‘America’s Got Talent’ review: Quintavious Johnson, Christian Stoinev, Wendy Liebman take the stage
The second semifinal round on “America’s Got Talent” brought out a wide array of performers, from singers to dancers to acrobats to musicians. Perhaps the most important thing right now, though, is that we feel like there could be actual variety advancing again. We’re not just going to get singers and nothing else!
As always with these reviews, we’re going to go through all of them and rank the acts from worst to first on the night. (Update: Also, be on the lookout for our podcast later this week on all the acts!)
12. Jonah Smith – We’re not even sure at this point that the show wants to even acknowledge that Jonah is on it. He is buried for the second straight time he is on the show, and we’d put his odds of advancing right now at around 0.01%.
11. Jaycob Curlee – We appreciate that the guy did a better job this week with “Your Song” than the last time. The problem is just still that he’s a generic singer with a pretty flat pitch. He’s still got a shot just for being a guy with a guitar on one of these shows, but still.
10. Christian Stoinev and Scooby – We like the act, but we agree with Mel B that this is basically the same thing over and over again. Christian’s right that it is harder than it looks, but America is very superficial! They often don’t care.
9. Kelli Glover – Tonight, the show seemed very content on burying singers, including Kelli. We just feel like the story is a little too frustrating to hear about “last chances” and all that. We actually appreciate that she didn’t do a generic ballad, but her “Love On Top” just didn’t have the energy that it needed.
8. Baila Conmigo – Our opinion of this ballroom group has never changed. We’ve always felt like there was genuine talent here, but also have thought that there is a ceiling, like with all other dance acts. There is just nothing distinctive enough about it to where they will win in the end.
7. Smoothini – Much better than the last show, but we still have to wonder: Are the tricks really good enough to win the show? We liked them, but it was somewhat strange that he said he was going to go bigger, and then that he was doing old tricks that he’s done in bars for a long time.
6. Emil & Dariel – First of all, we feel bad for calling Dariel “Daniel” all season, and further realizing that we have no ability to differentiate between Rs and Ns on a keyboard. Otherwise, this was a very cool performance of the song. We hope they get enough credit for their performance, and why put a singer on who would just distract from it all?
5. AcroArmy – The pleasant surprise of the night. For the first time, we really bought into the artistry of this and could see it as a part of some Las Vegas act. We don’t know if it could work for 90 minutes, but there was some really impressive content in here.
4. Blue Journey – A very good performance, but we understand where Howard Stern’s critique about it being slow was coming from. The act could have done more to speed things along with the song selection, or added some more challenging moves to it.
3. Wendy Liebman – A good ten or fifteen times better than her previous performance. Wendy brought energy, great twists and turns, and more to her act tonight. We laughed more here than we have for any comic this season.
2. Quintavious Jackson – There were a few notes that were a little wild, but the kid can really sing. Plus, he’s got personality for days. Right now, he may actually be the favorite to win the whole competition. He’s still not our personal favorite, though.
1. Mat Franco – We know that Mat was a good magic act, but this was something else. What a weird, wonderful, and crazy trick this was. We were worried when he started to weave his way through the crowd, but the payoff of this card trick, complete with a phone in a seat, was fantastic.
Who was your favorite act on “Ameirca’s Got Talent” this week? Share in the comments, and head over here to get some other talent-related TV updates via our CarterMatt Newsletter.
Photo: NBC