Getty Image / Lester Cohen
Magician David Blaine is back with a new 6-episode series that he’s calling Do Not Attempt which could apply to 99.999% of the stunts David Blaine has pulled in his career… That said, in Do Not Attempt David Blaine takes things further than we’ve seen before.
Holding his breath underwater for 17 minutes and 4 seconds? Dangerous, to be sure, but he was huffing on pure oxygen leading up to it. Living inside a solid block of ice for 63 hours? Weird, definitely weird, but he survived somehow.
Now Blaine is seeking to find the true limits of physical and mental strength in Do Not Attempt with stunts like setting his whole body on fire, kissing a deadly king cobra snake, walking underwater beneath a frozen sheet of ice, and more. If just watching the trailer is giving me as sense of unease I cannot imagine what the full series is going to be like:
Did we really need to see David Blaine shove a knife up his nose and into his brain? Probably not. Will I likely tune into this show to see how he pulls that off and why? Yes, yes I will. Ultimately, Blaine is a master stunt devil who also happens to be a world class magician so this intersection of magic and human capabilities should play well on TV.
It has been a minute since David Blaine shocked the world. It felt like he was on top of the world in the early 00s and he has done plenty of stunts then but failed to capture the same level of interest from the greater public.
David Blaine’s Do Not Attempt will seek to buck that trend as a 6-episode series which will take him across the planet to exotic and remote locales like Brazil, Japan, South Africa, the Arctic Circle and more.
Ultimately, we know he survives this series. We know that because Nat Geo is putting it on TV and that wouldn’t be the case if he was seriously harmed during any of the so-called ‘magic‘ tricks. The series premieres on Nat Geo and will be streaming on Disney+ and Hulu on March 23rd.