Canada’s Got Talent, episode 8: the judges make cuts, and we cut up the judges

Canada’s Got Talent, episode 8: the judges make cuts, and we cut up the judges

Family Folk Trio awaits the judges decision (Image: Canada’s Got Talent)

Canada’s Got Talent, Episode 8

Things are finally starting to cook over at Canada’s Got Talent—after seven episodes and 244 auditions,  the judges are set to decide who will be this season’s 36 semi-finalists. The deliberations episode is heavy with all the requisite reality show pauses and fake-outs, like host Dina Pugliese telling contestants they are “out… standing!” and judge Measha Brueggergosman telling candidates they “are only able to take the very best—and that’s you!” Poor Pugliese was the one who had to traverse the country giving out the bad news (and some select cheerful announcements), as the judges only told the Toronto hopefuls who would stay and who would go. As an incentive to continue on in the journey to be named Canada’s most talented, the lucky few moving on to the live semi-finals on April 2 won Blackberry Playbooks and Bold smartphones (apparently, you can give them away). This episode was a strange one, as we have never seen some contestants who will move forward and the break-neck pace meant there were no performances (save for one beat-boxing competition—and here we were worried there wouldn’t be a chance for Stephan Moccio to dance). Since this was a semi-finalist selection episode, we’re going to step away from picking the week’s best and worst, and simply point out where we disagreed with the judges’ decisions.

The judges have every right to make their own minds up, but here we call them out when we think they’ve made the wrong choice.

The judges gave Montrealers Daddy Cool (one of our top picks last episode ) a pass to the semis, but we’re not sure these 40-somethings have the dance talent (or youthful joints and knees) that some of the other contestants do.

Speaking of dance troupes, Vancouver’s Groovement got the axe, but we think their hip-hop routine was one of the best we’ve seen.

Magician Volodymyr Martyniuk didn’t see his way to the semis, but we think the judges chose wrong. The man should get points for that mullet alone.

Roger Leblanc was one of the new faces we saw, who performed a soliloquy from Shakespeare for his audition in Calgary. While the dude definitely has acting talent, we’re not sure how it translates to a talent show—we’d rather see him on a CBC show than performing monologues for Moccio.

At the live semi-finals next week, we’ll be able to really get to know some of these performers we’ve only seen in passing thus far. No more terrible performances by people who just want to make it to television, but unfortunately, we’re also predicting a lot more judge dancing.