“The Next Uri Geller” 2008 – 8th show, German final: opinion, tricks, explanations

This is about a show from the first German season of “The Next Uri Geller” from early 2008. You can also:
» Show all my reports from the first season.
» Show everything about the second season 2009.
» Show really all articles about Uri Geller.

General reading tips (German): GWUP info page; and the blog with explanations and discussion already during the shows: The contestants’ tricks, explained in an easy way. English: CSI (ex-CSICOP).

„World of Wonders“

RTL II showed a „Welt der Wunder“ special „Power of the thoughts“ last Sunday with special guest James Randi. The topics were The magic of Uri Geller, Mind reading & co. – Everything just monkey business?, PSI seminar – Mind reading for beginners (with party games and guesswork that’s intended to sell additional seminars at horrendous prices) and Ingenious mind – What thoughts really can do. (For more, in German of course, see the link above.)

Quite worth watching and pleasantly critical for a private TV magazine. But since it was about being against the competition – which, by the way, showed a thematically matching and expectedly myserable “Galileo Mistery” on Friday –, this is apparently possible.

Repeated on n-tv: Sat. 1.3. at 19:05 and 23:05, Thu. 4.3. 21:05, Wed. 5.3. 20:05. Or see YouTube, links on Randi’s own site.

Stefan Raab

• Stephen Raven (YouTube video) – Stefan Raab’s parody on Vincent Raven’s voodoo performance in the last show.
• On Monday on TV total (Raab’s show), Uri Geller and his three contestants appeared. Uri brought an Oscar for Stefan for his Raven parody – which he (preparedly, of course) immediately broke like his spoons.
  Uri announced for the final to do something which he might be attacked for, something very emotional will happen, or something like that. Vincent mentioned he has three ravens: Corax, Asael and Odin. Other than that, rather trivial stuff about previous and following tricks, pardon, “performances”; they also did the cheap lifting trick (with Stefan), with the same babble from Uri.

The eighth show from 26.February – the German final

For the final – also scheduled for two hours (incl. commercials) – they came up with something different: the remaining contestants first perform a “big act” outdoors, and after an audience voting to kick out one of them, the two remaining magicians perform again in the studio to find the winner. I wonder if they make do with the two hours…

Celebrity guests

„Germany’s next Topmodel“ Lena Gercke – yes, this time it’s a winner –, actress Erol Sander and movie star Katja Flint.

As alibi surveillants, called the “incorruptibles”, this time three referees show up: Herbert Ulrich (Bund Deutscher Berufsboxer), Richard Schütz (Deutsche Eishockey-Liga) and Benjamin Barth (Deutscher Basketball-Bund).

And the eight former contestants (6 single, 1 couple) sit in the third row.

Contestant 1: Vincent Raven

From the preview on ProSieben.de (my translation):

“I will be put in a casket and burnt alive”, the raven father prophecies. “And I dearly hope that my raven Azael will help me to survive this experiment unscathed. If not, at least I will have burned myself into the viewers’ memories.“

“Burned into”, haa haa haa. So this time it’s Azael/Asael again (he’s got 3 ravens: Corax, Asael, Odin). I think a raven can’t open a casket or handle a fire extinguisher… so be careful, Vincent, if you have to model yourself on the Undertaker.

So, Vincent, “the screen is yours”. But you shouldn’t introduce your video by saying you will do this or that. Vincent tells Katja Flint, his assistant for this performance, he were killed by fire as an alchemist in the 15th/16th century. Greeeat. And we see three caskets and three tarot cards (2x death=casket will be destroyed, 1x sun=life=sarg remains intact), which are hidden in envelopes – obviously you can do tricks a lot better with envelopes. And Vincent is so “corteous” and helps her.

Raven whispers mustn’t be forgotten, of course. Vinnie lies down in one casket, all three are then nailed shut by black robe wearers; Katja had been blindfolded and now shuffles the envelopes – Vincent talks to her via screen – and pick one, hold it to her chest with her “left heart hand”. :rool: This envelope decides over the fate of casket 1: death. So it’s promptly set on fire (well, rather externally), and in a dramaturgicaly matching fashion, the video signal from Vincent’s head is cut – temporarily, of course. Wooden box 2: life. Vincent acts shocked, we apparently are to believe he’s in no. 3. For that one, only a death card remains, so: fire, video breakdown. “Vincent, say something!” Yeah, she’s an actress. And of course he was in box 2. Whether all of the time or not, is another question, he might as well have slipped in and out through a flap in the back. Didn’t Copperfield do something like that, too?

It was, of course, certain he’d survive, since it was taped. And who knows if they didn’t use appropriate cuts to help… Somehow, despite fire and larger setting, it was lamer than anything he’s shown before.

Geller was enthused, says he’d pokered high but managed to control Katja’s spirit.

Contestant 2: Nicolai Friedrich

Nicolai Friedrich gets into the air: “What I’m planning is in a sense not very spectacular”, the 31-year-old hobby pilot smirks. “I only need a topmodel for it – and a plane.“

“Mile high club“? No. (Or at least it wasn’t shown. ) So Nicolai, Lena Gercke and two camera men into the small airplane, and Lena is “overjoyed” as Nicolai says he wants to fly with blindfold and hood over the nob – with mental help (“left”, “right” etc.) from her. Given how easily he located the runway correctly, he simply must be able to look through it – masks like that are standard for magicians…

The narrator says something like “it gets serious” and so on. Runway doesn’t fit on 1st landing attempt, touch-and-go, “one more turn to the left? Speak in your mind ‘yes’, ’now’, ‘fall asleep'” – oh, no, the last of these was my thought. They were talking about “big acts” outdoors, but it’s one of the most boring stuff in the entire show season.

Geller: “Very exciting, well done.” What else is he supposed to say.

Contestant 3: Farid

“On tuesday, I’ll show how to overcome gravity just by concentration”, the 26-year-old announces.

Farid with eight pals (easy to arrange the trick with them) and Erol on a parking lot. For starters, he folds a 50€ bill of Erol’s and lets it hover above Erol’s hand – since he waves his other hand before, above, below, left and right of it, I guess it was a kind of a little rod connected to Farid’s body – the jiggle movements looked like that, anyway. Supposedly can be bought for a few Euros.

Then a stuffed doggie in a “random” car (which stood a little too freely to be really a random selection) is moved a little – can be easily remote-controlled –, then all hold hands around the car which nicely lifts off the ground, up to about 1½ meters. The pals try to look astonished, but with negligible result (and two of them also walk around under the car). At least this one doesn’t look that bad, though the odd-coloured sky was so excessively lit that a few thin ropes could be hidden easily; I think they were even to be seen briefly. Check this YouTube video if you like, you even see the crane there.

Geller: supernatural and amazing.

Uri’s performance

Something he hasn’t done before, he says – now that’s special for him! “Is there life after death?” He believes to have received signs from his mother who died 3 years ago – and wants to help the viewers to establish contacts. He wants us to connect to him – no thanks, that’s too much. And touch the screen with both hands? At least he doesn’t say “achad, shtaim, shalosh” this time, for this topic he wants silence. Think about somebody you want a sign from, close your eyes for 11 seconds – don’t startle if a sing comes; if none comes, then maybe later. Amaaaazing. (Not.) If nothing happens, never mind, the deceased can see us. Now, now, heaps and heaps of excuses!

Who’s surprised?

 

(silence)

Alright, time for the request to call if something happened at home – Verena Wriedt’s job! Finally! In a dress with glittering top, as is appropriate for the final, but unfortunately not that deeply opened as previously.

Intermediate decision

Tapings are lame and prone to manipulation. With this regard, I wouldn’t mind if all were kicked out… but since in this case, Geller would probably perform the remaining 40 to 60 minutes on his own, we’ll be happy to only say good-bye to one of them: Nicolai Friedrich.

Retrospect

“The best and most exciting moments” – four minutes wasted.

Studio performance: Farid

Farid wants to make feelings visible – with Lena. Well, he better doesn’t make my feelings visible when I look at her…

She’s to stand in front of a red wall and think about a situation in which she had the feeling she was supposed to think about. Polaroid-Foto! These still exist? He wants to guess sense that feeling: pride. For sure that was at her “Germany’s next Topmodel” victory. They search for it in the back of the walls where 30 feelings and symbols are written – in this case, a proud lion, and that also appears on the red wall on the photo which she was holding between her hands all the time. And Farid even has the lion symbol “tattooed” to his forearm…

He mentions possible critics saying “he has all symbols tattooed somewhere” – and lets the audience show their palms with lights out and black light on, and in the Bild tabloid (to be seen multiple times at the celebs’ seats and supposedly everywhere in Germany) was a small ad with the announcement of a “proud lion”.

Conclusion: It would be the lion, no matter what (could be easily superimposed in the camera). Was it inserted at the matching place in the wall? But it wouldn’t fit with some other feelings such as “in love”. And relying on chance would be too risky, despite her Topmodel victory. So it could only have been arranged between them, I couldn’t think of anythin else that’s safe enough…

Update, see gellerentlarvt blog: it was arranged without a doubt, the photo with the lion head was taken without necklace, in the live show she was wearing one. (And the photos are even from ProSieben themselves – I wonder for how long until they take them down…) Or rather, that’s necklace thing is apparently wrong, it’s due to the low image quality – here’s a better one, thanks to “ShittingRaven” in this comment for pointing this out.

Geller was amazed, “well done”.

Studio performance: Vincent Raven

Before he can performs a “Celtic death ritual”, Stefan Gödde, the presenter, first had to trot out the technical data of the Opel Corsa “Innovation” the callers can win, thus leading over to the next commercial break. And once again Vincent got the last performace in the show…

A prophecy from the otherworld is supposed to be revealed – and a Celtic story to be told. A book opens itself and turns its pages as if by ghost hand motors. I won’t recap that story now… Vincent says he’s empty, the cameras and all this had demanded a lot of him in the previous weeks; mini-fireworks from the book; but with Lena, he wants to perform something anyway. And with 5 tarot cards: death, moon, wizard, world, sun; Lena must choose (think of) one of these and think of a year that’s very important to her. Do some deep soul-searching (even though her facial expression doesn’t look like that).

Raven babble. The sun – correctly guessed. Year? 2006 (her “Topmodel” victory)… face doesn’t match, he says she thought 2006 first, but then “changed her mind”. 24 Apr 1988 (she says later it’s her best friend’s date of birth). Apparently correct. (She was born on 29 Feb 1988 herself.) He must have gathered some information beforehand…

Then Erol enters the stage, spreads three roses in the audience, the recipients then come on stage. All this, of course, with many delays. Gisela, scorpio, born in Düsseldorf. Ulf, sagittarius, Berlin. Elke, aquarius, Düsseldorf. The guests themselves say that. Vincent repeats it clearly. Concentrate on important person, eyes shu. A box hanging from the ceiling, alledgedly containing visions about the people he wrote down before.

Then write first name and year of birth and death on a slip of paper, “large and clearly, in block letters!” The assistant must be able to read it… Vincent himself, by the way, wrote Magdalena, 1933, 2001. Then shuffle the slip, torn between name and the years, in a bowl.

Katja then has to touch the guests’ foreheads, in order to drag it out even more, and then even dowse the pieces of paper (backside up) with a pendulum. Main thing: make it slooooow. He guides her hand, et voilá, the pendulum shakes above some cards. Man, this is at least as cheap as it is long-winded. In the end, the result is “Emma, 1900-1980”.

“Be patient, dear people!” Oh, patience is needed indeed.

The “prophecy” in the box contains details about Elke (see above) and the dates, of course. Which moves her to tears… Why now did he repeat the dates so clearly before and insisted on clear writing? Sure, the assistant had to be able to understand and read that to write it down. We had something like that in previous shows.

Geller – oh, yes, he must say something, too – thinks Raven brings back the old magic into today’s world, “well done”.

Countdown

…to play for 30 seconds more time by counting down from 10 to 0. As if that was necessary. “Don’t call anymore!”

Reactions

Verena, this time on stage, “thousands” of mails and calls. She wants to read two of the “most emotional” mails – no. 1 opens his newspaper, suddenly sees the name of his dead wife and the word “Tenerife”. These things can happen. And no. 2 says he’s felt hands on his shoulders. Somehow I don’t like at all how they played around with the viewers’ emotions, especially of those who lost a loved one recently.

The decision

With a 25-second commercial in between, of course. So, who is the winner, who gets 100.000 €, the title and the cheap acrylic trophy with the lasered bent spoon image? Vincent Raven!

Didn’t quite a few claim that Farid was decided upon beforehand? Apparently he wasn’t.

Next week, Vincent then squares off against the international winners: fom Israel (Lior Sushard), USA (Mike Super) and the one from the Netherlands which isn’t decided yet. And there will be a second season. Somehow, the title “The next Uri Geller” is wrong then…

By the way, 17 minutes overtime compared to EPG/teletext (22:34), 36 compared to magazines (22:15).

Ratings

Whoa, a clear rise for the final, almost to the 3rd show’s level:

Viewers aged 3+: 3.22 Mio., 10.6% market share (last week: 2.63/8.3%).
Viewers 14-49: 2.3 Mio., 18.1% market share (last week: 1.83/13.8%).

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