America’s Got Talent: The Champions Reveals The Best of the Best
NBC’s America’s Got Talent continues to demonstrate its commitment to the “bigger America” by hosting America’s Got Talent: The Champions which over the last several weeks has honed down winners and wildcards from the global shows, including the U.S. and the U.K.
Key highlights from last night’s show included:
- Spain’s Got Talent 2016 winner and opera rock singer, Cristina Ramos, opening the show with an operatic rendition of “Call Me” by Blondie
- Not to be outdone (and in our opinion to shine even more brightly) America’s Got Talent Season 12 victor, Darci Lynne, ventriloquized Italian opera with her puppet Petunia.
- 11-year-old Angelica Hale hit the right notes if not the right tenor with her version of Shontelle’s “Impossible.” A little more age appropriate song might have played better.
- Susan Boyle, the woman who turned the Got Talent idea into an institution sang the anthem “I Dreamed a Dream” from the musical, Les Misérables.
- The judges were called on to finish up for the Deadly Games as the literally put their judging where their mouth is.
- And for lovers of magic, Jon Dorenbos amazed with his enthusiastic predictions while Shin Lim showed that quiet eloquence can be just as dazzling. Both offered “how did they do that?” moments, but Lim’s performance seemed to suggest a deeper, less forced magic (I’m sure Penn and Teller will be kindred spirits with me around the force in this context).
At this level of competition, it becomes clear who sits on the edge of professional domination in their category, at that leaves just Shin Lim and Darci Lynne. The others are good, but you can’t imagine them carrying a special or a show all on their own. They delivered well-crafted performances that remained standalone despite having been through various versions of the show, and many of them winning their bids. Shin and Darci’s only real competition will likely come from sentimental favorites Susan Boyle.
Too bad the networks have shunned real variety shows in recent years. It would be nice if these acts could find a place to share their singular talents with the masses on a more regular basis.
The winners will be announced on Monday, Februrary 18.
If you want to review the America’s Got Talent: The Champions performances ahead of next week’s winner reveal, you can play through them here:
America’s Got Talent: The Champions Finale Performances
Cristina Ramos – opera rock singer
Preacher Lawson – comedian
Darci Lynne – ventriloquist
Deadly Games – danger knife throwers
Kechi – singer
Brian Justin Crum – singer
Jon Dorenbos – magician
Angelica Hale – singer
Kseniya Simonova – sand artist
(Note to director: more camera on the work. She is beautiful but the art is in her hands and we seemingly missed entire scenes).
Paul Potts – opera singer
Shin Lim – magician
Susan Boyle – singer
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