tales of an ordinary girl

Welcome to the Quarter Finals! The four contestants this week were Jackie (Bowl Cut), Zenobia (Xena), Lynn, and Silvana. The three tasks were finding fear behind five closed doors, psychically diagnosing two people, and reading the scene of a crime.

Task #1: Finding Fear
For this task the psychics were given ten minutes to find the person in fear behind five doors. Five sheds were set up with a door and no roof. Inside five people were participating in activities. Four were participating in relaxing activities (drawing, receiving a massage, painting finger nails, and something else I can't remember). One person was facing her fear, sticking her hand in a glass aquarium with roaches. Eeek! That would have not been something I could do. She was gagged, but you could still hear her muffled screams. The camera didn't show her screaming when the psychics were there, but it's possible that she made some fearful noises.

Lynn was up first. She listened at each door and then confidently chose door 4, which had the fearful woman behind it. She earned 25 points.

Silvana was next and she seemed nervous and all over the place. She said 3, 2, or 1 at first, but then finally chose door #2, which was not the fearful participant. She was awarded 0 points.

Zenobia went third and mentioned she felt the sensation of creepy crawlies and on a woman. She selected door #1, which was the one with the man getting a massage. Maybe the lady giving him the massage was getting the creepy crawlies from touching the man? Well, probably not. She was awarded 0 points.

Jackie was last and walked around acting like she didn't care. Then she said either 2 or 4 and looked at the host a few times as she questioned 2 or 4. Then she selected #4, which was correct. That's just cold reading in my opinion. She was awarded 25 points.

Task #2: Diagnose Patients
For this task the psychics had to diagnose the medical conditions of two patients, an older man in not the best shape and a younger, attractive woman. They received points for a correct diagnosis as well as for listing the symptoms the patients suffered. The conditions were diabetes and Crohn's disease.

The judge was a clinical research scientist, Dr. Jewell. She watched video of the psychics diagnosing the symptoms from another room. The task was worth 25 points.

Zenobia was first. She described a swollen neck and some kind of pain up and down the back in the first man. The woman she mentioned had something wrong with her circulation, was tired, hurt, needed three surgeries, and was taking too many medications.

Dr. Jewell gave her a hit on the back, mentioning sensory neuropathy. I'm not familiar with sensory neuropathy and didn't realize it was a part of diabetes, but the doctor was very impressed. She was also impressed with the symptoms she named for the woman and the fact that she mentioned three surgeries since the woman had three surgeries and was diagnosed three years ago. She was awarded 19 points.

Lynn went next. About the man she said phrases like ankle, feet, bones, aching, and podiatry. For the woman she diagnosed pregnancy - a baby boy. Dr. Jewell was not impressed and gave her 7 points, mostly for the aching ankles. Afterwards Lynn admitted she had completely missed on both of them.

Silvana was next and again was fast talking all over the place. For the man she mentioned liver, swollen feet, something on the right side, hepatitis, prostate, virus, not exercising or eating right, and diabetes. For the woman she pointed to her shoulder and her knees and said it was between there and there, pain, cancer, and cyst.

Dr. Jewell wasn't impressed and awarded her 12 points because she mentioned diabetes, but said she didn't deserve more because she also mentioned hepatitis and prostate problems. Silvana was upset and thought she deserved more for saying diabetes. The doctor stuck by her score, which I thought was entirely too high. She almost got half the points for mentioning diabetes in with a bunch of other things? Silvana complained more before we moved on.

Jackie was last and started out by saying she wasn't here to win as she casually, creepily walked around the patients. For the man she said diabetes, kidney, exercise, and urine. For the woman she said uterus, heavy bleeding, acid in the esophagus, then she sort of hit on the woman, I think. The host asked her if she had more to which Jackie said, "the full Jackie will blow you away," but since she wasn't trying to win she was OK with her diagnosis.

The doctor was somewhat impressed with the diagnosis of the man and gave her 15 points.

The problem with this task is that diabetes would be the first thing I'd guess about the man. He doesn't look like he exercises or eats healthy. The woman is much harder and Crohn's disease is not as well known. And, as expected, the psychics did much better with their diagnosis of the man than the woman.

Task #3: Crime Scene
The last task was to read the scene of a crime. A firefighter was there recounting what had happened. It was at the Palomar Hotel. I did a quick search on the Palomar Hotel arson found found several entries about a fire, insurance fraud, and the death of the woman in the fire. This wasn't a little-known event, but pretty well know. I call BS on this task as it's likely that some of the psychics had heard about it or read up about crimes in the area.

Also, the fireman was there to judge each contestant and was visibly still upset by the events that transpired. Cold reading definitely came into play. The psychics had 30 minutes to convince him that they're psychic. There were three things they could not ask about - the fireman's education, career, or what happened.

Silvana went first. She started by asking when it happened. The host said that it wasn't a question she could ask, that she should tell them. She mentioned the crime was premeditated, and as a result of greed. She also kept talking about the man's brother, which the show gave her a hit on because there was a brother-in-law involved in the crime. The fireman seemed annoyed and at one point told her, "I don't have a brother." On the roof she mentioned falling, that someone was pushed and choked. The show gave her a hit because a woman fell from the third story window before she could be rescued (obviously not pushed) and because she choked on smoke (but she wasn't choked by a man like Silvana implied). I certainly wasn't impressed.

Zenobia was next. She saw two people arguing and said the fireman saw it and tried to help, but he couldn't and he was sad because of it. She kept reassuring him that there wasn't anything he could have done. Then she mentioned a young woman and kids and used the letters L & M and once she saw that she had hit on something mentioned that she was hearing a lullaby and a lot of loud, chaotic noises. The two children rescued, whose mother died were Miguel and Lobita (or something like that), so she was able to make an impact on the fireman with the letters and the lullaby.

Jackie went third and started out with a little wink talking about how she was the white serpent and that this was her temple, or some such nonsense. She's really annoying. She said that the fireman was a cop and that whatever it was started on the third floor. Then she mentioned something about someone going off the roof and a young woman and asked the host and the fireman how those two things were connected. Neither answered her and she said she was done.

Lynn was last. She got very emotional right away and started crying, saying she'd been sad all day. She immediately started mentioned images of a fire, sirens, police, and a disaster. She said the building had been rebuilt (well, it was remodeled), and then she mentioned a child being trapped, crying and screaming. She said when she was a child she had a dream that someone told her there was going to be a fire. Then two hours she woke up and there was a fire. She said she could empathize with the children because they were like her.

The Results
The points were revealed in the end. Lynn received 36 points for her recitation of the events, the highest awarded to anyone to date, for a total of 68 points. She was ecstatic and asked all the women for a hug. Jackie said she didn't give hugs away for free, which miffed Lynn.

So Lynn moves on to the semi-finals. Silvana only received 15 points for mentioning that someone was pushed and choked, which gave her a total of 27 points, not enough to move on.

The last spot was between Jackie and Zenobia. Zenobia only had 19 points going in, which was well behind Jackie's 40. For Zenobia's account she recieved 26 points, mainly for saying the letters M & L. So Jackie needed at least 5 point to tie, but she said very little to the fireman. Would she move on? Well, of course. No one ever gets less than a 7 on these tasks, which my husband pointed out, and that's exactly what she got, 7 points, bringing her total to 47.

Both Lynn and Silvana expressed unhappiness that Jackie made it to the semi-finals. Silvana made a quip about it not being "America's Pshycho Challenge." Zenobia was happy for Jackie.

Viewer Participation
At each commercial break they show items and ask the viewers to use their psychic powers to determine the outcome. So how did I do this week?

At the first break they showed a man getting on the elevator and asked which floor he would select: 2, 3, or G. Since he was clearly getting on from the third floor, I selected 2. And I was right! Maybe my psychic powers are returning to me.

At the second break an older couple was shown sitting in the park, snuggling and kissing. The show asked how long they had been married - 1, 15, or 35 years. I selected 1 because they were very affectionate. Not like they couldn't be at 15 or 35, but it's less likely. And I was correct again.

At the third break a man was running and came to an intersection. The show asked which way he would run: left, right, or straight. Since he was jogging in place at the intersection it should be straight or right since both require that he cross the intersection, right? Why else stop? Of course I was wrong that time and he veered out into the street left. Why go into the street rather than follow the sidewalk? Is the show actively trying to trip me up??

That makes my total for tonight 2 out of 3, or 9 out of 15 total. Not too shabby, but still not good enough to be psychic.

Tune in for next week where the winners from the second two episodes (M.W., Jeff, Joseph, and Michelle) face off against each other.

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