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Let’s start this pre-report for once with a search request that brought someone here to my blog: no it’s starting again uri geller… Yeah, and like last year, I’m gonna report about these shows (each Tuesday at 20:15 on ProSieben Germany) near-live in German and do the English translations within a few days.

“Shocking Experiments?”

Brief “newsflash” from ProSieben last Saturday (like all other quotes: my translations):

“I will amaze the viewers with new experiments”, Uri Geller promises […] “Maybe I will even schock them – in a positive way.” Something to look forwart to.

The world-famous spoon deformer could only shock in a positive way if he admitted to not have any “extraordinary powers” but using tricks all the time. Surely he won’t, so I fear it will at most be an increased amount of his silly–mystical babble that will baffle the viewers.

“The mysterious Vincent Raven”

That was the title of a show last Tuesday in which Uri visited “raveb daddy” and 2008 winner Vincent Raven (Homepage). Vincent of course guided him through vaults and blathered with him on a cemetary about his beloved “otherworld”. Yeah, the “Anderswelt”, as he says in German – Vincent appears to really believe in that stuff… and thus it was mentioned “from time to time”. Uri, too, appears to be impressed – but among two magicians who sell themselves as real psychics, that’s no miracle. They also showed clips from “The Next Uri Geller” 2008, still displaying the tricks as real. And Geller often spoke in German with Vincent – seems he was well-prepared. (Who wrote the dialogs?)

Childhood memories of Raven’s were also a part of this show, and Vinnieboy could again prove that he is simply unable to tell a story in an interesting fashion, and that’s not just due to his accent and inflection. And, well, schadenfreude is assumed to be bad, but the best scene of this show was Uri Geller’s face when Corax, one of Raven’s ravens, bit his index finger (down to the bone) when he attempted to pet her once too often. Well, even a “mystifier” puts his trust in disinfectants, x-rays and antibiotics in such cases…

Ratings: 1.15 million (4.4% market share) total or 0.82m/7.0% in the 14–49-year-old target audience – the weakest show of Pro7’s evening, even “The 100 most annoying whatever” had 4.9%/8.8%.

Defending the Title

As was also mentioned in the Raven program: Vincent has to defend his title – “10 new contestants compete against Vincent Raven”. Luckily only in the finale, thus we’ll be spared Raven’s long-winded cawing in the beginning:

Vincent Raven, last year’s winner, will defend his title in the final. Only then will be decided in an exciting duel: Who is “The next Uri Geller”?

The Contestants

Though apparently being speculated about for yuite some time, e.g. at Freaks of Magic (German) – on Thursday ProSieben finally published the contestants on their website, and apparently not all of them are originally focusing on mental magic again (quotes from Pro7’s detail pages, translated):

Danny Ocean

Unfortunately (especially for the ladies who all appear to love George Clooney) not the character from the “Ocean’s Eleven” etc. movies, but “The misperceptionist from Nuremberg, 34 years old, real name Danny Meier. On his website he also calls himself “Reality Hacker”. Looks quite okay, basically, somehow a styled jack of all magic trades – at any rate, I think without his TNUG participants no-one would ever have written a text about him like that on ProSieben’s site (no matter if he wrote it by himself or the P7 guys did):

A drastic experience keeps its grip on Danny: Ten years ago, he was torn out of sleep one night and felt a foreign power that suddenly controlled his body. Searching an explanation, he noticed that he can do inexplicable things himself.

Gabriel and Daniel

“The mental doubles” Daniel Kalman and Gabriel Palacios, both 20, from Bern and Basel. Which is supposed to indicate a pretended telepathic connection: “but both almost always know what the other is currently doing – or better: what he is thinking.” Well, guess they won’t show a moaning porn-like way of talking like Vivian from season 1 (luckily)…

Manuel Horeth

“The smart thought twister” (30) from Salzburg. “He not only reads minds – he also looks into the future”, ProSieben says. On his noisy website (even the menu items are shouted!) he looks quite okay, actually. Hope he brings his two assistants with him…

Waayatan

Where does an “Indian shadow hunter” (37) come from? Bad Kreuznach, of course! And latest local fashion, as the Pro7 photo shows, is – mathing the seasons – naked upped body, Indian stuff and a, pardon, daft smile. His granny alledgedly was a “medicine womman in the clan of the shadow panthers” – can’t find that clan in Wikipedia, but on numerous World of Warcraft sites… Freaks of Magic give him an exotic bonus – though I fear that might not help much if he exaggerates things too much and rather makes a fool of himself. Well, we’ll see.
Update: His new homepage (which Peter reminded me about, thanks) – in the page title: “Waayatan Tecumsee Ohanse, Waayatan, Wajatan, Waijatan, Weijatan, Wajatan, Wayatan, Waiyatan, Weiyatan”. Should I do something similar here…?

Jan Becker

“Master of the thoughts” (33), Berlin, “a mental magic professional” (website); he “possesses the power about the most valuable that us human beings have: the freedom of our thoughts”, Pro7 says. Well, I still got my thoughts, and they’re saying that his apostrophe haircut looks wor’se than man’y fool’s apostrophe’s. At least we can hope that he knows his business…

Jan Rouven

The next Jan, “the man with the seven lives” (28), Neuwied. “Loves danger”; his homepage displays him, among other photos, impaled on a giant drill, the P7 photo with fire in his hand. Appears to me like a Gothic Copperfield… which doesn’t have to be bad as such, as long as he doesn’t overdo that image in his presentation.

Kris

“The irresistible pokerface” (30) from Münster (originally named Christian Finke in the overview), tossing around poker cards – “Muscular upper arms, six-pack and an irresistible smile. When Wenn Kris […] enters the stage, ladies’ hearts beat faster.” And I fear he might come across too clichéd and in essence boring… but I’d like to be convinced otherwise.

Ully Loup

“The soul wanderer” from Berlin, at an age of 47 the oldest of the contestants, whose website is still under construction. “Ully Loup is not like the others. He’s living seclusively and hides behind his mental abilities: He is an iridiscent, fascinating artist with a fateful childhood.” And with black gloves. The ProSieben photo somehow reminds me of a sort of sci-fi inquisitor or a Babylon 5 technomage…

Amila

“The magic seduction” (25) from Saarbrücken. According to Freaks of Magic also known as Belinda Roy. Will the new name being similar to Fujitsu Siemens Computers products be an advantage? Well, nobody will care, the “mental vamp” – “her shows are charged with eroticism” – is visually not uninteresting (*cough*), and I’m predicting that alone due to this she will at least reach the semi-final.

Aaron Crow

“The silent mentalist”, he’s not talking (36) and focusing on martial arts and the like – winner from the first Netherland season and already participating in the world finale on 4 March 2008. Probably Uri Geller said to himself: since that guy’s not talking, we can easily invite him again, so I got more opportunities to babble nonsense myself…

This and that

Raven’s “Amulet of the portals” (or whatever he calls the “Amulett der Pforten” in English) which he has shown before is also for sale in his shop at the bargain price of only 427 CHF (ca. 286€/390 USD) (46 mm diameter, silver) – that is, it were if it weren’t currently unavailable due to high demand . And there is – probably a first – the novelization of the amulet:

A certain Vivienne Marceau, ProSieben reports, wrote a novel about the raven daddy (currently unavailable, though): “Vincent Raven – Das Amulett der Pforten”.

And as Wunschliste reports, last year’s finalist Farid gets his own show on ProSieben: “Street Magic with Farid” from 10 February at about 22:15 – five shows right after “The Next Uri Geller”.

There was also a fittingly placed Galileo Mystery – didn’t watch it, the skeptics’ GWUP blog got a critique in German.

See also:

• Skeptic’s Dictionary: Uri Geller.
• ProSieben’s show page.

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