The Series Six Factor

Straight after Robbie Vincent, I watched the repeat of last night's X Factor and what a start.

The usual traits are there including the lorries, the constant fades to black between shots, and Peter Dixon, but the addition of an audience in the auditions has done nothing to spoil the programme whatsoever.

Unlike Britain's Got Talent, the audience won't boo an act unless they get arsey with the judges, and rather surprisingly a lot of them end up cheering some of Simon's comments. Although that's been the case for quite a while now.

The acts on stage don't get buzzed either as they know when to stop when Simon raises his arm asking for the music to be faded out.

And that's another new addition as some of the acts perform to an instrumental track which manages to work for the right and the wrong reasons.

I can remember an interview on This Morning around the time of Pop Idol series 1 when they had a load of the rubbish contestants brought back, and one of them said it would have been nice to have music to perform to, in order to make it easier for them.

However last night's show proved that even with music the really bad auditions find it hard to perform in time as well as in tune.

Throughout the show I was tweeting constantly making snide comments about two overweight women audtioning by saying that The Magic Numbers were appearing on the show.

But where the really bad were bad, the really good were more than just amazing.

I'd say that the two finalists right at the end of the series were found in that first show with the first one being 19 year old mother Stacey from Dagenham.

She had a rather enthusiastic bubbly personality with the common touch but when she started singing her rendition of "What A Wonderful World" (a la Eva Cassidy) she was more than just a superb vocalist.

You don't often get those with a great personality, a brilliant singing voice and sparkling smile. I'd say that if she gets far, Stacey's the next decade's answer to Louise.

It got even better with 27 teacher Danyl from Reading who performed an amazing rendition of the Joe Cocker version of "A Little Help From My Friends". Simon even went as far as saying it was "The best first audition ever" and it could quite possibly be the first deserved victory for someone in the over 25 category.

They even left Steve Brookstein out of a winners VT montage on the ITV2 show so that proves my point.

Speaking of which Holly's back presenting the Xtra Factor with the return of the infamous "Presentiators" feature which this week involved a balloon blowing/bursting contest between her and Dermot. Don't ask.

On a lower note there was a feature half inched from TV Burp in the form of "The Judges Moment Of The Week" which was just a clip of Louis Walsh making a cup of tea in the holding room.

I'm surprised how on Xtra Factor, the really bad auditionees are happy to put themselves up for the amount of stick by taking part in comedy sketches based on their personality traits.

Although one of them was one of the more succesfull contestants, a girl called Marie-Claire who performed a Norah Jones/Jesse Harris song and was told by Simon that "it was like Holly singing" because she bore an uncanny resemblance.

This lead to a sketch were Marie-Claire locked Holly in a storage cupboard tied up and took over her job.

What I'd give to be in that cupboard at the same time...

Overall a really good start to the series and for once in a TV show,
I do like the new direction.