You might want to set your DVR to record Penn and Teller’s “Fool Us,” which is airing this summer on Wednesday nights on The CW (channel 11 in St. Louis). The series originally aired three years ago on British TV, hosted by Jonathan Ross. The concept is simple: magicians do their tricks for an audience that includes Penn and Teller, and if they can’t figure out how it was done, then the performer is flown to Vegas, where they get to do it as part of the P and T show at The Rio.
What I like about the show — aside from the fact that all of these illusionists are really good — is seeing Penn and Teller describe some element that they think was the key to the trick. This isn’t like those Masked Magician specials that aired a decade ago on Fox, with a hack named Valentino exposing how tricks are done. P and T do it in a way that the magician knows what they’re talking about, but we don’t. Most of the time, they get it right, and the magician admits that he hasn’t fooled them, but a few times, they can’t guess it or got it wrong — like with Mathieu Bich on the show that aired last week…