Basically, I have been commissioned by my university newspaper to write a Charlie Brooker-esque piece on what's on TV at the moment, and have written a fairly substantial section of it on our favourite obsession, the X Factor!
For those of you who have the time to read a fairly long piece, opinions would be much appreciated! (before I submit it)
For those of you who have the time to read a fairly long piece, opinions would be much appreciated! (before I submit it)
Quote:
“It really is a tragic state of affairs when a first year university student refuses to indulge in some good old fashioned, Daily Heil-style binge drinking on a Saturday night solely because they don’t want to miss a reality TV show.
But, alas, Simon Cowell’s hulking great beast of a ‘talent contest’, The X Factor (Sat & Sun, 8pm, ITV1), has lumbered back onto our screens, and thus managed to ruin the weekend social lives of practically the entire country, whilst leaving the BBC’s rival reality juggernaut, the rather self-consciously dated Strictly Come Dancing (Sat, 6:50pm, BBC1), feebly foxtrotting along in its wake. Production values are as ludicrously high (and talent as correspondingly low) as ever, and this series has waved goodbye to its last few vestiges of credibility within about two minutes in an orgy of confetti and Lycra-clad maniacs.
Having quickly dispensed with the essentially superfluous contestants (the token black diva, slutty girl group etc) we are left with, we are assured by a booming voice-over, the most promising undiscovered vocal talents in the UK today. Frankly, you’ll wish most of them had remained ‘undiscovered’. Notable contestants from amongst this year’s glittering array of potential worldwide superstars include... Olly, ‘just a regular geezer’ from Essex, with all the charisma and enigmatic sex appeal of a paperclip; Stacey, the kind of character Catherine Tate would reject for being too exaggerated; the so-bad-they’re-actually-amazing twins John & Edward; and the rather dim Welsh teenager Lloyd, who combines the looks of a 90s boyband member with the singing voice of an aged cow. Much of his screen time is spent either gazing vacuously into space or attempting to grope his ‘mentor’ Cheryl Cole, which of course brings us nicely on to the real stars of the program - Simon Cowell and his preening crew of sycophants, the X FACTOR JUDGES. Out they shuffle at the start of each show, in increasingly ridiculous outfits, sliding majestically into their seats and treating us all to an hour of nonsensical clichés, mixed metaphors and excruciating ‘banter’. I can’t even bear to mention the celebrity guests, whose only real role is apparently to stagger on stage and serve as a dire warning against the many and varied perils of drug abuse.
On paper, it sounds appalling – in practise, it’s worse. But it’s still horribly compulsive. Missing an episode can turn a rational human being into a quivering, tearful wreck, incoherent save the occasional wail of ‘NOW I’LL NEVER KNOW WHO WENT OUT!!!’. Because as much as we all like to think we are above this kind of lowest-common-denominator nonsense, every year we discover anew that no-one is truly immune to the addictive power of a transparently manipulative, horrifically expensive bit of reality TV. Weep for us.”
“It really is a tragic state of affairs when a first year university student refuses to indulge in some good old fashioned, Daily Heil-style binge drinking on a Saturday night solely because they don’t want to miss a reality TV show.
But, alas, Simon Cowell’s hulking great beast of a ‘talent contest’, The X Factor (Sat & Sun, 8pm, ITV1), has lumbered back onto our screens, and thus managed to ruin the weekend social lives of practically the entire country, whilst leaving the BBC’s rival reality juggernaut, the rather self-consciously dated Strictly Come Dancing (Sat, 6:50pm, BBC1), feebly foxtrotting along in its wake. Production values are as ludicrously high (and talent as correspondingly low) as ever, and this series has waved goodbye to its last few vestiges of credibility within about two minutes in an orgy of confetti and Lycra-clad maniacs.
Having quickly dispensed with the essentially superfluous contestants (the token black diva, slutty girl group etc) we are left with, we are assured by a booming voice-over, the most promising undiscovered vocal talents in the UK today. Frankly, you’ll wish most of them had remained ‘undiscovered’. Notable contestants from amongst this year’s glittering array of potential worldwide superstars include... Olly, ‘just a regular geezer’ from Essex, with all the charisma and enigmatic sex appeal of a paperclip; Stacey, the kind of character Catherine Tate would reject for being too exaggerated; the so-bad-they’re-actually-amazing twins John & Edward; and the rather dim Welsh teenager Lloyd, who combines the looks of a 90s boyband member with the singing voice of an aged cow. Much of his screen time is spent either gazing vacuously into space or attempting to grope his ‘mentor’ Cheryl Cole, which of course brings us nicely on to the real stars of the program - Simon Cowell and his preening crew of sycophants, the X FACTOR JUDGES. Out they shuffle at the start of each show, in increasingly ridiculous outfits, sliding majestically into their seats and treating us all to an hour of nonsensical clichés, mixed metaphors and excruciating ‘banter’. I can’t even bear to mention the celebrity guests, whose only real role is apparently to stagger on stage and serve as a dire warning against the many and varied perils of drug abuse.
On paper, it sounds appalling – in practise, it’s worse. But it’s still horribly compulsive. Missing an episode can turn a rational human being into a quivering, tearful wreck, incoherent save the occasional wail of ‘NOW I’LL NEVER KNOW WHO WENT OUT!!!’. Because as much as we all like to think we are above this kind of lowest-common-denominator nonsense, every year we discover anew that no-one is truly immune to the addictive power of a transparently manipulative, horrifically expensive bit of reality TV. Weep for us.”
).
