The X-Factor: Week 7 - Performances & Results

IT’S TIME. TO DISGRACE. THE MOVIES! In a surprise twist, this week’s episode begins on time. No last minute contestant resignations or returns. No technical hitches. No Jihadists bursting into the studio and unleashing a hail of semi-automatic weapons-fire into the judges, tearing Gary Barlow apart while Louis Walsh observes “You’re Muslim. You’re angry. You’re like little theocratic revolutionaries.” 

This week’s Dermot’s Dance Dance Revolution is set to the James Bond theme. I gather they’ve now started doing elaborate dancing-presenter intros with Steve Jones and His Mysteriously Disappearing Welsh Accent as well on the US Factor. That just shows how completely spontaneous and natural this franchise is, and how the producers don’t just have a tick-box of elements that the series should have. Dermot unleashes many terrible film-related puns before welcoming the Judges on-stage. Unfortunately, Kelly Rowland is not dressed like the bastard offspring of the landed gentry and a penguin this week.

Gary Barlow introduces Craig Colton with all the enthusiasm of a comatose deaf mute. Biscuitman intro-videos about how he attended a charity gig put on by Barlow. At no point do they mention the name of the charity, which you’d imagine is the kind of thing you might want to do with good causes. The contestants got a shock announcement this week, the VT informs us, when Tulisa announced that all of the remaining contestant were definitely on the X-Factor tour. They scream with delight until they realise it means being shackled together in a tour bus for several months for less than £100 a week. Oh naive contestants, you didn’t think the producers weren’t going to find some way to claw back the money they spent on bleaching and straightening your teeth, did you? Now we’re on to Biscuitman’s family. Jesus this VT is covering a lot of ground. Biscuitdad kisses his son. That’s the root of his homosexuality right there. Emotionally distant fathers produce strong, independent manly sons – that’s Parenting 101. “We always knew Craig was going to be a singer from an early age” says Biscuitdad, cleverly using the word singer as a euphemism as a hilariously fake and staged clip of Craig listening to Paparazzi at a bus stop segues into last week’s aneurism-inducingly boring performance. “We’re so proud to be his mum and dad”. What terrible parents. They’ve changed the little clips that accompany Voiceover Man’s announcement of the names at the end of the intro reels, presumably to replace the terrifying faces Craig used to pull in his with a marginally less terrifying one of him smiling while thinking about how he’s going to cut out and eat your liver while you’re still alive.

Craig is singing Licence to Kill, from some James Bond film whose name escapes me. The Living Daylights, probably. “Please don't bet that you'll ever escape me; Once I get my sights on you.” This song is doing nothing to undermine my suspicions that Craig is a serial killer. Soaring vocals and glory notes! Horrifying facial expressions! Arm-thrusts of emotion! I’ll give Biscuitman this much: he’s consistent. Unfortunately he’s consistently as dull as dishwater and this week’s performance is no different. JUDGES! Louis thinks Craig is better than the song choice; Tulisa thinks he sounded amazing but also doesn’t rate the song choice, and Kelly Rowland comes within several nanometres of actually offering criticism, before reining herself in and deciding that “AH JUST LOVE YOU” is a constructive critique.  Gary Barlow rails on Louis and Tulisa by pointing out that the X-Factor is a singing competition, not a “song-choosing competition”. Like the famous Eurovision Song Choosing Competition, for example. Louis and Tulisa’s reactions are priceless; the latter reminds Barlow that he has criticised song choices several times in the past. Gary decides to deal with this by continuing to talk until the other judges fall asleep from exposure to his dreary voice.

Up next is Wee Janet from Horrible Ireland. Janet’s intro video repeats Gary’s warning from last week on how she was bordering on boring. This really cut to the bone for Janet, because if anyone knows boring, it’s Mr Barlow. Janet is very pretty in her intro video; they really should stop trying to make her look like a corpse for her actual performances. “I’m not boring, I’m just weird” explains Janet, as she squashes some blueberries with a spoon and smears the resulting mush all over her eyelids. One of Evil Fashion Nazis from Style Team™ gets an airing in Janet’s VT to explain how difficult it is to dress Janet. I mean, first they have to find a cemetery with crypts from Victorian times, then they have to break into them, and then you mightn’t even find any bodies with the same build as Janet. Frankly, they can’t wait for her to leave so they can get back to more conventional styling arrangements like dressing poor Pick ’n’ Mix differently from the other members of Little Mix so she stands out even more, or making papier maché evening gowns for Misha B. Janet is amazed that people at the Twilight premiere knew her name. “How do you know my nyaaaaaaaam?” she wonders. Because people on Mars can hear Voiceover Man bellowing it, Janet. Janet is singing Sixpence None the Richer’s Kiss Me, from every teen chick flick ever. She’s accompanied by the fake plastic trees from Cher Lloyd’s throne of winter staging last year. Actually, the whole routine (Janet sings while two “lovers” seated on a park bench stare longingly into one another’s eyes and pretend to chat) seems very familiar. This show is now so creatively bankrupt that they’ve started re-using complete staging routines in addition to the props. Come back Brian Friedman, we need your twisted genius! JUDGES! Janet fidgets nervously, not because of their potential comments, but because the Elixir Vitae only works for a few hours and she doesn’t want to turn back into one of the undead live on-stage. Louis loved it and says she has “natural Celtic charm”, what with her hair, which the Style Team made redder, and her alabaster skin, which the Style Team make whiter. Natural Celtic charm indeed. Tulisa is happy that Janet is BACK IN HER BOX and not trying anything different. Gary Barlow says something forgettable, while Kelly has changed her speech-switch from Agreeable Nonsense to Random Bollocks Falling Out My Mouth. “Me Me? I’m Janet Devlin. Boo Boo.” So in addition to forgetting how to speak, she’s also forgotten who she is.

Comeback queen Kat Slater is up next. I was hoping her intro reel would distil six week’s worth of X-Factor VT clichés into one. We’d have a quick clip of Amelia sobbing because she misses her family; Amelia worrying about the bad comments she got from the Judges; Amelia ‘s anxiety about whether or not Alfie will be able to run the Queen Vic without her; Amelia telling us the story of her Type 1 Diabetes so we feel sorry for her; Amelia being bullied by Misha B because she’s the new girl, and so on. But alas this one just focuses on how Kelly took all of her girls to a spa so they could relax. We see Amelia and Kelly in a sauna together. I presume that Amelia excused herself at some point and tried to lock Kelly in there as part of her vendetta against her. If it hadn’t been for those damn modern safety features... Kat is singing Aretha Franklin’s Think, which was performed by Aretha on television once and is thus eligible for inclusion under Rule 18: No X-Factor theme shall ever be taken seriously, ever. As is always the case with Kat, I am continuously distracted by thinking “HOW THE FUCK IS SHE SIXTEEN?” during the performance. She puts in a competent and confident performance, which is nice for her given the head start all the other contestants have had in getting used to being on this show. Louis says that Amelia could be the next big female singing sensation (I don’t think Adele is getting off of that throne without a fight) although Louis also thought that Goldie Cheung could be the next big female singing sensation, so his judgement is a little suspect. Tulisa had a problem with the song choice, because she didn’t know it. It’s a bit surprising that Tulisa isn’t familiar with Aretha Franklin’s discography given that Ms Constostavlos’s professional career revolves around pretending to be black. Gary Barlow drones on about semitones until Amelia stabs him in the arm with her insulin and puts him into a coma. No one notices the difference.

Desperate times call for desperate measures, and following former bookies’ favourite Misha B’s second stint in the bottom two, the producers have decided to dredge up the biggest sob story imaginable. Well, second biggest – they could’ve killed her Aunt who raised her but they decided instead that they’d have Misha’s long-estranged mother write an open letter to the newspapers, and then film the resulting conversation between Kelly and Misha about their respective family issues. It’s rather awkward, because they can’t do the usual X-Factor thing of ending with a resolute statement of intent or easy summary of whatever the intro-video topic was. Instead it’s an appallingly voyeuristic insight into a girl with a troubled family-life talking around those issues, with someone she has only really known for 2 months, while a crew film every word and, judging by the background noise that accompanies it, several people are cleaning up after dinner nearby. I guess Kelly’s busy schedule meant they could only film this intensely personal moment for Misha while in the kitchen. So... they got me to feel sorry for Misha, but not for the reasons they wanted? Is that still a win for the heartless bastards? I’m surprised they didn’t set this whole piece to a ballad version of Papa Roach’s Broken Home segueing into the Spice Girls’ Mama. If all that wasn’t enough, they also decided to dress Misha as an angel, to make you feel even worse for not voting for her. She’s singing a song from The Bodyguard that isn’t the Dolly Parton cover. I didn’t even know the Bodyguard had more than one song. It’s a typically strong vocal but I miss fierce bitch Misha with the Rhino hair and newspaper thrones. BRING HER BACK. I was hoping that having someone new to bully in the shape of Amelia would reignite that spark, as it is clearly being cruel to others that fuels her talent. Alas, Mamma Misha’s move probably cancelled that out. Dman you, Mamma Misha. JUGDES! Louis reminds Manchester to vote for Misha. So does Tulisa. I think she might need a bit more than just one city to vote for her in this show that frequently tallies voting numbers above ten million, guys. Gary says he was very sad to see Misha “last week twice in the bottom week”, which I guess means that Kelly Rowland’s verbal diarrhoea affliction is contagious. He’ll be calling people Mimi and Boo Boo before he knows it. In between bouts of not making any sense, Gary agrees with me that we need Misha Bitch back. 

Tulisa again introduces Little Kandy Girl-Lash as her “little muffins” this week. Does this mean Tulisa has taken up the bullying baton from Misha now that she’s too forlorn to do it herself? The Little Mix VT is all about how difficult it is being a girl band. So they got some advice from The Saturdays, the group that have honed the girl band formula so successfully that one of them had to become a “part-time” member due to depression, and another just announced she’s knocked up. Well, Pick ‘n’ Mix is probably already depressed from being fat, so all we need is for one of the others to get pregnant and Little Mix will officially have made it. Personally I feel Mixed Up should be the one to sacrifice her hymen for the sake of the group as she’s currently the least noticeable member. You notice Mixed Race because... well, she’s mixed race. You notice Pick ‘n’ Mix because of all the crumbs and discarded sweet wrappers on the floor around her. And you notice Myxomatosis because she never shuts the fuck up in their intro videos. But Mixed Up? Totally needs to get pregnant. Or just replace her with Pregnant Shoe, actually. Little Mix also got to go to the premiere of Twilight. Cue shots of the Little Mixers being all squeaky and excited because THEY’RE NORMAL GIRLS JUST LIKE YOU AND LOVE TO ROT THEIR BRAINS ON THE INSIPID WORKS OF STEPHANIE MEYER WHO INVENTED VAMPIRES OMG TEAM EDWARD LOL. Taylor Lautner makes a brief appearance because if Kelly Rowland isn’t going to dress as a penguin this week then a man who looks like a llama is the next best thing. At no point is he topless so I totally don’t care. The girls are performing En Vogue’s Don’t Let Go, which was probably maybe used in a film some time. Maybe. Pick ‘n’ Mix has somehow been squeezed into a pair of leather trousers. In related news, the branch of Boots closest to the X-Factor studios is currently out of stock on talcum powder and Vaseline. It’s a surprisingly competent performance and the girls remain in harmony and in-tune about 90% of the time; three times more than One Direction can average, which I guess makes them the best X-Factor band ever. JUDGES! Louis says that it’s incredible how much they’ve grown and blossomed. I agree, I remember when they looked like the bargain bin at Topshop had been dumped over each of them, and now they’ve progressed into the evil stripper waitress look. Progress indeed. Kelly loved it. Gary breaks the horrible news that from next week, the contestants will be singing two songs each, and a part of me dies inside. The girls shuffle quickly off-stage so that Pick ‘n’ Mix can get out of the leather pants before her heart seizes up.

Ending the show is sparkle-fag Marcus. His intro video focuses on his mixed comments from last week, and his resulting identity crisis. Marcus thought he was finding himself, but now he isn’t so sure! By the end of the VT Marcus has decided that his true self is a womanising motorcyclist with a voice made of gravel, and he rides off into the sunset to be with his old lady Katey Segal. Not really. Marcus did however get to meet last year’s contestant Rebeccabot, who has returned from the future to save us from nuclear Armageddon in 2012. Unfortunately, her creator Dr Robotnik sent her back a year too early, so she’s going to piss about releasing an album and a few singles before she’s inevitably dropped by the record company in 6 months time. Her resulting fury will push her to decide that humankind must be punished, and she’ll upload her Artificial Intelligence to the world’s nuclear missile silos and destroy us all while nerds complain on internet forums that time paradoxes in Science Fiction just don’t make sense. Anyway, the gist of the intro video is that Rebecca helps Marcus to decide to do his own thing while being diverse, or something. Marcus is performing Higher and Higher while every person in the 40-member choir accompanying him pretend to have epileptic seizures for some reason. Perhaps it’s the outrageously loud pink tuxedo and matching pink shoes the evil fashion Nazis made him wear. Oh Style Team, really? You total fuckers. JUDGES! Louis describes Marcus as “The little man from Liverpool with the big soulful voice” and says he has nothing but good things to say about him because he wants to have sex with him. Kelly says that Marcus has shut the building down, confusing him with last week’s power failure. Then she starts talking about levitation and radiating beauty and she’s really in danger of becoming this show’s version of Paula “I see an aura around you” Abdul. 

RESULTS SHOW

  

Dermot informs us that our special guests this evening will be Rebeccabot and Rihanna. He introduces the judges, and it appears that Kelly is wearing a silver Jetsons dress to make Rebeccabot feel at home in the year 2011. Before we know it, our ears are being raped by the Horrendous Group Song, which Dermot promises us features “3 girls, 2 boys, a band and a very special over 25” – oh good, Kitty’s holding someone at gunpoint to get back on to the show, isn’t she? The dumbasses united are performing that song by Bryan Adams and Sporty Spice, so no prizes for guessing that the very special over-25 is Bryan Adams, making a surprise appearance to flog his greatest hits album and tour. Dermot asks Bryan if he has any advice for the contestants. “Write your own music and perform live as often as you can” He has never seen this show before, has he?

It’s awkward backstage chit chat time. Dermot asks Little Kandy Girl Lash to demonstrate their “good luck ritual”. Their good luck ritual involves them making faces. NORMAL GIRLS JUST LIKE YOU VOTE FOR THEM. Dermot asks Misha if she’s betraying her Afro-Caribbean heritage by straightening her hair. Then he asks Janet if she feels like she’s back on track. She does. Kat Slater says she doesn’t want to go home, and Craig says he thinks he might, because he realises he’s a boring bouncy bastard.

The first performance of the night, not counting that zombie Bryan Adams, is the return of Rebeccabot. We can be sure of this because the clip introduces her involves the words REBECCA RETURNS TO SAVE US ALL flashing on-screen in huge letters over a montage of her fighting the good fight against the Terminators in the Matrix. She’s performing atop a light-up plinth which I can only assume is either a regeneration device to charge her batteries, or the time machine she used to make it to the space year 2011. You know what’s an awful boring lyric? “La La La”. This song has some of that. And trust me, the last thing Rebeccabot needs is something to make this song MORE boring. After the performance, Rebecca informs Dermot that she co-wrote the album using a unique programme that came with her latest firmware upgrade. And she just sang live, too. Bryan Adams will be so happy. 

Next up is Rihanna, with a rather bizarre and ridiculous mess of a performance. Firstly, she’s singing We Found Love, which is basically a dance track, and they don’t exactly make for terribly interesting performance what with the repetitive lyrics and frequent sections of thumping music with no words. So they’ve decided to fill up all that space with dancers invading the audience and pretending to have the tamest rave ever. But secondly and even more bizarrely, there’s a backing track for the entire song, as though Rihanna was going to mime but then decided she wanted to sing live as well. So we have Rih-Rih singing in time to her own identical recorded vocals. And then halfway through she starts giving up and only half singing the lines and the whole thing is a complete disaster. She does however plug her new album like a pro when Dermot interviews her after the performance, so at least she got something right. 

And now it’s the results and time to crush someone’s dreams! IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER except that which producers the most drama, Misha B is safe, followed by Little Mix who have, inexplicably, NEVER been in the bottom two. Marcus is safe, so it’s between Janet, Kat Slater and Biscuitman for the sing-off. And Janet is safe so it’s Craig and Amelia in the bottom two. So the British public vote Kat INTO the competition last week, and this week she’s one of the two lowest polling contestants?

Anyhow, first up is Biscuitman, singing Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow, in the style of a kicked puppy. At several points he looks like he’s either going to burst into tears or vomit. He’ll feel better once he stalks an audience member on their way home, kills them and eats their brains with fava beans and a nice Chianti. Kat Slater meanwhile chooses to perform Gaga’s You and I, in the style of Lady Gaga. She does a good job. And then it’s decision time. Gary Barlow decides to be an absolute cunt and sticks the boot into Kat by telling her she shouted her way through her performance while Biscuitman’s was lovely and emotional. He sends Amelia home. Fuck off Gary. Kelly takes umbrage at Gary’s comments and unsurprisingly decides to send Craig home. One apiece, Dermot informs us, just in case we’d forgotten how to count. Tulisa sends Kat home. Louis decides to send Craig back to the biscuit factory, so we get the very first DEADLOCK of the series. And it seems the public have decided that the biscuit has gone stale, as Craig got the lowest number of votes. Simultaneously, Danyl Johnson deletes Craig's phone number. As they play the recap of his time in the show, I find that I actually cannot tell any of his performances apart. He really was doing exactly the same thing week after week. Fist pump, make a face, glory note. Lather, rinse, repeat. So I guess it’s a good thing that he’s going home, not least because the population of London are now safe from his murderous ways. But the X-Factor tour is starting soon. So lock up your loved ones and don’t walk alone in the dark, because the Biscuitman is coming to a town near you. And if you’re not careful, you might find yourself dunked. By which i mean horribly mutilated and left to die in a field while Craig emotionally punches the air and pulls a face.