I wonder if the show has run its course? The acts this year don't seem anywhere near as good as in recent years; Matt Cardle, Rebecca ferguson, Jamie Afro, Daniel, Ruth Lorenzo, Rhydian, Eoighan, Alexandra, Leona, couple of weird girls I can't remember etc.

The problem is that anyone over the age of 20 who is genuinely interested and talented either has either already auditioned or doesn't want to.

Plus the talented acts now see the manipulation of it all and that the producers try to engineer their own desired result, ie Little Mix who, let's face it, are nowhere near as good as girls aloud.

Sad really, but it's stopped me from voting and also watching the results shows ...

Jamie Afro was terrible.

Eggnog was awful too

And so are girls aloud!

Is this going as well as you'd hoped, OP?

So do you really think this years crop is specially talented lot?

I don't vote either, it is all a waste of money, as they seem to get more and more manipulative each year. And now I find that Dermot did not even announce the 5 minute warning tonight that votes were about to close and they in fact appear to me to have closed earlier than they normally do, so that really makes me wonder about tonights result show.

"terrible"? Thats strong. Why?

This has actually been the only series that has got better as its gone on, usually I'm bored by the semi final stage.

I suspect the lines close when they have the result they want.

You lost me when you listed Eoghan as someone good.

I actually much prefer this year to the previous 2. Sounds odd, but I've had quite a few I've liked this year e.g Amelia, Kitty, Marcus and Little Mix.
In Series 6, I honestly didn't like any of them, and in series 7 they either came across as boring or unlikable.

Last year was more watchable and I quit near the end because of the fixing.
This year has been really poor for talent and personalities. The best they could for controversy was frankie and kitty.
Little mix are a good new thing though the best act left

Series 6 really was dire, wasn't it?

Maybe it's just me then. Just goes to show how we all have different tastes

i actually really like it this year its been the strongest top 4 in a while

he did do the 5 minute warning. did it just after jessie j finished

Indeed. It's definitely not one of the best ones, but it's not terrible for me at the same time. For me, there's always been at least 1 contestant I don't like at this stage, but they all seem pretty good to me

That was at about 8.20, which would mean voting did close early? Would also explain why I didnt hear it as I turned over when Jessie J was on.

I guess it all boils down to why you watch the show;

To see new fresh original performers

To see talented song writers

To see role models / fashion icons

To see singers with amazing voices

To see people better than anyone else currently out there

I Feel this year has been the worst. Yet I don't blame the contestants, as when i watched the auditions, I thought this would be the hardest year to pick a final 16 as they were so good. But as the weeks have went by, the songs choices have been terrible, and sung at a slower tempo each week.

I only like one act left, and my fav never even made it to the public votes.

It is all getting a bit to staged now for me.

I think they've just been a bit bland this year. No-one has been really bad but, for me, very few have actually stood out as anything special.

Probably why it's getting trounced by strictly

Thing is they have spent 8 or 9 years doing this so most of the decent acts have now been discovered.

Not especially, no, but no worse than normal. We don't have anyone like One Direction or the welsh boy from the previous year who go far purely on their looks, so that is a blessing, and there really hasn't been a joke act (uless you count Frankie ) but I'm so glad they culled 4 in the very first show because listening to much more of Johnjo (?) or the others would have made the show tedious in the extreme.

But Misha is a big talent, Little Mix are a decent group and Marcus is much better than he originally promised, so I'm happy with that possible line-up for the final. I'm not keen on Amelia, but she's not bad, Craig was fairly good and Janet ws different and has performed reasonably well on occasions. I know there's quite a bit of faint praise there, but there's no-one awful or talentless and that;s not bad going for XF.