The X Factor 2008 - Official Thread

Well at least I'm discussing television, which is what this forum is for, as opposed to slagging people off all the time to score points over on the other place.

By the way, I don't read the Daily Mail. In fact, I don't even read newspapers.

I'm glad Alexandra won. I wanted JLS to win but Alexandra appreciates winning so much and I'm very happy for her.

Definitely the right finishing order tonight, Alexandra's version of the winners song was very good. Wouldn't buy it though but I'm glad she won, well deserved.

With regards to the winners single, it was picked when Diana was the red hot favourite and she did the best version at bootcamp. But that has now bitten them on the backside because she'll never be able to release it

Holly just revealed on The Xtra Factor that Eoghan won six out of the ten shows. Diana won one, JLS won one and Alexandra won two including tonight's.

I misread, once again sorry. Yeah they've all been covers except Shane.

Really good show tonight, nice to see a slight change at the start of the main show, going straight in with the group performance.

Alexandra rightly deserved to win, that performance with Beyonce was amazing!

It actually happened on Peter Kay's excellent spoof Britain's Got the Pop Factor And Possibly A New Jesus Christ Soapstar Superstar On Ice.

Catch it Sunday night on 4.

X Factor Final (Overnight) Ratings:

19.10- The X Factor Final: 13.2m (50.3%)
* peak: 14.61m (54.4%) at 8.10pm

21.40- The X Factor Final Results: 13.46m (54.4%)
* peak: 14.59m (61.4%) at 10.40pm.

Thanks to Digital Spy and rzt especially.
Did bloody well.

Alexandra is the only true winner this competition has ever had, so congratulations to her, although her reaction was a bit over the top. I won't be buying the single though, much prefer the Jeff Buckley version.

as opposed to say, slagging other sites off to win points on here and then not retracting the comments when you are proven wrong?



more to the point however, one thing is distinctly disliked this year was the way after they got rid of ricky gervais, the judges then started being a bit gushing towards the contestants. Aside from a few rare comments it was always "oh that was your best performance yet" and "you're back in the race" and nonsense like that.

If the judges are just going to be a set of yes men then what exactly is their purpose? It also struck me that having four judges for the whole voting off at the end business almost always left the one person with the vote as invariably two of the judges always voted for their own act. I don't really think this was fair as I feel they should have either been barred in some way or been forced to vote on music. Having said that its difficult to vote against the person you are working with and I suspect it would be impossible to do fairly.

I didn't like them having the final say at all, i'd rather have the public vote decide the losers, perhaps a second vote after the second performances? they seem to be able to count the votes quick enough during the final so why couldn't they do that during the first show and have the sing off and therefore the votes during the second?

Finally, i noticed it overran by 10 mins. Maybe if Dermot hadn't kept doing his silly pauses they could have clawed back at least 7 of those.

That removes one of the core elements of the show though and a key safety net their to in theory give those who deserve it a second chance.

I think the Final Showdown works very well indeed, and actually better now than it did with three judges as there is the extra element of "deadlock" if it goes to a tie. It's also been improved this year by having a second song to "sing for survival", rather than having to repeat the song that put them there in the first place.

If anything, I think they ditch it a week early to be honest. The only week they should drop it IMO is the week before the final, so the viewers get complete control of who makes the final.

This is slightly off-topic, but has anyone else noticed that everytime The X Factor went to their live link to Northern Ireland their TV changes aspect ratio? Both last night and on todays repeat everytime the live link comes on, my TV changes to it's letterbox zoom mode, and then changes back as it returns to the studio, which makes me wonder if there is a rogue Line 23 switching signal or something along those lines on the link.

Either that's a piece of sentimental guff, or you need to qualify it a bit better. Define "true winner."