There seemed to me to be some good acts, as good as any previous year.
Louis has his work cut out though, those Unconventials were terrible, it was a shambles. The McDonalds weren't much cop either. I don't get how Dionne found herself in the bottom two.
The special guest star seems to set the music theme and then performs during the results show. It worked OK, gives the results show a bit more of a purpose. Rod Stewart next week.
The reality though is however impressive the new set is, after a couple of weeks it'll just be the norm and they might as well have kept last year's set!
It's nice to have a change after two series of the same set. It's a fresher, bolder design and they've really put an effort into the whole set and graphics. I'm loving it.
Good show tonight, but you know the voting is a farce when Dionne got into the bottom two and the awful MacDonald brothers got through.
Not all that impressed with the graphics and set. The set is very Popstars: The Rivals, seems quite small and 2D, although it's not a very small stage, it's given that appearance by the fact it is just a massive wall of lights, the big X made it quite a unique set in the previous shows. I think Simon's efforts to make the show bigger seem to have backfired so far. I felt a bit nervous when the contestants started walking around amongst the audience, I had visions of contestants slipping off the little path behind the judges. Ben's little ITV2 set seems even littler this year.
As for the titles, there's a lot of flashing when the logo forms, I don't like that. Why is the X flying through space? Are the titles designed to convey a secret message? Are this year's contestants from a place far far away?
I thought the contestants were all pretty weak tonight. Leona was the best tonight, glad The Unconventionals are gone - they were dressed like school teachers tonight. The brothers thing is very last year, I doubt the MacDonald Brothers will be here for much longer. All a bit out of tune, all understandably nervous, all a bit quiet. My favourites so far are that Leona girl (who I never really noticed before), and Eton Road. I wasn't keen on the Lionel Richie bit, he seems to be on ten shows at once at the minute and I didn't really need to hear his song again. Not looking forward to next week, I don't particularly like Rod Stewart, I think he is absolutely vile and way past it. God I'm a misery guts tonight.
One good thing I noticed was that Kate wasn't directing every person all of the time, there was no butting in between the comments, and the contestant said their piece at the end before the quick bus ride over to Kate, who is stood about a mile and a half down the road. I'm sure Rod will have his bus pass at the ready.
The reality though is however impressive the new set is, after a couple of weeks it'll just be the norm and they might as well have kept last year's set!
It's nice to have a change after two series of the same set. It's a fresher, bolder design and they've really put an effort into the whole set and graphics. I'm loving it.
The set changed last year though too, mainly to give them a bigger stage.
The problem with "futuristic" sets now we're in the 21st century is that they just seem to look dated!
Don't know what it sounded like on digital - but on our analogue TV set in the kitchen we had awful sound production. Too much reverb at one point and even Lionel's backing singers sounded like they needed turning up.
Don't know what it sounded like on digital - but on our analogue TV set in the kitchen we had awful sound production. Too much reverb at one point and even Lionel's backing singers sounded like they needed turning up.
Yes, I have about half a dozen speakers around the room now and it sounded awful all the way through. I think this show has always been bad for sound quality, in more ways than one!
Ive just seen some of the ITV2 show, and Louis Walsh is trying to defend himself on there "I won last year" - who cares, that is in the past now, its not going to help him win this year is it!
No, it just gives him a little more right than the other judges to say he has the past experience to win. Also, even though they weren't the official winners, he didn't go too far wrong with G4 from the first series did he?
To say the past doesn't matter in life is just a little stupid and warrants a bit of a reality check.
Also the special guest thing really doesn't work - it's pointless!
It adds another entertainment angle to the show - to say it's pointless is a little strange I think. It's a music show at the end of the day - are they not allowed to entertain their audience both in the studio and at home with another dimension to the format? I'm sure it's nice for the contestants themselves to have a pro hanging around backstage too.
What is up with TVF tonight? Moan moan moan. Although strangely enough I've only heard one person on this forum supposedly about Televisual presentation comment about the hugely sloppy directing tonight - cameras and crew in what seemed to be every few shots and it appeared there wasn't even an attempt to cover any of it up! I saw the floor manager darting around underneath the stage next to the judges at least 5 times during just the results show - at one point he was standing there like he was waiting for a bus! I think this is madness for a show going out to potentially 10 million - was the director watching Strictly Come Dancing while he was meant to be directing TXF or something?! I know it's their first week coping with a totally different layout but measures should have been put in place to turn things around during the live show - it looked amateurish even to the most laid-back of viewers. A very bad camera reahersal at best.
Ive just seen some of the ITV2 show, and Louis Walsh is trying to defend himself on there "I won last year" - who cares, that is in the past now, its not going to help him win this year is it!
No, it just gives him a little more right than the other judges to say he has the past experience to win. Also, even though they weren't the official winners, he didn't go too far wrong with G4 from the first series did he?
To say the past doesn't matter in life is just a little stupid and warrants a bit of a reality check.
But its all in the past now, this is a completely new series. Him going on about past series and how good he was then seems a little pathetic because he is trying to justify the reason some of his acts arent as good as others in the contest this year.
The ratings were good last night, although the early start affected both The X factor and Strictly Come Dancing. Unusually, the most watched show of the night was actually Ant and Dec:
1 . 7.4 (33.3%) . Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway (19:45) ITV
2 . 7.3 (35.1%) . The X Factor (17:45) ITV
3 . 7.0 (31.1%) . The X Factor - The Result (21:00) ITV
4 . 6.9 (31.2%) . Casualty (20:30) BBC1
5 . 6.8 (30.9%) . The National Lottery: 1 vs 100 (19:45) BBC1
6 . 6.7 (30.1%) . Robin Hood (19:00) BBC1
7 . 6.7 (29.8%) . Strictly Come Dancing (21:15) BBC1
8 . 6.5 (32.9%) . Strictly Come Dancing (17:45) BBC1
9 . 5.0 (24.0%) . The Vicar of Dibley (21:30) BBC1
10 4.6 (23.3%) . BBC News; Weather (22:00) BBC1
Strictly Come Dancing was slightly ahead of The X Factor when they were first head to head, but once that ended, viewers switched over to ITV1, and The X Factor had a massive peak of 9 million, against Robin Hood, which saw its audience dip this week. The X Factor was ahead of SCD throughout both results shows.
Overall, ITV had the best audience share during peak time, with 31.8% against BBC One's 30.0%.
I think X Factor did well to hold on to its audience for the entire two hours, and this year the figures seem to be closer than ever. The figures are unusually low for both shows because they started earlier, and hopefully once the shows start later the averages will rise.
One point worth making is that Robin Hood, Casualty and The National Lottery all beat Strictly Come Dancing.
