by  Arthur Perkins   

Are you up for another evening of seeing how America voted for less deserving teams? It's about to happen before your eyes. Read on. The only performances were by Miss Piggy, Kermit the Frog, 4 chickens, and David Hasselfhoff (no, he was not one of the chickens) singing and dancing to "Feeling Good" with the Hoffettes as backup dancers. Nick Cannon called it Hofficial to parody David's use of Hoff- as a prefix to modify (and mangle) many common words. However, the Hoff is a really good singer and OK dancer, maligned by me only for his sometimes poor choices as a judge. If he were competing, I would send him to the finals even though sometimes, as a judge, I want to send him home (ditto for Sharon Osbourne).
 
The first pairing was Arcadian Broad (who I felt had no chance) vs. Drew Thomas (whose chose of an act doomed him) vs. Texas Tenors (who were the second best act in the performance show). America saw this the same way I did.  Texas Tenors advance and the other 2 teams go home.
 
The second pairing was Grandma Lee vs. Paradizo Dance  vs. Tony Hoard and Rory. I was pretty sure Tony/Rory were going home and it was probable that Paradizo Dance was going home, so America again got it right.
 
The third pairing was the four remaining teams, AcroDunk, Kevin Skinner, Voices of Glory and Fab 5. Two of these teams were expected to advance to fill the last 2 slots. The first eliminated team was AcroDunk, a huge miscarriage of talent justice by the voters of America. In my judgment they were the number 1 team in this bracket and for them to be eliminated means that America has insufficient respect for either acrobatics or basketball. Kevin Skinner was advanced to the finals. His performance was sub-par and I was astounded that he is still competing  for the $1 million. He has great heart and emotion, but you also have to have on-pitch notes if you are a singer. He didn't. However, Nick Cannon held him to his promise that if he got to the finals he would show Sharon Osbourne his biggest smile ever.
 
So the fourth pairing is the two remaining teams and the judges must decide which one goes to the finals and which goes home. In a copout typical of Sharon and David, who love to advance unworthy acts, but masterminded no doubt by the producers of AGT4, the judges made a charade of refusing to decide and insisting that both team go to the finals. I was disgusted by this. I don't have a problem with 10 teams in the finals if that had been the announced structure, but it wasn't.
 
So, the 5 in the finals from this bracket are Texas Tenors, Grandma Lee, Kevin Skinner, Voices of Glory and Fab 5. Two of those teams should not be there (Kevin Skinner and Fab 5). AcroDunk should be there. That closes the book on this episode. It is logical to conclude that Pandora's box is now open and the next semifinals will also have 5 advancing to the finals (which will be 10 and not th 8 performers originally stated by the rules.