‘Masters of Illusion: Christmas Magic 2021’ a feast of yuletide trickery

When watching the illusions performed on The CW’s “Masters of Illusion,” Dean Cain doesn’t want to know how they’re done. In fact, he prefers to be fooled.

“I love to be amazed by it all,” the host of the weekly magic competition series explains. “So I see them do it over and over again, too. That’s the thing that really freaks me out, like, ‘Wait a minute. How did you do that?’ And they take great joy in me not being able to figure anything out. But I never ask, ‘How do you do it?’ I mean, I say, ‘How the heck did that happen?’ But I won’t say, ‘Tell me your secrets.’

“I would never, ever, ever ask for the secret – well, unless I had to do it as a trick,” he says, adding with a laugh, “in which case I’d have to know.”

Friday, Nov. 26, things take on a more festive tone with “Masters of Illusion: Christmas Magic 2021,” the annual special in which some of today’s hottest magicians perform Christmas-themed tricks. So whether it’s gifts being pulled out of an apparently empty holiday gift bag or people going into a box dressed as an elf and coming out a snowman, Cain always has a front-row seat to the sleight of hand.

And sometimes the tricks are performed on him. Cain, who maintains he is not a magician but is a fan of magic, sometimes will try to deconstruct the trick but usually just gives up and lets himself be entertained by it all.

“The fun thing about the Christmas one,” he says, “is they all come up and do sort of a trick that they do a little trick on me. You know, they come and do a little something on me, which is a lot of fun. And they do blow me away constantly, constantly . ... I love the up-close magic.

“I’ve never taken the time to try to do any of the tricks,” he continues. “I tried a couple of coin tricks and things like that but that’s not my thing. You know, I’m not that great at it. I can do magic to a fouryear-old but that’s about it.”