Issac Brian Brown

I had some faith that Tuesday’s episode of AGT would be better than Monday night’s, simply because the odds are they would start to find better talent. I was mostly right. They had never visited St. Louis prior to this season, which sort of surprised me. Regardless, St. Louis’ first audition show two weeks ago was also a good showing. It makes some sense that this show would be good too.

America’s Got Talent begins every episode with a feature story. It’s normally a tossup as to whether it would be a terrible act that happens to be entertaining or an act of genuine talent. When “Imagination” from “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” started playing at the beginning of the guy’s feature, I knew that this wasn’t going to be a good act. When the contestant said he was a puppeteer, I was positive it wasn’t going to be good. Aside from the fact that this type of act is immensely unlikely to be worthy of 1 million dollars, the viewer quickly discovered he wasn’t even a good puppeteer. Nick Cannon promptly turned to the camera with a sock puppet in his hand and said, “I’m a better puppeteer than this dude.” Despite the complete lack of potential this act had, I was still entertained. The contestant had very high energy and the judges’ spirits seemed very high. This was going to be a captivating hour.

This was followed promptly by the “No” montage, which unlike Monday’s episode, had a better chance of sticking in the viewers’ minds. It featured a terrible one-woman band act and a guy dressed in a chicken suit. Following the atrocity of the chicken act, Howard hit the buzzer with his butt, which was certainly entertaining. These acts may not have been quite bad enough to get a whole package, but they were certainly worthy of attention.

The next act to be featured was 6 year-old singer, Issac Brian Brown. I had a good feeling he was going to go through because cute kids usually make it to Las Vegas. This is another point where the show gets less entertaining, because assuming a kid is not abhorrent, he can reasonably rely on his charm during his performance and almost guarantee he will make it to the next round. Again, I do not appreciate being able to predict the fate of an act before I see it. Still, his version of “I Want You Back” was enjoyable as was his back-and forth with the judges. I imagine he will make it to Hollywood based mostly on his charm. Although, he has some ability to sing. However, at 6 years old, his voice has to definitely mature. Despite his age, he seems to know how to please an audience, even if he lacks genuine talent.

Now for the “Yes” montage, which featured some acts I wish I had the chance to see more than 10 seconds of. This included a hip-hop violinist and an acoustic guitarist and singer. There were even some acts whose talent I couldn’t even figure out. On the plus side, the condensing of the acts means that St. Louis had a good showing. On the negative side, these act probably have very little chance of being seen again on television, which disappoints me.

Thankfully, one act featured was the first to have a legitimate shot at the finals. He was escape artist Nate Horseman. After Horseman walked onstage in a straitjacket, he promptly suspended himself below a rope set on fire and a giant metal clamp set to crush him. The judges and the crowd were mesmerized. The entire act had Sharon legitimately scared. He’ll probably go far in the competition.

An Ozzy Osborne impersonator was also shown, but did not make it to to Vegas. However, “Little Ozzy” did a good job at getting Sharon emotional because he sang the song Ozzy wrote for her.

This was a very good episode. I think the show is starting to find a happy medium between genuine talent and what entertains audiences. Hopefully, this episode starts a streak of good AGT episodes.