And that, chums, is it for the weekend. But remember, this isn’t the last we’ve seen of Jake, because he’ll soon be making exclusive appearances on, like Discovery Shed or something.
Next Saturday is X Factor’s traditional one-day-too-late Halloween Night. I’m afraid, however, that you’ll have to do it without me – the liveblog will be here as normal, but I’ll be off galavanting at an impossible-to-get-out-of family event. Obviously, I will miss you. But I’ll be back soon, and I’m on Twitter as @StuHeritage in case I haven’t bloody mentioned that in the last 30 seconds. Thanks for all your comments! You’re all great! Bye!
‘Gentleman Jake’, Dermot calls him. This is because ‘Atonal Jake’ isn’t very alliterative.
JAKE GOES HOME
That’s not unexpected, because he’s consistently made a noise a like a trapped goat.
Simon, perennially unimpressed, sends Jake home. Cheryl gets the casting vote. She is not emotionally equipped to handle this pressure.
Next, Louis sends Jake home. It’s one-all.
ANYWAY. VOTES. First to judge is Mel B, who’ll send Only The Young home.
One of the boys is singing this spectacularly badly. You know, I’m starting to wonder what the correlation is between having a ridiculous quiff and not being able to sing very well. I’d imagine it’s quite high.
Only The Young now. They’re doing The Winner Takes It All, which is presumably a song about Andrea. It’s certainly not a song about themselves, because it’s not called The People Who Came Eighth Get To Switch On The Christmas Lights In Faversham.
Mel B is crying hard at this performance. This might be because she’s formed a genuine emotional attachment to Jake, but it’s more likely that it’s because he’s singing at a frequency that made her poo herself, and she’s embarrassed about it.
I don’t know what Jake is singing, but he’s singing it EXACTLY like someone in a church attempting to sing along to a hymn that he’s never actually heard before.
Sing-off time. Jake’s singing first. Mel B introduced him by saying ‘He’s beautiful’ rather than ‘He is consistently able to sing in tune’, which is probably telling.
On the plus side, since Only The Young are a Louis Walsh act, we’re probably going to be spared a deadlock tonight.
IT'S JAKE V ONLY THE YOUNG.
Obviously I want Jake to leave, because he’s the one who spent most of yesterday making a noise like a baby having its bikini line aggressively waxed. But who knows what’ll happen? Not me.
And JACK is through.
And STEVI is through. That leaves Only The Young, Jack and Jake.
And Jay’s through, because he is an exemplary Skype salesman, and that’s really important. PAUL’s through as well. Aren’t there a lot of acts this year?
LOLA is through, ready to have her lack of personality destroyed for yet another week.
HANK is through, too, although he doesn’t really react to this. ANDREA is also through, and he also doesn’t react.
STEREO KICKS are also through. As is LAUREN, who reacts a bit too aggressively to the news for my liking.
The first act through to next week is... FLEUR, who celebrates by detaching her jaw like a snake before it eats an egg.
Shh, results.
(Cheryl also looks a bit like she’s walked out of a toilet cubicle with three entire rolls of toiler paper hanging out of her knickers, by the way)
Righto, let’s actually kick one of these dingbats off, shall we?
‘Bacon, he ain’t Jamaican’. THERE’S ANOTHER SLOGAN THAT ACTUALLY RHYMES, KEVIN BACON. STOP MAKING ME DO THIS FOR YOU.
We’re halfway through the episode! You know what this means? 15 minutes of reading out names, seven minutes of singing, six minutes of Louis Walsh umming and ahhing and then a three-minute best bits package that only really needed to last for about 15 seconds. We can do this, people!
Ed’s stopped singing. He wants Andrea to win ‘because of the Pug thing’. So, in summary, Ed Sheeran has chosen a potential X Factor winner purely on the basis that he wore a sweater with a picture of a dog on it once. I’m starting to think that Ed Sheeran is someone’s nan.
The torch-bearers are even standing behind him. They’re standing completely still. It’s like watching The Returned or something. I’m not suggesting that they’re going to pounce on him and eat him the moment that he stops singing, but I won’t complain very loudly if they do.
All the members of the audience are participating in the light show, by swaying bright LEDs above their heads in time to the music. Either that or they’re all frantically waving distress flares at the same time because this song is so boring that they all think they’re drowning. One or the other.
You see, though, Jack Walton? This is how you do it. This is how you bore people rigid with an acoustic guitar. You’d better be taking notes – if you’re still around next week, I expect you to be precisely as dreary as this.
Ah, no, wait, it’s the acoustic guitar thing.
But now for the guest performance from Ed Sheeran. You always know what to expect from Ed – fireworks, backing dancers, energetic non-stop choreography. Or maybe he’ll try something different tonight and just stand there with an acoustic guitar, mumbling a load of boring pap. Who knows?
We’re back! And Dermot’s about to ask the judges who they think did badly. Simon says Lola and Jake were crap. Cheryl said Jake was crap. Mel said Stevi was crap, but only because Jake is her act, and Louis said Jake was crap. YOU HEAR THAT, PUBLIC?
Incidentally, I’m the only one who sings along to that Money On My Mind X Factor sponsorship sting by making a noise like a cat having its tail fed into a mincer, aren’t I?
Adverts now, including one for Cuppa Porridge. I think it’s called Cuppa Porridge because This Product Obviously Represents Humanity’s All-Time Low Point wouldn’t fit on the box.
Five minutes before lines close. This is your five-minute reminder not to vote, because none of this really matters and your time is more valuable than that.
Also the chorus to that song was literally just the letter O. I hope it’s part of a series. I hope their next song has the letter E for a chorus. Not enough songs have the letter E as a chorus.
There is literally nothing to say about this song. I think the singer just said that he feels more alive the more bones he breaks. I sure hope that nobody covers his staircase with banana skins and bars of soap and rollerskates tonight. That would be a terrible shame.
From Googling, I discovered that this song is called I Lived, and that it reached the heady heights of number 111 in the American hit parade. If you’re not watching X Factor live, the song basically starts off as an Ed Sheeran tribute number and ends up as the sort of thing that’s written specifically to eventually appear on an advert for a flashy camera. Hope that helps.
Anyway, it’s time for a performance by OneRepublic now. I Googled them before the show started, by the way. I still don’t know who they are.
Also last night: if her facial expression was any indication, Fleur attempted to sing an entire song while straining for a poo.
Andrea described himself as ‘speechless’ because he’d just wasted his entire voice yelling a power ballad. Lola burst into tears. Look, why am I even telling you this? I spent two hours writing about it last night. Look, why don’t you just scroll up, huh? Too good to scroll up, are you? I’m not paid to hold your hands. You people make me sick.
Time for the Billion-Year Recap. This is what happened last night: Everyone hated Jake, most people hated Only The Young, Mel B described Jay James as a ‘Dargourse’, whatever that is.
In other news, don’t try and buy anything from ASOS tonight, because the X Factor finalists are literally wearing its entire stock.
They’re all singing No Place I’d Rather Be. Even though most of them are standing next to Jay James. From this I can declare that their priorities are all mixed up.
Time for the group song. I was typing when it started, and I thought “Wow, that girl CANNOT sing in tune”. I looked up and it was Paul. Whoops.
So let’s meet the judges, shall we?
LOUIS! Dressed flammably.
MEL! Doing a magical duckface.
CHERYL! Dressed as Mumm-Ra The Everliving.
SIMON! Once again fiercely rejecting the very existence of buttons.
Here’s Dermot. Cowpunch intensity level tonight: VERY HIGH. He added in a little kick as well. Tonight is going to be WONDERFUL.
LARST NIYT! There was a fake movie poster for the judges, even though the judges have been collectively responsible for Spiceworld, From Justin To Kelly and What To Expect When You’re Expecting. Also, there was some singing and Cheryl got to unleash some preprepared putdowns.
OK, let’s go. And by ‘go’ I mean ‘try and work out how to blog about a recap for the third week running’.
I’ve just switched over to that new Bradley Walsh gameshow, by the way. It’s like 3-2-1, but with ACTUAL GALLOWS. And, obviously because it’s a television programme that airs on ITV on a weekend evening, a set that makes me feel like my eyes have vomited down my face. I think I quite like it.
Before the show starts, we should try to guess who’ll be kicked off tonight. The judges were quite vocal about the acts they didn’t like – with Jake, Jack, Ben and Stevi all coming in for quite a kicking. Then again, I have a feeling that the audience might vote Lola out, purely on the basis that they’re bored of everyone constantly reminding them that she used to be a fishmonger. I can’t be the only one bored of that, can I?
SUNDAY NIGHT ED SHEERAN RESULTS SHOW EXTRAVAGANZA!
What’s that? You came back? For me? You came back for me? Oh, you came back for Ed Sheeran. Fine then, you weirdos.
Anyway, welcome to the Sunday results show part of the X Factor liveblog. It’s been a long and confusing time since X Factor was last on our screens; full of clock-changing and sudden, sweat-drenched, retrospective ‘Wait a minute, did Jay James really turn a once-in-a-lifetime moment of father-daughter tenderness into a commercial for a videoconferencing service?’ realisations. But we’re back. That’s the most important thing.
Tonight’s show offers guest appearances from Ed Sheeran (the Nuclear Man version of Eoghan Quigg) and OneRepublic (who I literally don’t know a single thing about, and really need to Google before the show starts). Plus, unless I passed out at a crucial moment last night, I think there’s only going to be one elimination. How will the show fill these three new minutes of empty space? Your choices are:
a) Extended recaps
b) Extended adverts
c) An extended post-song interview sequence between Dermot O’Leary and Ed Sheeran, where Dermot asks Ed when his new single is out, and Ed tells him, and Dermot just stands there and shrugs and gets all ‘What do you want me to do about it?’ and in the end Louis Walsh attempts to break the tension by making a noise like a little goat.
Back at 8pm!
Updated
And, while Dermot locks into his three solid minutes of tedious number-reading, I’m out of here. Thanks for coming along and joining in. Three things that you shouldn’t forget:
1. You should come back here tomorrow night at 8pm for the X Factor results show liveblog, because the guests will be Ed Sheeran and OneRepublic and they’re apparently quite popular. ALSO: let’s all hope that I remember to put the clocks back tonight, otherwise there’s a pretty good chance I’ll accidentally end up liveblogging that crap-looking Bradley Walsh gameshow instead.
2. My Twitter name is @StuHeritage
3. WAGNER!
See you tomorrow, everyone!
All the judges are saying how nice Hank is. YOU’RE A MONSTER, STUART. A MONSTER. A MONSTER. A MONSTER.
Things I like about this performance: a load of green lights are pointing at Hank, and that makes him look like he’s being trapped in a laser prison.
Things I do not like about this performance: Hank looks entirely dead behind the eyes. It’s like watching a shop mannequin that’s been rigged up to an amplifier connected to a wood chipper.
Hank Hey Now Big Package Kingsley is singing I Don’t Wanna Miss a Thing. By which I mean he’s yelling ARDANWONNAMISAFING.
That’s right, it’s time for Hank Hey Now Big Package Kingsley. You know, after last week, I’m sort of rooting for Hank, purely because of Louis’s gigantic ‘big package’ freudian slip last week. Fingers crossed this time Louis will just critique Hank by closing his eyes and sticking his tongue out like he’s French-kissing an invisible ghost.
Time for the final act of the night. I know who this is. Hey, have a video:
And now, the X Factor competition. To win a car and a nice holiday, all you have to do is text the word ‘Win’ to a premium rate number. Remember when competitions used to rely on a basic level of skill? Those days are gone now. Next year, I hear that University Challenge will undergo a format change, where the country’s best and brightest will all have to sit in a row and text the word ‘WIN’ over and over again while Jeremy Paxman bangs a pen on a desk and tuts to himself.
Yep, they’re doing Hey Jude now. Christ, I hope this doesn’t make them more popular. If it does, they’re going to end all their songs by listlessly going “Nah nah nah” over and over again like Paul McCartney at the close of a ceremony he has no real investment in. Even in Ragga week.
You know, I think I’ve worked out why I don’t like this lot. It’s because whenever they sing, it reminds me of the Sunday night group performance, which brings me out in hives. Oh wait. Oh God.
Erect Kiosks are doing Let It Be, a song about accepting your fate as a failed boyband of no real worth that was formed purely to satisfy the whims of an idle millionaire.
Time for Erect Kiosks. And it looks like the experiment hasn’t paid off, because last week Erect Kiosks found themselves in the sing-off. The problem seems to be that there are too many of them, so teenage girls can’t fixate their lust on them properly. This could easily be solved with a game of Boyband Duckhunt, you know.
In the VT, Erect Kiosks declare themselves independent of Louis Walsh. Tonight’s performance is all them. Remember that. It’s all them.
Also, I think Simon Cowell just promised to go to the Harvester in Colchester. I have nothing to add to this information.
This seems to be the week that the judges turn on Stevi. Stevi planned one put-down – ‘I’d like you to come up onstage and dance with me’ – but, because everyone’s slagging him off so hard, he’s forced to repeat it over and over again like the doll from Saw if it had slightly deader eyes.
Just like last week, this is Stevi singing a cheesy song in an ironically bad way while surrounded by dozens of pretty girls.
I think the thing stopping me from getting fully onboard with this performance is the uncomfortable feeling that he’s probably stifling an erection while he sings.
Stevi’s doing Footloose. Didn’t someone do the song from Flashdance last week? Is the unofficial theme of this year’s series Songs From Films About People Who Aren’t Allowed To Dance? WILL THERE BE A BILLY ELLIOT THE MUSICAL THEME NEXT WEEK?
Stevi Ritchie now, who only just seems to have realised how far he can get by playing the Wagner card. Note: if playing the Wagner card gets Stevi further along in the competition than Wagner did, there will be open warfare from me. OPEN. WARFARE.
In the VT, Stevi gets a tweet from Olly Murs. Which is about 15 steps down from getting a tweet from Wagner, but never mind.
Oh dear. As Dermot threw to the ad break, they forgot to turn Fleur’s microphone down. It turns out that, immediately after singing a song, Fleur likes to sing the song again for everyone backstage. Which is a bit insufferable. At least Andrea doesn’t do it. Imagine the structural damage.
The judges all loved it a lot more than me, though. Which is probably for the best, because otherwise they’d all just sit around making crap jokes and getting excited whenever Wagner tweeted at them.
I think I like the idea of Fleur more than I like actual Fleur. I always get excited about seeing her perform, and then end up drifting off halfway through. She’s good, but there’s something missing.
Fleur is singing Lady Marmalade. By the sound of it, she’s singing every version of it that has ever been recorded at once, but maybe that’s just me.
This is just like that time Christina Aguilera did a guest performance on the results show and got her bum out.
Fleur East now. Will she sing? Will she rap? Will she ever mention that she was one of Addictiv Ladies? The answer to at least one of these is ‘Don’t be silly’.
By the way, get a load of bloody THIS.
Watching @TheXFactor & reading @stuheritage's X Factor live blog (The Guardian). Stuart Heritage: the most entertaining of all writers! Lol
— Wagner F-Carrilho (@wagnermusic) October 25, 2014
He’s watching, guys. Act nice
The judges all hated it, though. Even Mel B, which isn’t a very good sign. Hopefully next week is Very Boring Acoustic Busking Night, because then he’ll show everyone.
Oh, now it’s got a bit more traditional. But, still, it’s Jack Walton singing it. I’d quite like to see a Jack Walton training montage, where he files his nails and gets a stairlift in his nan’s house and sneezes into a damp hankie twice.
You know how you’ve got Eye of the Tiger on your phone, and you listen to it when you work out, and it gees you up? This is like something you’d listen to if you were about to drown yourself.
Jack’s singing Eye of the Tiger. By which I mean he’s Ed Sheeransing it into a soggy pulp.
Jack Walton now, getting ready to massacre another song you like by wearing a checked shirt and playing an acoustic guitar like a bored child listlessly attacking a bag of meat. I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait.
In the VT, Jack very efficiently reveals that he’s never once had a flattering haircut.
Dermot – who is playing a blinder tonight, to be fair – is now in the part of the show where he shows Simon Cowell a funny photo of Simon Cowell, and Simon Cowell acts like he couldn’t just click his fingers and have Dermot killed on the spot.
DRINKING GAME IDEA
Have a drink whenever anyone says the word ‘Skype’ tonight. Alternatively, just drink everything you’ve got as quickly as possible. Whichever involves the least amount of alcohol.
True story: the most shameful thing about my stag night was waking up the next day and realising from my internet history that I’d spent over an hour searching for different Let It Go cover versions on my phone.
One of two things is happening here. Either:
a) This is one of Lauren’s worst performances, or
b) I’ve been driven so berserk by hearing four-year-olds bellow this every time I’ve left the house for the last ten months that hearing it in any setting whatsoever makes my colon shrivel up.
It’s probably the second one, to be fair.
Anyway, Lauren is singing Let It Go. They really missed a trick by not dressing Louis Walsh up as a crazy snowman and getting him to jig about behind her for this, didn’t they?
Lauren hopes that all the small children watching X Factor tonight will sing along with her. IT’S NINE O’CLOCK AT NIGHT, LAUREN.
Lauren Platt now. This week, Demi Lovato Skyped Lauren and Skype Skype Skype Skype Skype Skype Skypey Skype Skype Skype.
Also, there are sexy girls. And Paul keeps singing ‘You gotta’ over and over again, like one of those Ronald Reagan Raps cassettes from the 1980s. But mainly it’s just the hip-hop preset thing.
In short: I’m pleased that he went big, because I’m not sure that I would have noticed if he’d gone medium-sized.
To be fair, though, Paul actually is Barry From EastEndersing Try a Little Tenderness tonight. But the judges have promised something big from him, so what could it... oh, wait, someone’s pressed the ‘hip-hop’ preset on a Casio keyboard. That’s the big thing, I assume.
This week, everyone insinuates that Paul lacks self-confidence. And I just called him Barry From EastEnders. OH GOD STUART JUST GO AND LOCK YOURSELF IN A CUPBOARD YOU INSENSITIVE BERK.
Now for Paul Akister, ready to Barry From EastEnders the living crap out of a power ballad until Louis Walsh cries again.
WEEKLY TRESEMME UPDATE
This week, the X Factor hairdressers are using Tresemme products to create a sleek and smooth look for the contestants. Which I’m pretty sure is what they said last week. Are they just running the same advert every week? I will make it my duty to keep an eye on this.
All the judges are insinuating that Lola lacks self-confidence. Which makes me feel JUST GREAT for slagging her off a bit just now, doesn’t it? OH WELL DONE STUART, YOU MONSTER. YOU ABSOLUTE MONSTER.
I will now revise my assessment: Lola Saunders is roughly as good as Leon Jackson. There, that’s better.
I MISS LEON JACKSON.
I don’t really, but I just realised that I hadn’t added any Key Events yet this episode.
Christ, imagine not being as good as Leon Jackson at sining a song. This is the future that Lola must face, because she isn’t.
Lola’s singing When You Believe, the first single by former X Factor winner Leon Jackson. Has he been in any films, you ask? No, but I’m pretty sure he’s got a Saturday job unclogging jammed-up popcorn butter machines with his bare hands at his local Odeon. That counts, right?
In the VT, Cheryl phoned Lola and was immediately punished for not contacting her via Skype like Jay James’s 13-month-old daughter did. Jay James’s 13-month-old daughter knows the score.
Also, Lola got a haircut.
Now it’s Lola Saunders the singing fishmonger, here to sing something from The Little Mermaid or The Perfect Storm or Jaws or A Fish Called Wanda or Finding Nemo or any other film where I get make a lazy reference to Lola being a fishmonger.
And an iPhone advert starring Richard Ayoade. You know, if he’d used the advert to pointedly question the motives of television adverts in a slightly off-puttingly pre-prepared way like he did with that Channel Four interview, you’d have all tweeted about it loads by now and Apple would have been thrilled.
More ads now. Including an advert for Interstellar – a blockbuster movie about space travel full of BLAAAAARM noises. Even that isn’t as loud as Andrea was just now.
All the judges love Andrea, and so do I. Well, it’s not so much that I love him. It’s more that I’m just really relieved that I don’t live next door to him.
Andrea’s singing Listen by Beyonce which, to be fair, is almost My Heart Will Go On. Nice loophole avoidance, Andrea. Nice loophole avoidance indeed.
Anyway, in a nutshell:
1) He’s dressed as the reason why you should never go shopping for clothes on the continent
2) If he went any more diva in his performance, his neck would snap and his head would bounce across the floor, come to a standstill by Lola’s feet and she’d be sick.
3) This basically is just a load of yelled vowels, though.
In the VT, Andrea... oh god, Andrea’s brilliant. He’s just said that he wants to take his gigantic power ballad and make it even bigger. He’s ridiculous. I love him.
Anyway, back to the boys. And Andrea Faustini! He really needs to prove that he can do something more than compulsively stuff soggy power ballads with all manner of superfluous vowels week after week.
In short: Andrea, if you do My Heart Will Go On tonight, I’m just going to make a load of fart noises for three minutes.
Incidentally, if you haven’t commented yet, this is the sort of nuanced criticism that you need to try and best. Full marks, Henry Frequency.
Next up: a load more adverts. Including one I haven’t seen before where Ian Brown from The Stone Roses struggles with the basics of parenting.
All the judges liked Jay James. Except for Cheryl, who inexplicably wanted him to sing it like James Bond. I’m not sure what that means, but I have to admit that it would have certainly be more interesting if he used the instrumental break to murder a load of Russians and drunkenly molest a woman.
Jay, quite ridiculously, is singing Skyfall. Fortunately he’s decided not to slow it down this week, otherwise watching him sing it would feel like watching the van fall off the bridge in Inception.
Even at the normal speed, though, this is not good. But I’m all about the positives, so at least I know what Skyfall sounds like when it’s performed by someone with innately untrustworthy eyes.
In the VT, Jay James becomes Professional Dad, just like Peter Andre with a more annoying singing voice. This week, for instance, his daughter said ‘I love you daddy’ over Skype for the first time.
This week, Jay James also looked in the mirror, realised that he’d commoditised his daughter’s love by using it as a product placement, and felt nothing.
Next up: Jay James. I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to see which song Jay slows down this week. Will it be Oops Upside Your Head? I Like To Move It Move It? Get UR Freak On? I’m beside myself with anticipation.
In response to that performance, Louis Walsh sat in his chair and said “Wooo” about 17 times in a row. So at least now we all know what fire engines would sound like if Louis Walsh had invented sirens. They’d be a lot more annoying, to be fair.
This is the first time I’ve ever heard this song, but I think they’re saying that Boom Clap is the sound that their hearts make. I don’t want to alarm any of them, but that definitely isn’t the sound that your heart’s supposed to make. My advice would be to lay off the fatty foods.
It’s not great, but at least none of them are dressed as telephones tonight. At least there’s that.
Only The Young are singing Boom Clap from that young adult film about everyone getting cancer. I forget what it’s called, but I think I heard one of the members of the group describe it as The Fart In Our Stars during their VT.
In the VT, the members of Only The Young try and introduce the term ‘Cheese on toast’ as a term of negativity, even though cheese on toast is one of mankind’s top three inventions. I’ve gone right off Only The Young.
Only The Young now, who quite unbelievably find themselves as the most successful group on the show. Perhaps it’s nostalgia. Perhaps people really are ready for the idea of a Same Difference knock-off band who look like they live in sewers and eat rats. Who knows?
They don’t rhyme, Kevin. THEY DON’T RHYME. ‘Bacon ain’t mistaken’. See? THAT’S A BETTER RHYME AND I JUST THOUGHT OF IT. Lord above.
First ad break of the night. You know, this time next week we’ll have Christmas ads up the wazzoo. But tonight, alas, it’s just Kevin Bacon desperately trying to sell us on the idea that the words ‘Bacon’ and ‘Waiting’ even come close to rhyming. Again.
Mel B, meanwhile, says that she loved every second of it, despite that cutaway shot of her slyly drinking some coffee to stop her from passing out from sheer tedium during his performance.
Louis Walsh just critiqued Jake by saying “That was great, you’re brilliant! But also none of it was good and you’re terrible”. I’ve had editors like that.
Also, Jake isn’t very good at finishing words. So far we’ve discovered that this girl of his is like the win. Also, if you’re counting, she’s out of his lee.
The first verse completed, and Jake has hit approximately zero correct notes, which is pretty good going really, since a Speak And Spell machine could probably perform this song quite convincingly.
Jake’s singing She’s Like The Wind. If she voted for Jake last week, I feel secure in claiming the wind to be a bellend.
Right, time to get on with this. First up is Jake Quickenden, who people actually voted through last week. People confuse me.
This week in the VT, Jake reveals that he originally wanted to be a footballer, but then bounced back with music when that failed. Let’s all look forward to him bouncing back by presenting one of those phone-in casino programmes that they have on Channel 5 at 4am.
And now, even though I still haven’t found a way to make the sentence ‘Simon Cowell is wearing a suit’ sound interesting, let’s meet the judges.
LOUIS! Louis Walsh is wearing a suit.
MEL! Mel is wearing a red thing.
CHERYL! Cheryl is wearing the sort of thing that you’d wear to a movie premiere, perhaps for the film adaptation of What To Expect When You’re Expecting.
SIMON! Simon Cowell is wearing a suit.
Here’s Dermot. I’ve started judging the quality of the show based on how convincingly he mimes a punch at the start of each episode. This week: a relatively convincing punch. Hooray!
Also, why does X Factor keep using Transformer nanobot noises in its pre-show recaps? My theory is that it’s trying to tell us that Cheryl is a cyborg, but it’s giving me the willies anyway.
One second in and the show has already confused Fountain Studios with Wembley Stadium. None of these songs are going to be from films, are they? None of them.
IT’S TIME! TO FACE! THE MUVIES!
All I hope is that nobody slows their songs down again today. Everyone was at it last week. If they’d done their songs at normal speed, we’d have been all wrapped up by about half past eight. I could have gone out and seen people. I could have bettered myself with literature. Or, more realistically, I could have just slumped face-down on my sofa and groaned out loud for an hour and a half longer than I usually do. Either way, sort it out X Factor.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this week’s X Factor liveblog. We have two reasons to celebrate this evening. First, tonight’s episode of X Factor is only two hours and ten minutes long. Realistically that’s still one hour and ten minutes too long for most human minds to handle, but at least we won’t all end up riddled with osteoporosis by the end of it like we were last week.
Second, tonight is the awkwardly-titled Saturday Night At The Movies Week, where the contestants will perform all your favourite songs from all your favourite films. By which I obviously mean they’ll perform some of the songs that played third during the end credits of films you either haven’t seen or don’t like but happened to be cheap for Syco to license. Best case scenario: Andrea sings Let It Go. Worst case scenario: Jamie Afro sings Theme From Gummo again.
As always, thanks for coming along and not realising that you can pretty much get the thrust of what happened tonight by just watching the recap on tomorrow’s show. Your stupidity means a lot to me. Anyway, the show starts at 8pm. I’ll comment up here, you comment down there, and when it’s finished we can all compare notes and realise that we all just basically made the same dull, anguished noise throughout. Ready? Good. See you soon.
