Should Simon Cowell’s ‘AGT: Extreme’ Be Renewed For Season 2?
Eliza Morse/NBC Reading Time: 4 minutes
Now that Alfredo Silva‘s Cage Riders have officially been crowned as the first ever champion of AGT: Extreme, many are wondering if this series will get picked up for a second season. After four weeks, the America’s Got Talent dangerous spin off has officially concluded, here’s everything you need to know.
Before taking a look at how the series did as a whole, it’s important to remember that this series almost didn’t air on TV. This series began to film in early October, but was quickly paused after an on-set injury. AGT alum, Jonathan Goodwin suffered a major accident during a rehearsal. Following the accident, this daredevil was airlifted to the hospital, rushed into surgery, and remained in the hospital for four months.
AGT: Extreme resumed filming in January 2022 at the Irwindale Speedway in California. We don’t know how much of this series had already been filmed before the accident. Regardless, the location change wasn’t evident when watching the show.
The Two Round Formatting is the Biggest Problem
I’ve always been a huge fan of danger acts on America’s Got Talent so I was excited for this brand new series dedicated to them. I think that the spread of contestants was very wide and a lot of the acts were amazing because they were never-seen-before on the show. The series set out to find the acts that couldn’t be contained to an indoor stage and that’s exactly what they found.
By far, my favorite part of this competition was the fact that none of the acts were repeats of another. I was so happy to see this in the spin off since AGT can get pretty repetitive. Many people may criticize the fact that a lot of the contestants were either former America’s Got Talent acts or apart of Nitro Circus. This aspect of the series didn’t really bother me, even though their ring master is a judge he couldn’t vote.
While I loved the variety in the series, I hated the formatting. I understand that this probably changed following the pause in production, but this competition was too short. Nerveless Nocks and Erika Lemay were two of the best acts and they auditioned in the last episode. Even though there was no live voting, it felt like the last episode acts weren’t given a fair chance. Plus, poor Erika got the golden buzzer and then her talent was totally overlooked.
The two-round format is truly what ruined this show for me. It was clear pretty early on that if acts didn’t originally get three yeses, they had no actual chance at continuing on in the series. It totally felt unfair, if I’m being honest.
There were multiple acts (like The Flying Royals) that said they wanted to prepare to come back with a better performance, but they were never given the ability to. Acts chances of continuing on were super slim if they didn’t get a Golden Buzzer. I think there were many great acts that deserved a spot in that finale.
On top of the overall formatting, it was no secret that this season was filmed way different than the original. The on stage time was so long for each act and sometimes it felt like it totally dragged on. There was not really a balance between the biography stories and on-stage time in this spin off. In total I felt like there was way too much banter in general. There’s a difference between getting to know the contestants/judges and clearly wanting to fill time in the slot. The mini games involving the judges were fun but totally unnecessary in my opinion.
Should AGT: Extreme Get Another Season?
I think that horror struck upon set which lead to the shortened competition. Although I’m left feeling disappointed from this season, I want the series to get another chance. This didn’t really live up to the America’s Got Talent name at all. It had the capability to with great contestants, but it fell short of it.
If AGT: Extreme returns to air, I hope to see more of a competition. It felt like this series was thrown together too quickly, most of all I want to see more than two rounds! Every act (minus the Golden Buzzers) deserve the chance to perform one more time. I attribute the formatting flaws due to the show stopping accident that occured in the beginning of filming. If this series was rushed due to his accident it can be forgiven.
I hope to see Travis Pastrana return as a judge if season two happens. One of my favorite things about season one was the fact that he was able to explain the danger aspect behind most performances. He was the perfect person to sit at the judging panel. I think Nikki Bella was good, but I wish she would’ve had more to say about acts. She was extremely quiet in the beginning, but got better as time went on.
