Cosmopolitan with the title “Generic Magazine” and Chris’ face glued onto the cover to avoid accusations of product placement). This involved three questions, with Dan and Phil receiving a score for each answer. In addition, Chris asked them to name a holiday destination and a T-Shirt design. When Dan and Phil finished their test, they were told to open a box they had been given earlier in the day and retrieve three items from it. These items had a correct prediction of each part of the test was printed on them (A mousemat featured a prediction of the score on each question, a mug featured the total score, and a CD box had the verdict printed on it). Chris then went on to unveil a poster in his own room, hidden for the duration of the performance, which featured both another correct prediction of what would happen, and a correct prediction of the answers Dan and Phill gave to the two smaller questions. Chris is a great mentalist, but his decision to limit himself to that field has made him seem less impressive (It’s not a coincidence that he received his highest score for his film-themed routine in episode 2, which featured him performing the “Snowstorm” illusion in addition to his signature mind-reading). However, this trick was a very good one, as the personality test theme, whilst generating the slow set-up that can often hinder mentalism routines, allowed Chris to have fun with his volunteers, and the climax was very impressive. He received a total score of 28.

• Ben chose to take an unusual approach, using a very old gadget and setting his performance in Britain’s oldest music hall. He began by taking a volunteer’s ring, wrapping it in a handkerchief and putting both inside a glass container. He then made both the ring and handkerchief vanish from within the contained. After doing this, he unveiled a clockwork device that had been previously used by the great nineteenth-century French magician Robert Houdin. This device was designed to look like a tree, and when Ben turned it on, it began to change, with blossoms and oranges growing on it. All the oranges were real except for one in the centre, which split open as two clockwork butterflies emerged from the centre of the machine. The two butterflies held a white handkerchief between them, with the vanished ring tied to it. Ben provided a very clever spin on the theme by using old-fashioned technology instead of modern items, and his performance proved that a trick which hasn’t been done on stage for almost 200 years can be just as impressive as brand-new ones. The other magicians gave him a total score of 31.

• For her trick, Jasz performed in a shopping centre using a specially-created magical gadget called the Resize 9000, which resembled a fancy microwave. Jasz began by putting an apple in the machine, then shrank it until it was roughly the size of her thumb. She then took a watch, and shrank it as well. To finish her routine, she put a shrunken copy of the resize 9000 manual to the machine, then turned it into a thick, full-sized manual. The basic idea was an interesting one, but this was another disappointing trick from Jasz. She should have used a larger machine to grow and shrink larger items, as doing this would have made the routine more spectacular. The other magicians also felt that the routine was not impressive enough, so Jasz only received a total score of 24.

• Finally, Dee provided a trick which demonstrated his love of music by using an electric guitar and amplifier as his gadgets of choice. He got a volunteer to name a song of her choice, and she chose “Umbrella” by Rhianna. Unable to play that song on his guitar, he poured some ink onto a tray, then told her volunteer to put her hand on the amplifier and transfer her thoughts through it to the ink. When Dee turned up the amplifier and played the guitar, an image of an umbrella formed in the ink, correctly predicting the chosen song, then vanished when he turned the sound off. Dee then produced a blank book of sheet music, then appeared to pour ink into it. He made the ink vanish, and the blank book had now changed into one with the sheet music for “Umbrella” printed on it. I enjoyed this routine, and particularly liked the creative theme, the unusual song choice, and the initial reveal of the song in the ink, which was very unique and unusual. Although Ben noticed that “Umbrella” had been spelt incorrectly, the other magicians gave him a total score of 27.

The Forfeit

Damien was the winner and Jasz was the loser, so she had to do the week’s “Killer Trick”, called Electroshock. Jasz had to get into a Faraday cage, which was hit by a million volts of electricity. She appeared to survive unscathed, but the ending was a little abrupt. It was certainly a scary stunt, and Jasz certainly found it terrifying, but all she needed to do was avoid touching the Faraday cage. It was an effective as a forfeit, but not as spectacular as the other “Killer Tricks” from the season.

The Verdict

The theme was very strong, because it allowed the magicians to use a wide range of technology to carry off a wide range of unique and creative tricks. However, the “Killer Trick” was not as good as some of the others, and I did not like the fact that Jasz had to do the forfeit yet again – It sends a pretty unfortunate message when the only female magician on the show gives consistently weak performances.