Live Show 4 - October 30 2010 (part 2)

Here's Matt 'The Hat' Cardle and he's apparently attempting some sort of superhuman feat from the way everyone is talking in his VT. Oh no, it's "Bleeding Love", a song that I hoped had been consigned to the 'Thou Shalt Not Perform Ever on X Factor' dustbin after Lloyd's complete trainwreck of a rendition of it last year. I also think it's a completely awful song, so it's hard to be objective here but Matt doesn't sound his usual self and it's obvious to anyone with functioning eyes that he hates the song choice. That's 2 for 2 on horrible song choices now as far as Dannii is concerned, perhaps the Jedward hair is starting to burrow into her brain?

The judges are unusually and surprisingly harsh in their comments though, given that they've consistently heaped praise on far worse before. A cynic might say it's all part of an attempt to cut into the popularity of Matt, who is at the time of writing the favourite, in favour of a certain other 'chosen one', but I'm not a cynic and I wouldn't dare suggest such a thing (for about 30 minutes at least).

Dannii is "Dumbfounded" that the others didn't consider this a good week for him. Dannii is easily dumbfounded. "It was a fight..." mumbles Matt, as he tries to be nice.

Over to Louis, and we all know what this means! "For music lovers everywhere, it's Wagner" he says, somehow managing to do so without a trace of irony. Wagner apparently "...became British because he was abducted by Britain". One wonders how easy it would be to scramble together the ransom money by visiting people who take this show far too seriously. Of course I have made no secret of the fact that Vaargner is my superhero, and the 5 minutes of the show in which he features is much like finding a diamond after swimming in a pool full of cow vomit for a couple of hours. Plenty of people would disagree, but they're wrong. They just don't get Wagner. To fully appreciate the genius that is Wagner you have to think outside the box, think past the music because Wagner transcends the medium of music.

Take this performance, for example. To the untrained ear, it might sound like he's horribly out of tune and his timing is terrible. But to the trained ear and mind, it soon becomes obvious that actually Wagner is perfectly in tune and perfectly in time, as he always is, it's just that everything else that has ever existed is horribly out of tune and out of time. Perfection is Wagner, imperfection is anything and everything that makes Wagner seem anything less than perfect.

This sort of philosophising may seem unimportant and indeed ridiculous when discussing a slimy old Brazilian dude singing "Bat Out Of Hell" while dancers convulse maniacally around him, but understanding this is truly important, and your mind will be all the better for having read and comprehended it. Also tonight his dancers are dressed as skeletons and Halloween cat things and there is an absence of any boob-related dance moves and/or gimmickry. Oh, and he seems to be perving over the girls marginally less than usual. Just so you know.

Meanwhile back on planet Earth, over to the 'judges'. I say that in quotes because they're clearly not worthy of judging Supreme Lord Wagner, but alas judge they shall, with their imperfect eyes and imperfect ears. "From Matt... to Wagner... it's different" mutters Dannii, again finding it difficult to form sentences. "What the hell was that?" offers Simon. Louis says what everyone is thinking, "We want to see you next week!".

Show's over, nothing to see here now.

Oh alright then, it's Paije. It is impossible to not like Paije. He is the anti-Katie. "Simon Cowell giving me fashion advice...?" he says at the start of his VT. Now imagine Katie saying it. Now imagine how much you'd want to punch her after she'd said it. Paije lets words like that flow out without seeming like a giant ego because he's not a giant ego, he is just a dude. It's almost enough to make you forget that actually he did look really stupid last week. Of course, 'just a dude'-types tend to get thrown by the wayside and labelled as 'boring' by stupid people who judge talent by column inches in the Daily Star and OK magazine, so they can often underachieve on XF, but if Paije can survive last week's abomination then there's hope for him yet.

Enter Friedman. "Simon's said to Paije to act more like a pop star but now if he does act more like a pop star it will seem contrived". Congratulations for spouting this stupid crap during the VT of the contestant who it's literally least relevant to. I don't think Paije could seem contrived if he tried, whereas certain others can appear contrived without trying.

Tonight he's singing "Back to Black" (BLACK IS A DARK COLOUR AND DARK COLOURS ARE EVIL AND HALLOWEEN IS EVIL STOP QUESTIONING THE RELEVANCE TO THE THEME OKAY!?) and is dressed somewhat more sensibly than usual, an understated dinner jacket/bow tie/untied tie look. Dannii is now 3 for 3 on horrific song choices. It's nowhere near as huge a disaster as either of her other choices, but it doesn't suit his voice (which is admittedly growing on me in isolation) at all.

"I like that you're turning (into)... a big diva. It gives you some personality" Simon rambles. Remember what I said a few paragraphs up about stupid people? Yeah.

Over to Chezza - "Next up, having some FUN because she is FUN and definitely not Lady Gaga / Madonna / Old Katie / New but not quite fun yet Katie / a fame-hungry cow from the inner circles of Hell, it's Katie!"

Here's the problem with Katie. I've finally worked it out. Scratch away all the bad press, all the audition and judges house drama and it's still impossible to like her because even at this stage everything she does is so bloody 'actressy'. I'm actually convinced that she has some kind of mental disorder that causes her to believe that she is permanently in a movie and being asked to ham it up. Every movement, every facial expression, every little bit of speech is horribly exaggerated in that way that only really bad actors do while they're 'acting'.

This week we're getting 'Fun AND quirky Katie', a merger between two failed past business ventures. It's not going to work.

She's singing "Bewitched" this week and OH GOD WHAT'S HAPPENED TO HER EYES!? From a distance it looks like her eyes don't exist - it's only when the camera moves in that we see the truth. Lashings (pun completely intended) of glittery silver eye make up stuff, possibly to disguise the two black eyes Matt possibly might have possibly given her in the week (possibly). It's even worse than Nicolo's bizarre sunglasses in week 1 - at least with him you could be reasonably sure that his eyes actually existed beneath the sunglasses.

It sounds... boring. For all the fuss over her in the papers, once she starts singing it's surprisingly dull. She's not particularly good, not particularly bad, she's just sort of there, existing and making noise. For someone who puts on such a contrived show while she's not singing, you can't help but expect a little more. Dannii calls out the hideous make up and gets a ridiculous "OOOOOHHHH well happy Halloween!" in return from Katie. STOP ACTING. TURN YOUR 'ACT' BUTTON OFF FOR JUST ONE SECOND YOU DESPERATE COW FOR F- wait DID SIMON REALLY COMPARE HER TO GWEN STEFANI?

I need some aspirin. "You throw yourself into things head first" offers Cheryl. Too easy, let's move on.

One Direction and Cher after the break. I need more aspirin. Any idea what the lethal dose is?

One Direction (where's the backing coming from? Head that way!) time! Joy! Oh wow they're trying to spin Louis calling Simon out for his focusing on them as a sob story? Really? "Louis saying that... takes something away from all our hard work", one of the drones bleats. You stand on stage and sing to a blaring backing track while grinning inanely at each other every weekend after rehearsing for a few hours in the preceding few days. It's not exactly tough manual labour, guys. "This song is about showing them as singers" according to Simon. If I had a bomb shelter I'd be running towards it right now.

Their performance is the same as always, whispering to a screaming backing track except this time the twist is that they look like they haven't slept all week. Boring. Instead, let's talk about voiceover guy. He says "ONE DIRECTION" like an angry robot which is amusing, but his best work in my opinion is "MARY BYRNE!?" It's like an expression of bewilderment as opposed to somebody's name when he announces it, fantastic.

Oh, for reference they sang "Total Eclipse of the Heart" (ECLIPSES INVOLVE THE MOON, AS DO WEREWOLVES. WEREWOLVES ARE A SCARY MONSTER. HALLOWEEN IS SCARY AND PEOPLE DRESS UP AS SCARY MONSTERS FOR THE LOVE OF GOD STOP QUESTIONING THE SONG CHOICES!). Here's what the judges had to say:

Louis - "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH WAAAAAAHAHHHHHHHH"
Dannii - "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH WAAAAAAHAHHHHHHHH"
Cheryl - "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH WAAAAAAHAHHHHHHHH"
Simon - "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH WAAAAAAHAHHHHHHHH"

Over to Chezza - "Last but by no means least, it's the FANTASTIC Cher Lloyd. YOU WILL THINK SHE IS FANTASTIC OR I WILL PEE ON YOUR FACE"

In contrast to last week Cher is under strict 'be meek and humble' instruction this week, it seems. Ah, now I see why, it's 'Cher reinvention' week! Hurrah! This week she's going to just stand there and sing, like a miniature Mary or something.

She's even dressed in black, like a miniature Mary. Oh wow, this actually sounds decent. It's "Stay" by Shakespeare's Sister and the judges will doubtless put it on a pedestal and elevate it into the stratosphere, so desperate are the powers that be for her to do well and it's nowhere near as good as the praise it will get, but it's definitely surprising, and a really good song choice from Chezza, credit where credit's due.

Cue Cowell - "I think that was the performance of the entire season". Maybe with the clocks going back and the weather getting colder he's getting confused, but winter doesn't start until December and it certainly hasn't started at some point between Rebecca's and Cher's performances tonight. Oh God she's crying, somebody pass the sick bag. "You put every single emotion into it", Cheryl rambles in that emotionless drawl of hers. Every single one Chezza dear? Personally I thought it was missing a little optimism, a small helping of astonishment and maybe a garnish of contentment to finish. "The nation gets to hear you sing" she continues. Yes, that's SORT OF THE WHOLE POINT OF THIS BLOODY PROGRAMME.

I need an aspirin. I've already seen the results as I type this (apologies for being a little behind), so luckily you get to dodge seeing my horrible predictions before the terrifying triumvirate that is Bon Jovi, Jamiroquai and Rihanna on the results show.