Louis Walsh reminds me of a little Rasputin. The man simply cannot be killed. He’s been splashed with water. He’s been jostled and mocked. He’s been fired. He’s been lumbered with the impossible task of making Stereo Kicks look like competent musical performers. And yet every time they have tried to bury him, his fist has burst back up through the soil. He reminds me of a little Carrie.
The last anyone saw of Louis Walsh, he was being given his marching papers – along with Dermot O’Leary, Mel B and the shouting voiceover man – so that X Factor could regenerate and appeal to young people who actually listen to music rather than middle-aged people who only watch because they’ve been rendered inert by nightmarish quantities of pizza and booze.
But then X Factor regenerated, and nobody watched it. Despite the new faces – all of them basically just empty, grinning advertisements for ridiculous hair products – X Factor is still shedding viewers like you wouldn’t believe. Nothing has changed. The acts still sing the same songs. The judges still have the same four responses. There’s still a John Lewis commercial in the ad breaks, maliciously determined to suck all the oxygen from the room. Nothing is new or fresh any more. Being a regular X Factor viewer at this point is like being one of those people who think it’s fun to celebrate Christmas every day, except it’s September now and I’d rather smash my head into a wall than eat another sodding brussels sprout.
Fortunately, Simon Cowell has a plan to salvage X Factor’s fortunes. Ready? He wants to bring back Louis Walsh. According to the Sun, Cowell and Walsh recently had an hour-long phone conversation to discuss what’s gone so wrong this year, and how they can fix it. The solution seems to involve Walsh coming back for some sort of whistle-stop special appearance, presumably so he can gee up the nation with a medley of his greatest hits like Telling People How Old They Are and Comparing People to Celebrities They Do Not Physically Resemble and Generally Just Blinking and Waving Like a Slightly Concussed Competition Winner Who’s Desperate Not To Be Found Out.
That’s it. The big plan to turn X Factor around is the partial reinstatement of Louis Walsh. Now, I’m no expert, but I do live my life by a handful of simple rules. The first of those rules is this: anything that tries to save itself with the inclusion of more Louis Walsh cannot actually be saved. Actually, I’m not even sure that constitutes a rule. I think it might be a watertight, peer-reviewed scientific fact.
Louis Walsh’s barely participatory gimmicks cannot make X Factor good. At this precise moment in time, nothing can make X Factor good. As far as I can tell, the show is left with two options. First, it can keep up this undignified practise of running itself into the ground in full view of the public until nobody the last viewer quietly dies of sadness on their sofa.
Or it can just end now. X Factor could just face the inevitable and lop its own head off with a shovel. Literally just end now. Make one more episode where they say the alarming No Limits woman from last week has won, and then cut to a black screen.
With every passing day, I’m convinced that this is what X Factor should do. No more fannying around. No more superficial changes. No more power ballads. No more Louis Walsh. Just end it now. Nobody would miss it. At this point, I’m not sure anyone would even notice.
