The X Factor

I enjoy watching Simon Cowell judge singing competitions. I simply enjoy singing shows altogether. The American version The X Factor is, perhaps, the worst singing show I've ever seen. I originally thought Canadian Idol was the worst, but they at least had some talent and one year where everybody was great (the year Kalan Porter won). Idol may be worse, but it's all how you look at it. The X Factor is similar to that, but many more things make it bad.

For one thing, Simon Cowell is English and knows his stuff and should be critical. In this, he's like Paula Abdul. He does have an eye for marketing, but lost his eye for talent. That is how it is these days: talentless people with good looks get all the breaks simply because they are marketable. All the judges picked favourites even during the auditions. I remember there was the one good-looking hick dude who sucked. Simon wanted him to sing again and his second choice was just as bad. The judges quickly said yes while the audience cheered the entire time. And that brings me to my next point: the audience. 97% of the audience were teenage girls. In any other show, there's people from all walks of life. Many of the dudes that sucked, got in because they were cute. Half of them didn't even start singing and there was already huge applauses! The positive energy from the audience rubbed off on the judges. And that brings me to the judges. Simon Cowell knows his stuff. Demi Lovato knows nothing. She has no talent, knows nothing about the biz, can't teach/give feedback, and is totally rude. Why not get somebody with talent and lots of wisdom like Anne Murray? She may be old, but is better than Demi in every way. All the other judges were decent. C-Lo was on and off. I was surprised with how good Kelly Rowland was.

Luckily, The X-Factor did have some upsides. There were some truly talented contestants like Jeff Gutt who should have won but lost to a talentless folk couple that won just because of their looks. They were also divided in four different sectors: boys, girls, groups and over 30s. I liked that arrangement. America's Got Talent was the only show where older people could partake in a singing show. But bias did occur. Kelly Rowland's only boneheaded move was sending home a 70-year-old truly gifted singer. Why? Because he would not be marketable as an old guy.

It was good while it lasted, but I'm glad it's gone.

For a genre that after ten years of Idol, and rivaled by the Voice, and a ton of other shows, this is proof that go big or go home really works - it was exciting, captivating, and by opening up the age limits we had youngsters and over 30s who proved that singing is universal, and it's never too early or too late to try.

As I write this 63 votes cast on IMDb and half of those gave this a 1, what show were they watching? - are they on the Idol production team? This was big and fun - less bad auditions, a huge stadium of people to give their opinion, and the return of Simon Cowell, I mean come on, what more do you want?

This is going to be a very long haul - from now all the way through to Xmas - but I've looking forward to every moment. Having watched and seen the amazing success that the X Factor has had in the UK (The number one show producing the number one artist and the UK Christmas number one for the past four years) I feel sure that this is the show that Idol now longs to be; brilliant, brilliant stuff, and the 30 who hated it can vote down my comment, but me, I'm just the audience, and we LOVED it....

Over-produced and just plain dumb. The focus is not the performers, but the panel of judges who are the real drama here. Albeit, lame drama. Get past the auditions, which seemed to last an eternity, and you are left with a "competition" that is comprised of judges clashing egos. For the most part the talent is not front and center, the performance is lost in lights and smoke and dancers and orchestration that takes the eye and ear to everything but the singer. At least with American Idol the focus really is on the performer. There is some true talent on this show (not the judges, no way). But they are being lost to the infighting and strutting of the judges. I'm not watching it anymore.

Based on the UK's singing competition, this American Idol-like show is a talent contest consisting of four groups of contestants - all competing for the title of the X-Factor.

There were only three seasons, but undoubtedly the highlight of the show was judge Simon Cowell's brutally honest persona and a welcome comeback of judge Paula Abdul. The bad auditions were also a highlight of the show, especially hearing the tone-death contestants trying to belt out a tune and those who believe they're natural-born talents but ending up falling flat on the notes.

Some of the drama in the show were intense, especially those contestants who sang well but just missed the cut. Overall, you get to see some really good talent here.

However, the series wasn't too popular with other singing shows, as you could tell that some of the contestants acted like the show is more of a chance to make it based on sympathy instead of exhibiting good singing, and the judges' mentoring element of the four contestant group just didn't make a connection with me I think. It dragged the show, I thought.

Overall, it's not a terrible series - it just really is another singing reality show meshed in in what is an overly large number of those repetitive TV programs - it really didn't generate to much new material or uniqueness.

Grade C+

As it was, with the over-saturation of Simon's smug puss on GAWD-only-knows how many promos about it, I was sharpening up my knives for this, ready to cut a "b" (finish the spelling on that one yourself.) I'd already stuck a fork in American IDOL...I had reached my limit of seeing anyone who had even a remote lick of talent get tossed to the side, while some twit barely out their teens shrieking a cover of some great rock or blues song got to take home the Grand Prize, instead of a "booby prize" they were more than worthy of. (Sorry, but when the greatest agony of your life is running out of ProActiv, you have no business attempting to sing Rod Stewart, Aretha, Al Green or anything that grown-ups SHOULD be singing.)

I was mostly familiar with the Brit version because of the overwhelming successes of both Paul Potts and Susan Boyle, two talents possessed of great voices, but with 'faces for radio,' as the old joke goes. Still, I was intrigued by the idea that it would be a singing competition now open to ALL ages and ALL styles, (unlike AMERICA'S GOT TALENT, the more big-budgeted version of THE GONG SHOW, where anything goes...and I do mean ANYTHING!)

But with Simon involved, I mostly expected an 'American IDOL' clone for much older people. Fancy my shock and surprise when I gave it a chance, and discovered that even though it's just as slickly produced as its ageist counterpart, it actually has something shocking...people who really CAN sing! Now that it's reached the latter stages of the competition, where the judges have been assigned the groups they'll be working with, things are starting to get even more interesting than with the Audition phase, though it was a lot more entertaining to watch than AI, with less of an emphasis on nutjobs and what I like to call the 'granola' contingent (fruits, nuts and flakes of every kind).

The only bone I have to pick with the producers was the pairing of judges to groups. Nicole Scherzinger, she of "Pussycat Dolls" infamy, would have been much better off with the groups, while L.A. Reid got the over-30's, Simon got the boys and Paula Abdul the girls. In fact, having Nicole and Enrique "More Auto-Tune, Please" Iglesias judge and work with the over-30's borders on being downright disrespectful. This category of contestants are old enough to have KIDS their age, not to mention that they probably own SHOES older than him or her.

But enough ranting about my personal biases regarding the show. Overall, do I think it's good, bad or indifferent? The answer is always subjective, and depends on your tolerance level these days for reality shows, competitive or otherwise.

Me? Warts, Simon and all, I don't think I'll be going back to American IDOL anytime soon. And if it weren't for Sharon Osborne and Piers Morgan, I probably would never give AMERICA'S GOT TALENT the time of day, either. Only time will tell, but personally, I believe that FACTOR may have what it needs to take everyone else down both ratings and quality-wise.