It meant a lot more for me as a viewer for Thompson to recognize the things I saw, and actively offer notes to help these competitors compared to what I may usually hear from Simon Cowell, who rarely says more than whether or not the performance was better or worse than the last time he’d seen the act.
And one thing I realized I never heard from these previous judges before are actual notes on how to improve their performance.
Kenan Thompson did that for a few acts tonight, and frankly, he was on point with his advice.