X-Factor: Week Five

Week 5! OF! THE X-FACTUH! Previously: Katie Waissel saw off the challenge of Belle Amie in the second sing off for each. Waissel later murdered several infants and placed their corpses in a pentagram as offering to her favoured gods for seeing her through another week. THIS WEEK! American Anthems is the theme, which, given how seriously we’re taking themed weeks probably means any song that has ever been released on the same planet as America.

First up, after the ten minutes of padding that starts the show, is Cher Lloyd. Cher’s American Anthem is Empire State of Mind, meaning we’re back to familiar territory as she “raps” and does some ugly faces while the dancers lark about on skateboards in chav clothes from Penney’s. I’m sure we’ve seen the same staging and backing performance in just about every Cher Lloyd performance thus far. I guess this is what Cowell means when he continuously bleats on about how relevant and current Cher is. Judges! Louis thinks Cher will be in the final, Dannii thinks the song was written for Cher and Cowell didn’t like it because he’s playing a canny game and wants to encourage people to vote for Cher by badmouthing her himself.

Mary Tesco is up next, singing Faith Hill’s There You’ll Be, from Pearl Harbour. For those of you keeping track of the attempts at thoroughly modernising Mary, this song is from 2001, meaning Mary’s jumped forward in time by about three decades since last week’s performance. This week, she’s really struggling and it’s certainly the worst we’ve ever seen from her. She’s definitely missing something, and I think I know what it is – the devil horns. If they give Mary a prop to put on her noggin I bet she’ll be back to her power ballad belting self in no time. Performance finished, Mary looks devastated because she knows it was as awful as a pensioner coming to her checkout 2 minutes before she finishes work. Judges! All of them are aware it was awful, but look forward to seeing Mary back her usual self next week. A quick jaunt with Wagner will set her right.

Katie Waissel! The intro video shows Katie falling off-stage after last week’s sing-off and into Rebecca Ferguson’s arms as she wails “I HATE THIS!” and has a pretend panic attack. This week’s attempt to get the public on Katie’s side revolves around dispelling some of the myths around her – so we get 5 seconds glossing over her previous attempts to make it in the music biz without actually mentioning the fact that she was suspiciously released from her record deal to appear on the huge publicity platform that is the X-Factor, nor does it deal with her extensive ties to people behind the scenes of the show. Katie is singing No Doubt’s Don’t Speak... accompanied by a hilarious video of Katie having a breakdown with mascara running down her face in several rivulets. Hey Waissel, if you want us to feel sympathy for you, here’s an idea – don’t make light of your own well-publicised supposed breakdown. Also, judging by the performance in the video, Katie should definitely stick to the singing rather than the amateur dramatics. The performance isn’t great – Katie ain’t Gwen Stefani. Judges! Louis liked it, because Louis is slowly becoming Paula Abdul and likes everyone these days, even soulless amoral monsters like Katie. Dannii says she only likes Katie when she’s in the sing off, which I guess means Dannii likes the smell of desperation and Simon says it fell apart in the middle.

Aiden Grimshaw and his Amazingly Broad Shoulders have an intro video wherein himself and Dannii basically decide that they’re not going to attempt to de-intensify his performances, which I guess means that several thousand children will continue having nightmares about a broad shouldered teenager of ambiguous sexuality with hipster hair coming to murder them in the dead of night. Aiden is singing the Sinead O’Connor version of Nothing Comapres 2 U, but it was originally written by Prince so I suppose it remains thematically valid. Aiden peppers his performance with a few smiles which I guess means himself and Dannii were lying. Either that or he was remembering the brains and fava beans he has waiting in the fridge to reheat. Judges! Louis can’t find anything negative to say, because he has a crush on Aiden, Cheryl has accepted Aiden’s intensity because he probably sent her her mother’s little finger in an envelope, and Cowell is highly impressed by Aiden’s performance of a song he only decided to do 24 hours ago, presumably because they forgot to clear the rights to whatever he had intended to perform originally.

Big Gay Paije! Continuity error! As Paije is opening the door to leave his house in his intro video, his Big Gay Fashion Scarf is tied; but when we see him emerge from outside his house, the Big Gay Fashion Scarf is no longer tied. Oh Paije, is everything you say and do a lie? Or did you just collapse into a breathless mess from the exertion of opening the door and have to wait an hour to film the bit where you leave the house? You fat bastard. Paije is doing a mash up of I’m a Believer and Hey Ya. It’s probably his best performance to date, although he still runs out of breath from the effort of walking around the stage. One can only imagine the fun Brian Friedman has coming up with the staging for a Paije performance knowing that just getting him to lift the microphone might leave him wheezing near-death. Judges! Pretty much agree that it was Paije’s best performance. Louis also bizarrely compares Paije to a “young Lenny Henry”. Louis doesn’t have many black friends.

Rebecca Ferguson! Singing that song what Gamu sang at Bootcamp. The intro video is like Rebecca herself: nice but boring. Cowell was right, she really is the new Leona Lewis. The performance is good, but it doesn’t make Louis cry so we can only conclude that it wasn’t as good as Gamu at boot camp and that Gamu was robbed by the vagaries of UK immigration law. Damn you, law. Judges! They loved it, because they are determined to make us forget Gamu. But we will remember, damn you! Tiocfaidh ár Gamú!

WAGNER! Performing another mash-up, because no one song can ever contain all of Wagner’s brilliance. This week, Wagner is putting Elvis to shame with his own unique spin on Viva Las Vegas and The Wonder of You. Wagner redefines music yet again by showing that you don’t have to be in time with the music or even in-tune to be the embodiment of lyrical amazingness. It’s like that episode of The Simpsons where Lisa extols the virtues of listening to the notes that aren’t being played. The performance sees Wagner sing alongside a troupe of high-kicking, bunny-eared chorus dancers, before marrying one of them. It is truly Brian Friedman’s most accomplished routine to date, brought to life with effortless ease by the acting talent of Wagner. Presumably Wagner had the dancer playing the part of the minister officiating the ceremony replaced with an actual minister just before coming on-stage. I give it a month. Wagner could never commit to just one woman for the rest of his life. Judges! Dannii and Cheryl conspire to send Wagner to Vegas, presumably because they’re unable to deal with their lustful urges towards him. Cowell admits he likes Wagner, and the temperature in Hell drops a few degrees. Louis accuses Wagner of singing in tune on the 2^nd song. Don’t be ridiculous, Louis.

Matt Cardle! His intro video is fairly boring, all about his love of music and attempts to make it in the music biz and blah blah blah. Oh Matt, why won’t you try and emotionally blackmail us with a tale of when you had cancer as a two year old? Matt is singing The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face, which he first performed at boot camp (and made Nicole Sherzingdoll cry) and just like then he’s pretty flawless this time around, and probably makes half the female population watching the show fall in love with him, thus setting them on an inevitable course for all-out war with the other 50% who adore Bieber Squad because they’re sooooo cuuuuuuute. The judges’ opinions are pretty obvious when they rise to give Matt the first four-man standing ovation of the series – each of them thought it was excellent. Matt tells Dermot he feels weak afterwards, presumably because Katie Waissel is backstage using black magic to feed off of the emotion from that performance, while she scrawls “What is this thing you humans call love?” in blood on the walls.

Next up, is Treyc and her Massive Arse and Poor Spelling. The intro video features a hilarious moment where Cheryl Cole of all people advises Treyc on how to tap into the emotion of the song. Treyc is performing Aerosmith’s I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing, from the soundtrack of Armageddon, a film about the only objects in the galaxy as wide and dangerous as Treyc’s massive arse. Given that the last time she sang a rock song she ended up in the bottom two this probably wasn’t the wisest decision. In light of the fact that she doesn’t sing it particularly well, it definitely wasn’t the wisest decision. Judges! Dannii thinks that when Treyc does rock she really sparkles. No Dannii, that’s just the expensive dental work Cowell makes every contestant undergo before letting them loose on the live shows. Cowell can’t fault it but wishes Treyc was a lion who would lick him. Or something. And Louis likes puppies and lollipops and sunshine and everything.

Finally, we have One Dimension. Intro video highlight: Cheryl Cole, realising that Simon only has one act left, says “Simon has literally got One Direction. One.” And then she beams with delight and the most empty-headed smile imaginable as though she has just delivered the must devastatingly witty piece of wordplay since Shakespeare shuffled off the mortal coil. Bieber Squad will be performing Kids in America, written by... an Englishman... originally performed by... an Englishwoman... but it has America in the title so it’s an American anthem! And they’re kids! Oh, I get it now... that is surely as clever as Cheryl’s verbal onslaught from just a few moments ago. Anyway, the performance is the usual Bieber Squad nonsense – lots of screaming from the wet-knickered 15 year old girls in the audience drowning out the boys’ failing attempts to be in tune (though it is the MOST in tune they’ve been... never let it be said I do not give praise where it is due, even to acts that make me want to claw my eyes out with my vomit covered fingernails).

Results Show!

This week’s Horrendous Group Song is Pink’s So What, and let me tell you that there is nothing more terrifying or more believable than seeing Cher Lloyd threaten to “get in a fight” through the medium of song. The big fucking pikey. In fact, when Paije appears on stage he actually looks genuinely terrified, like a big gay rabbit in the headlights. Maybe he just remembered that he’d left his laptop unlocked while his mother was in his dressing room or something. Dermot congratulates Cheryl on her album going in at number one, and Cheryl’s happy grin says she’s really chuffed about it. And the fact that Nadine Coyle’s single tickled the charts somewhere around 26^th place.

Our first guest is “singing sensation” Shayne Ward, who X-Factor have remembered actually exists after about two years of invisibility and neglect during which they decided to keep him on contract anyway. He gets some Matrix-y staging and a fairly boring song that I fail to pay attention to because the excitable intro video featured many topless photographs that for some reason gave me a compulsion to Google Image Search for “Shayne Ward shirtless”. Shayne is thankful to be back on stage, which translates roughly as “I am thankful to be back in the public consciousness even if my single is doomed to go in at number 9”.

Our next guest is genuine singing sensation Kylie Minogue, who has a bit of a love fest with her sister before performing a boring song and having another love fest with her sister. RESULTS! Aiden, Rebecca and Matt are safe. So are One Dimension. Paije is safe! He quickly runs backstage to shut down his laptop. Cher and Wagner are safe. Mary Byrne looks like she’s having a small heart attack in the time it takes for Dermot to tell her she’s safe, leaving us with a Katie/Massive Arse sing off.

Katie sings a song called Don’t Give Up On Me, in an awkward and completely desperate performance. About halfway through it isn’t clear if she’s forgotten the lyrics or just having a Katie drama-strop but she decides to sit down on her arse and belt out the words “Don’t Give Up On Me” a few times. Basically it’s an accurate representation of Our Katie in song and performance – the lyrics she emphasises speak of the desperate fame whore who REALLY NEEDS TO BE FAMOUS and the performance demonstrates all the artifice and pretence that keeps landing Katie in the bottom two. Treyc and her Massive Arse sing Unbreak My Heart. It’s competent, somewhat bland but definitely better than Ms Waissel.

Judges! Simon is torn between his hard-on for curvaceous black women and his hard-on for publicity and money, but ultimately decides to go with the latter, knowing the amount of headlines and ratings that saving Katie will generate. Cheryl Cole refuses to vote, telling Dermot to come back to her so she can send it to deadlock, but Dermot brilliantly tells her that a judge refusing to make a decision means it goes to majority vote so it is now a best-of-three. Dannii decides to save Treyc and Louis, as Simon’s bitch, decides to save Katie. Treyc and her massive arse exit stage left, get wedged in the door and have to wait for the emergency services to extricate her. I shall miss her ample posterior. Join me next week for another exciting episode of the Save Katie Waissel Show, as Katie holds a bus full of orphaned children hostage in a bid to save herself from expulsion.