Big Boot and the Henderson

Top 6 Results Show: 18 November 2012

Last night!  Ella turned yet another pop song (‘You’re the One That I Want’) into a funereal dirge, everyone else did the same thing as they usually do, except James Arthur who was almost a tiny bit happy rather than utterly miserable.  But I do only mean a tiny bit.  Rylan burned Funsponge something good and probably earned himself a lot of votes in the process and CHRISTOPHER’S GIANT MOSAIC HEAD WITH LASER BEAM EYES happened.

Tonight!  Six become five!  Hooray!  But it means that next week they’ll be on two songs apiece!  Boo!

Incidentally, my parents were over for the Strictly and X Factor results shows and told me they don’t really watch The X Factor, just stick it on fast forward and listen to bits of the songs.  They kind of hate everyone but vaguely support Ella because she’s local.

We open with Dermot stood in the middle of a circle of all the contestants who have their backs to him.  So it’s not just us who’ve gone right off him.  It also serves to highlight just what a sausage-fest this series has been.  Still, I suppose once BixMix had done the job of REPRESENTING WIMMINZ EVERYWHERE there was not much else left for female contestants to do.  After a recap, we’re told that TONIGHT THE FUN ENDS HERE.  I’d say the fun ended when Borelow was appointed as a judge, personally.  Interestingly, all the acts seem to have lost surnames tonight.  Did that happen yesterday without me noticing?  (Not going back to check, sorry).  Tonight!  Alicia Keys, purveyor or turgid ballids, and tedious hat-twat Olly MURS.  Why, show, you are spoiling me.  (If this had been at WEMBLEY as well I would simply have refused to recap it).

Cue titles!  Oh, Giant X, as you shimmy through the sky, are you dreaming of turgid ballids, or do you long for better things?

The judges enter, with Nicole wearing a bondage style outfit and blowing us a huge kiss because we’re all just her bitches now, let’s face it.

The group song took me forever to recognise, it’s Tulisa’s ‘Young’ and she smugfaces throughout although I don’t know why because it’s even more insipid than that awful Owl City.Carly Rae Jepsen thing they did the other week (Call Me Maybe is a great single, sure, but Owl City… notsomuch).  Union J are very out of tune.  Surprise.  That said, no-one sings this very well.  They really need to get back to miming these things.

Another recap of last night because we didn’t just have one of those before the credits.  Gary is shown loving pretty much everyone (except Rylan) which suggests they’re all doing something wrong.  Christopher snarks that he won’t buy Tulisa’s album.  The contestants seem to have got surnames again.  Dermot asks if Gary/Rylan is the new Gary/Robbie.  Gary says he was wearing a nice suit last night.  Well, nice in the sense that it was less godawful than usual, perhaps.  Dermot tells Nicole that if she gets all her acts through tonight she’ll be the first judge ever to do that.  TEAM NICOLE FOREVER.  If it happens, she will thank ‘all of the lovely humans of the UK’ – true proof that she is a god and not a mere mortal like us?

First guest… Olly FUCKING MURS.  Somehow he’s sold over 5 million records and had two double platinum albums and three number ones.  I will concede that Heart Skips a Beat and Dance With Me are infuriatingly catchy.  Everything else was abysmal.  He has his name in the background.  His new single sounds like a rip-off of this mixed with something I can’t quite place but will no doubt wake me up at four this morning and result in me frantically editing this blog.  He’s still as annoying as ever – I absolutely cannot watch The Xtra Factor because of him, by the way.  I heard some amazing things happened on it but I can’t comment on them. Steve was watching it, though, so maybe he’ll oblige. [It was mainly Tulisa being a mardy cow. I think you had to be there really. - Steve] Olly shills his new single, but unlike the other special guests, doesn’t endores James Arthur.  That’s how you know Olly is only a pretend pop star.

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Dermot closes the phone lines nd goes to talk to the contestants.  Rylan is wearing a gold lame jacket pulled down to his navel.  Dermot reminds us he talked back to Gary and asks how it felt.  Rylan said ‘the Barlow felt firm and tight’.  We all know he’s a Tightpants, Rylan, otherwise he’d actually pay some tax.  Dermot says Rylan’s mentor has clearly rubbed off on him.  PERV.  Union J are told they can’t have any more pledges.  Scott-Lee J says ‘scout’s honour’ and Other J attempts to become the new Resentful J by snarking ‘whatever that is’.  James looks miserable that Gary has endorsed him, as well he might, whereas Christopher seems avidly pleased by it.  Dermot reminds Jahmene and Ella they haven’t been in the bottom two.  CUE SHOCK BOOT AMIRITE?

Our second guest next: Alicia Keys.  She’s sold 30 million albums… and ITVPlayer went all pixelated so I can’t tell you much else other than baliid ballid ballid.  Her new song appears to be a tribute to Katniss’s fire outfit in the Hunger Games and is devoid of anything approaching a tune – and even what there is appears to be beyond her. [It's odd - I did wonder if it had perhaps been composed for The Hunger Games movie and ultimately rejected. - Steve] Therefore, I presume she feels right at home on this show.  Honestly, I think I’d rather hear Jahmene again than hear this a third time.  I’d even rather have Olly again.  Dermot asks her when she’s touring – May, apparently.  She also doesn’t get to express her love for James Arthur.  What could possibly have gone wrong?

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Results time!  The first act safe is Union J (Louis looks completely shocked) – and the four who’ve always been safe suddenly look really nervous - and the second safe is Rylan (who goes mental).  So this is an interesting turn of events – both bottom two places being taken by someone who hadn’t been there before, and at least one of them will come from the three most favoured.  I am assuming Ella, but I thought Rylan would have been down there too, so I’m really unsure who will join her.  Safe…. Jahmene… and, after an eternity, Christopher (to a chorus of boos) – meaning James and Ella are in the sing-off and the final just got potentially more interesting.

Essentially this is going to be a foregone conclusion, as Gary will save James and Louis Ella, taking it to his favourite place of all, FUCKING DEADLOCK, and the voting leaks throughout the series have suggested Ella isn’t doing that well.  Still, we must go through the formalities… Nicole gives James a huge hug then Tulisa sees this and launches herself on Ella who doesn’t reciprocate.

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Sing-off time!  Ella is up first, and in the stroppiest voice you have heard this side of your nearest toddler, Tulisa moans ‘here’s a girl who does not deserve to be in the bottom two tonight, it’s my little star Ella Henderson’.  She’s singing Daniel Bedingfield’s ‘If You’re Not The One’ which is a hard song for Daniel Bedingfield himself to sing, and one that rarely comes out well in a cover because it’s got such a huge range.  Ella tries valiantly to do the same performance she does every week, but the low notes are out of tune and the high notes are pretty squeaky and the lyrics speak of imminent doom. 

James is next, and Nicole introduces him as one of the greatest talents on the X Factor, ‘James effin’ Arthur’.  I heard she had to do a full on Dannii Minogue mea culpa for saying ‘effing’, after the watershed, when it isn’t even an effing swearword.  Stupid ITV. [On the bright side, she phrased it as "I'm sorry for my effing", which was amazing. - Steve] He's doing ‘Falling’, presumably because someone had to in honour of our very special guest Alicia Keys.  It’s not amazing – the song really doesn’t work for him even though it is a girls’ song as that’s all he has in his repertoire.  Get some yellow trousers on James!  It worked for Matt Cardle!  It’s a bit screechy in places and goes a bit mental with him just screaming ‘I love you’ over and over, which isn’t even how the song goes.  I love how favoured artists always lose it in the sing-off whilst underrated artists and/or the doomed tend to pull something out of the bag.

Dermot goes over to Tulisa who says people are voting for the wrong people and people aren’t voting for the people they want to save.  Yes they are, Tulisa.  The people they want to save are Jahmene and Christopher and sometimes Union J and Rylan.  Nicole says it’ll be a tragedy as James and Ella are two of the most talented people.  She tells Ella she’s meant for the stars – both Tulisa and Nicole save their own, of course.  Louis says he hates seeing Tulisa and Nicole brokenhearted. ALL ABOUT THE ACTS.  After a typical Walsh fluster, he sends home James.  Borelow whines that ‘it’s serious’ and repeats the nonsense that this is a ‘singing competition’ and that the staging doesn’t matter.  He obviously sends home Ella and takes it to deadlock, and to no-one’s real surprise, despite the hyoerbolic headlines directly afterwards, Ella is the one on her way.

She smiles and gives James a big hug and he cries.  Tulisa has a strop on and launches herself at Ella.  Way to make it all about you, Tulisa.  Ella says everyone deserves to be in the family and thanks the audience and it’s all very calm and measured and much more mature than her SIXTEEN years – and her mentor who just keeps snapping that its ridiculous, whilst Ella rolls her eyes in a ‘you’re so embarassing’ kind of way.  She says she’s grown a lot as a person and a performer and will take that with her.  She won’t take any best bits though – were they running over time?  So farewell then, Ella – you were boring as hell, but you could mostly sing and you were local so I have a grudging loyalty to you, plus, like so many other acts this year, you took your exit an awful lot better than your mentor did.  (So, seeing as Christopher is the PEOPLE'S CHOICE and not a 'proper' member of Borelow's Credible Overs, that means neither Gary or Tulisa have any acts left.  And Nicole has ALL THREE - more than everyone else put together.  HAHAHAHAHA.*)

Next week!  TOTAL SAUSAGEFEST!  And everyone gets to sing two songs!  Poor old Steve will have to suffer that, so join him then.

*I know Lucy didn't get booted out but sshhhh.