Originally Posted by fireemblemcraze:
“You mean Present-on-the-front-page-of-the-sun-every-day-because-of-the-contestants Era?”
I really don't think you can say the publicity and popularity garnered in those years was solely down to the contestants. They flung a bunch of big characters into the eighth series, and had plenty of controversy, but still didn't retain the interest of Series 7.
The Simon/Dannii/Louis/Cheryl panel worked imo because you had a balance of personalities that created the perfect amount of drama without it seeming THAT forced or staged. When they had that episode with the next panel where it was like they just told everyone to up the tension it came across as completely insincere, whereas with the SDLC group it was about the underlying tensions that you weren't 100% sure were there but could sense anyway.
It distracted from the contestants in a sense, but I think people genuinely were interested in whether or not there was a split on the panel or it Simon hated Dannii or if Cheryl and Dannii didn't get along and blah blah blah.
Then of course the contestants worked a treat as well, there's no denying that.
