I recently made a thread saying something like "Does anyone else find it difficult to warm to Lauren?" and at the time, I did find it difficult to warm to her but she completely changed my mind tonight.

I thought she was absolutely fantastic. Her performance of "Heaven" was just amazing, and she showed a completely different side to her which I found really endearing and believable. Her voice was smooth and really nice to listen to, especially at the beginning and her acting was spot-on.

I initally thought that Lauren was far too mature to play the role of Dorothy, but she showed tonight that she is a serious contender.

Not gonna take away from any of the other girls, they were all brilliant tonight imo, Sophie impressed me as well and is really coming into her own. But Lauren's the one who impressed me the most tonight.

Wow, we have opposite opinions. I thought Lauren did really well in the duet with Danielle, but her solo just did not work for me. My husband was watching with me, and we were both laughing at her facial expressions on the chorus of the song. She was completely overdoing it, and even though I normally love her vocals, I wasn't wowed by the singing this week either. That could be the song's fault, but I was really disappointed with Lauren's solo tonight. I also thought she wasn't great in the acting mission, and her American accent makes me cringe (I'm American).

I still think Lauren is a great performer, and I really, really liked her in "Popular", but otherwise this latest episode convinced me even more that she is better suited to other roles. Dorothy is just not the right fit for her, I think.

I agree, and she still comes across when they are talking to camera before they sing, as being slightly too confident and arrogant and I think this is the reason the public don`t seem to warm to her.

We had the same reaction to her facial expressions and considered them overdone and we felt this detracted from her vocal performance which we thought was great. We agree that she does not have the required innocence and vulnerability for the role of Dorothy.

We thought she came across well in the acting mission.

I have always looked forward to listening to Lauren sing each week and she has never ever let me down. But after last week I began to feel that she was too good for the role of the young girl Dorothy in The Wizard Of Oz..
We saw a little of the girls acting and doing the Kansas accent and Lauren was the better than Danielle imo. It suprises me a lot that ALW clearly doesn't want Lauren, who he described as "a producers dream," and has taken every bit of advice and critisism on board, to get the part.

I thought that Lauren and Sophie were the best performers last night.

Mm agreeing with some others - Lauren's facial expressions can be a bit jarring from the emotions she should be conveying. Her voice is beautiful, but that, for me, is where it stopped in her solo.

In her duet with Danielle, I think her vocals actually didnt shine through as massively superior, as there weren't a lot of big belters in that number (and there probably wont be in the wiz of oz?) but I was surprised by her acting - I thought they worked brilliantly together, and loved it! Agreeing still with monkseals blog - Danielle was born to play a b*tch!!

EDIT: I'm surprised people think Lauren's Kansas accent was good - it made me cringe, and I'm not even American. Just not at all realistic imo, it's probably better to go for subtle rather than strong accent until youve properly learnt it...

A false American accent by anyone sounds cringe worthy to me.All the girls were so obviously British putting on an accent.In this respect,Lauren was equally as good at not being American.
The arrangement was wrong for Lauren's song,It seems they could'nt make up their minds about which version to give her.In the end that uncertainty affected the way it was presented by Lauren.I am not sure she was happy with it but she did as well as anyone could have.It was a solid performance.

This thing about not being right for the role is a real diversion.ALW wanted a modern edgy Dorothy.How can she not be right for the role?
We are simply talking about different Dorothy's,thats all.

I do agree. I liked her more tonight then any other night, and also found her endearing.

I really enjoyed the duet Lauren did with Danielle, and although I thought Danielle was slightly better I was really impressed with Lauren. Often I think she tries to hard to act and this comes across in her performances (especially in the acting challenges where I find her performances quite insincere). If she performed like she did in the duet all the time I could find myself growing to like her quite a lot.