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Uri Geller

“The Next Uri Geller” 2008 – Summary of 1st show

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.

It was terrible! I wasn’t even watching TV, when suddenly I heard a drawer in the kitchen open, a spoon came flying and turned on the TV! A strange guy seemed to loudly clear his throat – and that on ProSieben which I don’t even have in my channnel list! Very closely I evaded a second spoon that came rushing with full power, smashing the remote control so that I couln’t switch channels anymore!

Aaaargh!

:tvangst:

bent Okay, joking aside. More notes about yesterday’s “event”, the first edition of this German show, which to me only was an event because I had blogged live

  • English readers probably find a lot of info on CSI (ex CSICOP), or watch the (English) videos at the first of the following German links: GWUP-Infoseite zu Geller; GWUP-Blog (including funny video); special page that also informed live/a>.
    Also (also German): trick explanations on Welt.de
    und at the tz.
  • The question is how much the contestants are behind the “real powers” balderdash which also was clearly shown in the short films introducing them – or if they rather submitted to the show’s demands. In any case, I think a magician who doesn’t think too lowly of himself should not have applied for such a show in the first place.
     
    Addendum:
    Nicolai Friedrich Update 16 Jan: clearly writes about magic tricks used to write that on his HTML site – in the German Flash version only, he writes (translated) that he’s “able to transfer his mental abilities to his audience so he can create telepathic connections between people, look with the viewers’ eyes, move objects with the power of his mind and take a look into the future.” So he adapted himself to that stupid show motto.
    Hayashi (Ryan Lam): Found no homepage, but in show announcements, he’s quite often called magic artist, e.g. “European champion of magic”;
    David Goldrake: Homepage currently not accessible, only the Blog. In a press release there, he’s named an “illusionist”;
    The couple, Duo Sonambulo: In that lengthy Flash animation, the word “entertainment arts” is mentioned once, but much too often for my taste, they talk about paranormal stuff;
    Vincent Raven: (my translation:) “No magic show, but a mystic spectacle from the past awaits you.” – “an artist of illusion and fantasy invites you to a world of the strange. Illusion show in mystically staged atmosphere. Vincent Raven seducts you into the realm of myths and spirits.” Umm, well…
  • The performances were, in part, quite okay, but nothing to sweep you off your feet. Especially that raven guy’s “world of the dead” communication trick playing with the feelings not only of the celebrities (who probably had been paid well enough), but also many viewers, was somewhat questionable.
  • Ratings: 3,85 million (12,1% market share) aged 3+, 2,69 million (20,1%) aged 14-49; only RTL with US series had more. ProSieben can probably be satisfied. Just a pity that way too many are probably not skeptical enough…… (source: teletext and Quotenmeter.de)
  • Updated: About the brief guest I had mentioned, Dr. Friedbert Karger: He used to be at the Max Planck Institute for plasma physics and apparently had himself become confused by a “Poltergeist” so much that he’s quite popular among parascientists now… The show’s producers were probably glad to have found a doctor title holder to utter “confirming” statements, forgetting about the proven existence of magic tricks.
  • The visitor numbers here were quite good for me, but blog seemed to be rather listed sufficiently high in the search engines for the search combinations of “Uri Geller” and “Son[jy]a Kraus” to attract visitors… a few critical ones, luckily, also came, but also one who search for “next uri geller what do you have to say to throw spoon down from tv set”. :roll:
  • Live blogging is quite exhausting – I certainly won’t do that again for this show. If at all, I’ll just watch the recording time-shifted to be able to skip over uninteresting parts.

» Detailed explanations (German) at “The Tricks”.

» Take a look here at all my posts about Uri Geller «

“The Next Uri Geller” 2008 – Live (1st show)

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.

bent Alright, I decided – after last night’s post about the advertising “documentary” – to watch “The next Uri Geller – Incredible phenomena live”, since I “have” to ad my two cents, and I couldn’t do that “blind” – I’m no real mentalist, y’know, and even less a real supernaturally gifted one (though I could use James Randi‘s million, actually). :mrgreen:

And I don’t mind magic tricks, anyway, I just hate it when they claim that these are real “inexplicable” phenomea and the like..

The GWUP (German) wants to accompany this show, too, of course, and also blog live. And I made my attempts at live blogging, too – quite stressful…

Host for this show is Stefan Gödde – known (or not) from BIZZ, taff and Stars on Ice. Geller says about him (my translation): “I already met Stefan once in Munich. He is a very talented, likeably young man. I couldn’t wish for a better host.”

I can understand that. Criss Angel, who hosted the US edition of this show, is an experienced magician himself who also caused some problems for Geller (see Wikipedia, or David’s D-Blog here); Stefan Gödde, on the other hand, is just a simple presenter, from whom you probably cannot expect something like this, unfortunately. Even if he described himself as “a little skeptic” at the beginning who likes to be fascinated.

Read now the result of my live blogging:

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The phenomenon “The Next Uri Geller”

This is about a pre-show for 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.

bent ProSieben has just shown the commercial disguised as a documentary “The phenomenon Uri Geller” – as “preparation” for the first edition of the casting show “The next Uri Geller – Incredible phenomena live” on Tuesday at 20:15 to find a “successor” of the “world’s most famous mystifier”, as ProSieben titles (and I translated).

Successor in which regard, anyway? Making a fool of himself when the conditions differ from the preparations? Speaking about pretended real supernatural powers without even rudimentarily trying to prove them in a respectable, reliable way? Instead suing critics in most ridiculous ways? Stefan Niggemeier has a nice list (in German) in his comment for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, and also the topic page of the GWUP (German; cf. CSI (ex-CSICOP)) has extensive information including descriptions of tricks as well as several (English) videos including James Randi’s “classic”.

Stefan Niggemeier ends with (in my translation):

“That ProSieben has bought the format regardless, drivels about “extrasensory, supernatural, inexplicable” phenomena, calls the ten contestants “chosen ones” and, like so many others, attends to this icky impostor: That is the only inexplicable phenomenon of Uri Geller.”

Well – that’s ProSieben, private TV, and the hunt for ratings…

Speaking of “Mystifier”: The GWUP Blog (German), too, wondered about this choice of words, since “mystify” means doch bewilder, dumbfound, flummox, baffle, blot out, obliterate, veil, hide, obscure etc. (TheFreeDictionary) – more in the GWUP Blog and via OneLook.


Now back to this about 45 minutes long “documentary”: No-one expected that it came even close to the extensive German article about this “media reality satire” at Telepolis, anyway. Rather that you get what was actually shown…

Geller himself said at the beginning (my re-translation): “Some believe it’s a trick. Some believe it’s a gift. I always want to stay mysterious.” Sure. No wonder. He’s surprised himself how long the hype around him is lasting…

You get to know something about his beginnings, his vita – childhood stuff like a “strange light” or clock changing tricks, together with statements from one-time companions; family; first appearance on German TV in 1974; things like that. His “ego trip”, the addiction to fame especially in the 70s, bulimia – oooh, the poor guy. Knowing other celebrities. Dowsing-rod search for treasures of the soil. Millionaire. Work for secret service and police, about which he’d rather remain silent. Juwelry designer. Author of 16 books. A great guy, ain’t he?

Sarcasm aside. Added to that, by the way, many short clips of several show hosts and the like who probably just didn’t have anything better to do at the time, which seems to be a must everywhere today. And, of course, basically only positive, non-skeptical, admiring statements.

About his debacle in Johnny Carson’s show? Just briefly showing the un-bent spoon and basically using it as basis to explain his following publicity and the realization “There is no such thing as bad PR”. Other critical voices? Very scarce, just some doubtful, inadequately reliable tests, one of which (with a pig?) alledgedly scared him off so much that he doesn’t want anything to do with science anymore. How useful…

Comparison with magic tricks? None. Only a few times, the words “mentalist” (who in the target audience knows what this means?) or “magician”, but rather without connection or with regard to the casting show. Scientific explanations as e.g. the GWUP or CSI offer? Zero. On the contrary, alledgedly scientists have been arguing for 40 years whether these are tricks or not.

Had I expected anything different? Certainly not.

:thumbsdown:

Marvel instead of understanding”, the ProSieben trailer said (my translation). Probably mandatory for the show – preferrably not even trying to understand, it seems to me. Should I really watch that show?


Addendum: Ratings of this “documentary”: 0,79 million (6,0% market share) of all viewers aged 3 or older, 0,59 million (9,5%) aged 14-49. (source: ProSieben teletext)

» Take a look here at all my posts about Uri Geller «