4 out of 5

Covers pilot episode and 8-episode 1st season

Director: MAGIC did i use that joke already

What I like and respect about Penn and Teller is the way that they’ve leveraged their fame as performers into avenues of exploration that fully require their style of wit, but aren’t just a matter of them falling back on shtick to distract from them talking about something that interests them.  This is something I’ve mentioned recently that I think Derren Brown is struggling with, feeling like he style has to do the whole showman bit instead of just relying on his name and personality to have us turn our head his way.  Now “Fool Us” still centers around magic, and yes, P & T still get their trick kicks in at show’s end, as with their experiments in television – Bullsh** (a successful experiment) and Tell a Lie (not so successful in my eyes) – their presence takes a backseat to the theme of the show, which, as they state a few times, is to try to recapture that “Wow” feeling they used to get from watching magic by having various performers come on and try to fool them.  As presented by the typically UK dry and yet warm and cheeky Jonathan Ross (some puzzlement as to this being a UK series… shot in Vegas… featuring an American duo…), the lead-in pilot and resulting season try to drum up some television drama by making it seem like there’s the threat of a magician’s trick being revealed if it doesn’t fool P&T, but this is generally sidestepped (unless the magician commits some kind of obvious offense, which doesn’t happen much over the course of the show) by Penn and Teller using stage-talk to indicate whether or not they get the trick, or by simply saying that so-and-so used sleight-of-hand at some particular point, and the magician agrees or disagrees.

Thus, overall, this is really more of a showcase with Penn and Teller commenting on how good the acts are, which, because they are so much fun to listen to… works.  And it’s done with an overall feeling of respect, not American Idol let’s-bring-the-idiot-on-stage tripe, so the acts are mostly pretty stellar, with a couple humdrum and repeated concepts popping up here and there, even over the course of these few episodes.  In fact, by show’s end, they have a respected magician trying to “fool” them, but there’s not even a pretend at guessing in that instance, it’s just another magic act.

Besides the first episode’s typically over-the-top P&T magic gag, to be honest, their concluding tricks are generally the least entertaining of the bunch, for some reason.  But regardless, the format of the show is fun and very watchable, and the wide range of incredibly skilled amateur magicians on stage that at the very least impress our co-hosts gives you a nice, warm feeling when they load them up with praise.