And so, after interminable auditions, the farce of Judges’ Houses and 10 long weeks of producers’ attempts at manipulating public opinion to favour chosen contestants to absolutely no avail, Excitable Voiceover Man dramatically informs us that for one last time, IT’S TIME TO (DE)FACE THE MUSIC!!!!! Well, second-last. Given that this is the first of a two-day, four hour extravaganza of musical mayhem. Heaven help our eardrums. Our finale opens with all 16 finalists singing What a Feeling and to be honest, the less said about it the better. I was secretly hoping that it would end with Gamu descending from the ceiling wearing fuzzy angel wings to belt out the chorus. As it is, we get our 12 rejects lip-synching while the 4 remaining contestants sing live. Well, 3 of them sing. Cher Lloyd raps with her usual modern, relevant, contemporary aplomb.
Our first performance is from Matt, whose intro video is an INCREDIBLY LONG EPIC TALE of his journey home to see friends and family. We’re meant to find Matt’s reunion with Mammy Matt all emotional, because the producers think we have the attention span of a gnat and can’t remember that in last week’s intro video they told/showed us Mammy Matt looking after him while he had his hurty throat. But I digress. Matt and his father share an emotional moment in the only way heterosexual men can: by punching one another in the shoulders and trying to pretend they’re not sobbing. Extremely long VT over, Matt launches into Dido’s Here with Me. Insane Friedman Staging Alert: Matt is accompanied by a bunch of violinists wearing white veils. I think the performance is intended as a pseudo-sequel to the Wagner’s marriage performances: the women in white are mourning Lady Wagner after she took her own life following her rejection by the Brazilian sex-pest. The song is decent enough, though Matt has performed better before. JUDGES! Louis tells Matt that he deserves to be in the final. Cheryl says she always knew Matt was going to be in the final because the god Apollo gifted her with the power of foresight. Simon, the one who said last week that he was sick of contestants using sickness to get sympathy, informs us that Matt is still somewhat sick but sounded great despite it. Dermot takes us live to Matt’s hometown of Essex, where technical difficulties mean we can hear Stacey Solomon but not see her. Knowing Stacey, those technical difficulties probably mean she was facing the wrong way.
Next up is Rebeccabot. Rebecca’s emotional AND EPIC journey home is somewhat difficult to follow, as the storm of Liverpudlian accents featured in it means that it mostly comes across as a lot of high-pitched squealing audible only to other Liverpudlians and dolphins. Rebecca returns home to visit her inventor, famed scientist Dr. Ivo Robotnik, who urges the voting public to support Rebecca and email him the last known location of Sonic the Hedgehog. Highlight of the clip: Rebecca sitting with her children, her son seemingly fascinated by the lustrous blonde locks of a Barbie. He’s going to be an X-Factor fan when he’s older. Rebecca is singing Corinne Bailey Raye’s Like a Star from atop the often seen Podium of Performance that they like to have the contestants stand on sometimes for no particularly good reason. Halfway through some dancers grab the Podium of Performance and start rotating it. This causes the audience to burst out with slight applause, presumably because they’re amazed at the spectacle of Rebecca actually moving, even if it’s only because other people are actually moving her. JUDGES! Louis loves Rebecca and wants her to win and tells her she deserves to be in the final, because she’s lovely (which she is, but he leaves out the part about her being SO BLAND); Dannii says much the same and Simon says it was magical watching an automaton displaying emotions just like a human, and that he hopes someday the Blue Fairy from Pinocchio visits her and turns her into a real girl. Dermot sends us via video link to Liverpool, where Celebrity Wife of Wayne Rooney is joined by a homosexual friend of Rebeccabots, who desperately cranes his neck to ensure he stays on camera at all times.
Bieber Squad! The producers sent the whelps on a whirlwind tour of their various homesteads, except Niall, because the snow provided an easy excuse to not send the Irish Bieber home. I refuse to believe they would’ve paid to fly all five Biebers to Mullingar just for a few hours, so it’s a good thing Simon was able to activate Rebecca’s Weather Control Module to ensure the freezing weather led to flight cancellations. Nothing remarkable happens during Inferior Bieber’s visit to his old school. There’s an odd moment where Curly Headed Bieber’s very young mother tells him he’ll always be her baby and I swear it totally looks like they’re about to make out. We’re saved from the incest by Muslim Bieber’s footage from his hometown of Bradford, where the fuckwits did a signing at a HMV, attended by a girl with what appears to be “Niall’s No.1 Fan” scrawled across her face. Somehow I don’t think she has much competition for that title. Finally, they travelled to Wolverhampton to do a gig in Superior Bieber’s hometown. The Biebers are singing Elton John’s Your Song, which makes this the second week in a row that an X-Factor contestant has performed a song from an embraced-by-the-public mawkish/sentimental John Lewis ad. They’re covering Ellie Goulding’s cover version, and just like when you do a Xerox of a Xerox of a Xerox, something has been lost in the constant dilution. The moppets get a lot of fake snow falling from the ceiling for their staging, which makes Inferior Bieber’s decision to wear his hood up quite sensible, particularly when the camera shows us Superior Bieber shaking his hair like a wet dog to get all the fauxsnow out of it. When I say wet dog I mean wet puppy. With big adorable puppy eyes. With VOTE FOR US PLEEEEEEASE tattooed across its corneas. JUDGES! Louis says he hopes they’re in the final tomorrow night. Cheryl has THOROUGHLY ENJOYED their performance, and Simon says something typically desperate and egotistical . Dermot takes us live to Doncaster where Some Wan From Coronation Street is presenting the hometown broadcast. At this point I and every other viewer has completely lost interest in any hometown broadcast that does not involve Stacey Solomon screaming madly into her microphone.
And finally, we have official wave of the future Cher Lloyd. I find myself completely zoning out during Cher’s EPIC JOURNEY VIDEO, probably because my mind didn’t want me to see the recap of her horrendous cover of Girlfriend. Even if it was only 3 seconds of a replay, that’s still 3 seconds too many. Cher’s first stop was her old primary school, presumably because she’d been expelled from her secondary for gouging out a teacher’s eyes. A banner in the school hall says PLEASE SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL GIRL – CHER LLOYD. Presumably this is aimed at the teachers and parents present because I don’t think the children in the hall are even able to understand the word SUPPORT, much less operate a telephone keypad that doesn’t make animal noises when you hit a number. In the car on the way to her home, Cher says to Cheryl “Please hold me now and don’t let go”. I imagine she’s been waiting ten weeks to make that request. Random footage of three policewomen, all of whom have probably arrested Cher for various petty offences in the past, telling us that Cher has the X Factor. And a concealed knife. Back to the studio and Cher is performing a mash-up of... something called The Clapping Song, and the much more recognisable Get Ur Freak On. After 7 years we FINALLY get a bit of Missy Elliot on X-Factor. The world is a better place for this. Cher’s performance is the usual confident strutting but the vocal is a bit messy. I’m starting to doubt that she’s really the wave of the future. We’d best get to the judges’ comments so Simon and Cheryl can reassure me. “Hey you’re in the final! Who would have thought it?” says Louis. Making Cher the only of the four contestants that Louis does not tell us “deserves to be in the final” ad nauseum. Dannii says a whole lot of vagueness. Simon tells us that Cher “smashed it”, that she’s a fearless brat with a heart of gold and she’s the most original and energetic performer on the show. Ah, there’s the hyperbole I so desperately needed. Dermot sends us to a hometown broadcast featuring Scott Mills and I just don’t care.
Celebrity Duet Time! How will they ever top last year, when they brought on serial cannabis fiend and casual sex fan George Michael to sing with baby gay Joe McElderry? First up is Matt Cardle and Rihanna with a cover of Unfaithful, which has been somewhat smartly reworked from a song about a woman lamenting the pain she’s causing her partner by having an affair into a song about a man and a woman having an affair with one another lamenting the pain they’re causing their respective partners. Amazing. Speaking of amazing, and not facetiously, Rihanna is looking absolutely smoking. Almost smokingly-hot enough for me to forget that Matt and his tonsillitis/flu ravaged voice were making an absolute pig’s ear of the song to start with. But Rihanna and her very much on display ten-foot long legs arrive and absolutely steal the show. The performance picks up and gets a bit naughty towards the end and I bet Rihanna totally dropped the hand. Rihanna and her suddenly very Barbadosy voice tell Dermot that she loves Matt’s work. What, his painting and decorating?
Celebrity Duet Number 2 is the terrifying prospect of Christina Aguilera and Rebecca Ferguson. Christina Aguilera is a woman whose screeching can sometimes sound like the ruckus one would hear if a canary was being fucked by a pig. Rebecca Ferguson is a robot with a sound chip that produces soft, slightly-husky, low-key MP3 files. They are not the most obvious pairing to make. Cheryl Cole tells us that the song they’re going to be singing “is an absolutely beautiful song” which is a way of telling us through clever wordplay that the girls are going to be singing Beautiful. Christina appears on stage looking quite... healthy. Fulsome. Buxom. “HUUUUUUUUARGH!” says Xtina, as she somehow manages to make singing the word “On” last for 8 seconds. “AROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORGHURRRRRGH” she continues, caterwauling over Rebeccabot’s attempts to join in. Dermot asks Rebecca how it felt to perform with Christina. Rebecca says something in that inimitable Liverpudlian style and Christina has no idea WHAT was said so she just chuckles.
Celebrity Duet Number 3 is One Direction featuring young Robert Williams, in his 18th appearance on the X-Factor this year alone. There’s a moment in the intro-video where Simon Cowell is seen petting a dog menacingly, like any number of classic villains, and I think it may just be the campest Simon Cowell moment in television history, which is really saying a lot. One Dimension and Robbie are performing She’s the One, which is one of those generally well-liked pop songs that I’ve never actually liked. Hilarious moment at the outset where Liam fucks up his notes and then Harry effortlessly gets the exact same one 5 seconds later. The boys with an average age of 17 sing earnestly into the camera about long term love. Robbie Williams comes on stage, joins in and greatly disappoints me by not doing anything in any way attention-whoreish or annoying. This is not the Robbie Williams we’re used to seeing from between our fingers as we cringe at the television. He only pulls about 8 weird faces rather than the usual 16. Oh wait, he grabs Niall and spins him around at the end. That's better. I guess it’s an okay performance overall, but no one can defeat Rihanna, her legs and her song about infidelity.
Celebrity Duet Number 4 is Cher Lloyd and will.i.am. Sigh. Did we not suffer enough by having the Black Eyed Peas on last week? Is it too much to ask that Cheryl Cole pick her celebrity friends from bands that aren’t objectively the absolute worst thing to happen to music ever? At least there’s no Fergie. We take the little victories we can. Cher starts off singing Where Is The Love? which is probably among the least awful songs in the BEP’s catalogue of horrors but when William appears (not dressed as a Power Ranger this week, which is another improvement) we switch into I’ve Got a Feeling which is from the Oh Sweet Jesus When Will The Hurting Stop? chapter of their discography. Cher is very grateful and seems genuinely happy to have performed with Stupidname, probably because he’s one of Ms. Cole’s best friends and all Cher wants to do is have Cheryl’s babies or failing that, to break into her house, roll around in her duvet and steal a few strands of hair from her hairbrush. Or shower drain. W.i.l.l.i.a.m. departs to make more terrible music after encouraging us to vote for Cher. Can we PLEASE get Kanye West next year instead? To duet with everyone? And then evaluate them?
Now we have to sit through two special guest performances as the price for having Princess Rih-Rih and Skanky Aguilera appear, and also to give ITV an extra 20 minutes or so to make several million pounds on phone votes. First up is Rihanna, with What’s My Name?, which I demand should be renamed Oh Nana. For those unaware, this is a tragic song about two old ladies with Alzheimer’s, each believing the other to be called Nana, repeatedly asking the other “Oh Nana. What’s my name?” Halfway through Rihanna has her backing dancers remove her dressing gown and proceeds to spend the rest of the performance inviting us to get to know her as intimately as her gynaecologist does. And also violates several of the regulations relating to decency in broadcasting. Quite what this spectacle has to do with those two old women in a care home is beyond me, but I’m sure there are many layers of meaning going on that I’m not quite getting.
Dermot informs us that the voting has frozen and we’ll be having our first ejection soon, but not before a performance from Skaguilera, promoting her new movie Burlesque, described by some reviewers as Showgirls for a new generation. A prospect that terrifies and intrigues in equal measure. Christina and her stripperfied backing dancers are putting on a whorehouse themed performance that probably breaches the few remaining broadcasting decency regulations that were left untouched by Rihanna’s performance. There is a lot of ass and crotch. There isn’t as much Christinawauling as one usually gets in her songs, meaning that you can understand about 60% of the lyrics.
Results of the voting as of the Vote Freeze! That’s not quite as catchy as RESULTS TIME, is it? The first act safe and through to the Completely Final Final, We Promise, is Rebeccabot. Such is her excitement that every mobile phone in the studio starts to pick up Rebecca’s thoughts. Thankfully for the security of the complicated files stored in her hard drive, her thoughts are also Liverpudlian, so anyone listening in will be unable to understand. Cheryl Cole looks confused, having completely forgotten she has an act other than Cher Lloyd left in the competition. Next act through to the final is Bieber Squad. Cowell looks absolutely delighted. Matt and Cher remain. Cher looks rather resigned. Sure enough, Matt proceeds to Part 2 of the Never Ending Final. To everyone’s shock, Cher fails to suffer a complete meltdown. The editing team have decided to conclude Cher’s “best bits” VT with a shot of her and will.i.am singing “Tonight’s gonna be a good, good night” which seems like rubbing salt in the wound if you ask me. Dermot speaks for us all when he says how great it is to see Cher not crying, having a tantrum, a fake panic attack or throwing addidas trainers at Dannii Minogue.
CLIFFHANGER ENDING! What will happen in part two? Will One Direction defeat common sense and good taste to claim victory? Will Rebecabot be hacked by terrorists and forced to kill Cheryl Cole? That wouldn’t be so bad, actually. Will Stacey Solomon find her cameraman? Will Matt’s hat make its triumphant return? Who will emerge as champion of X Factor 2010? Well, it’s Matt as we all know, but I promise I’ll try and make it a slightly enjoyable retread of widely known fact.
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