I think it's a bit mean to say that Caroline and Olly were "terrible". Sure Dermot made it look easy but he had 8 years to hone it. I'm sure if you looked back to his first live show he wasn't that good either. I thought they got a lot better as it went along. Funnily enough I thought Olly did a better job than Caroline despite her being the professional host. But I think they'll settle in quite nicely over the series.

Yet again though XF is causing discussion and debate. Probably a fair bit more so than if they'd stuck with the old, tired judges houses format. You still got most of that in there anyway. So I'm glad they made the change, they definitely needed to do something with judges houses. One other thing is that I was quite impressed with Mark Ronson as a guest judge. Might be worth looking into for a full time stint in future.

Like I said earlier for a variety of reasons I don't expect it to have done particularly well tonight. I'll go for:

Strictly - 9.5m
Doctor Who - 4.3m

Celebrity Chase - 3.4m
X Factor - 6.7m

Tomorrow could be interesting...

It doesn't have a "large US audience". It does decent numbers on a niche channel. 20m Americans are not watching Dr Who every week.

Fantastic episode of strictly again tonight, really enjoying this series. Next week is the Halloween special, if previous years are anything to go by it should be another good one.

But they were terrible. I liked them on the Xtra Factor a few years ago so both have had previous X Factor experience despite appearing on the smaller show. Caroline isn't a great presenter IMO. She was poor on Love Island earlier this year. She is always talking over people and interrupting them. I like Caroline and Olly but XF is too big for them. Yes Dermot probably wasn't brilliant to start off with (I can't remember it was that long ago) but he made it look so easy so comparisons are going to be made. Personally I thinking ditching Dermot was a mistake. He steadied the ship over a few difficult years and Olly and Caroline don't have the same presenting skills IMO.

Verdict on X Factor live show to determine, err, who gets through to the live shows: pointless. There was absolutely no need for it to be live, except for sheer extravagance and showiness, and this was apparent with how they chose to fill time. Another pointless thing they did seemingly because they felt the need to hammer home the fact the damn thing was live and cost a lot more money than it needed to at every opportunity was showing the contestant watching their performance back. Unfortunately, it added precisely nothing except a nagging distraction.

To top it all off, Cowell looked the most disinterested I've ever seen him on one of these shows. He must have sensed it wasn't working. Olly and Caroline did their best and I wouldn't blame them for the failure of this poorly structured mess of a show. Frankly, it was throwing them in at the deep end, especially given how little they have featured during the auditions phase.

No they weren't. What was so terrible about them? I didn't see Love Island so can't comment on how she was there but they weren't bad and improved over the show. They weren't as slick and polished as Dermot, no, but it was their first night and it was in a format the show has never used before. They were thrown in at the deep end.

You could tell last year that Dermot's heart wasn't really in it any more. I think Caroline and Olly will be fine over the series.

There was a Ninja Warrior UK promo on ITV just now, 'to return in 2016'. To be promoting so early, does it suggest a January start?

Yes they were thrown in at the deep end and probably didn't have much rehearsal time but for me it just wasn't working. Maybe terrible is a bit harsh. They did improve as it went along. The difference probably between them and Dermot (at the end of last series) is that they probably care a lot more about the show than he did towards the end of his 8-year stint.

I've seen every episode of TXF (bar the final 6 live performance and results shows from the 2009 series) and this series isn't working at all for me. I've been a big fan of XF but over the last few years I've been becoming more and more disinterested in the whole thing. So much so that in 2013, I decided to give Strictly a go for the first time ever and haven't missed an episode since. It's head and shoulders above XF (something I thought I'd never say) - but XF has seriously lost its way - more so than ever this year. I used to love this show at its peak but 12 series in and things feel very stale indeed despite all these changes, which mostly haven't worked.

I suspect it will be Ninja Warrior UK at 7pm leading into Beowulf on Sunday at 8pm.

ITV should utulise the older skewing line-up on Sunday on BBC1 by attracting the younger viewers. That way they get a complementary audience.

Then on Saturday against TVUK, place a older skewing series or even drama.

Stop being logical H!!!!

Just to add, The Chase celebrity specials are pretty pointless. Its becoming icreasingly obvious that the Chasers get questions wrong on purpose so the team win the money for charity. In other words what is the pointing in watching? There is no element of suspense like with the normal version.

I mean they had Joe Swash on tonight and he got through?? How? Its just pointless, whether its for charity or not, ITV might as well just give the money to the charities and skip making TCCS. I would prefer it if they just placed regular episodes before TXF.

Not sure if I agree with that one tknight, it was watchable but something didn't seem quite right tonight, the judges were all over the place, Tess was incredibly irritating and there wasn'the any stand out dances, I just found the whole thing a bit me tonight- Still very polished, but the worst show of the series imo

And exactly, we all know it'll be thrown against TVUK and drop to under 3m

But still ten times more entertaining than the other option.

Of course, now Strictly has little to beat, there'll always be a danger of complacency creeping in. But I don't think that's likely.

Just thinking back to Saturday night TV as a child of the 90s, what year did baywatch finish?

Your prediction for X Factor is far too low.

Baywatch must have been around 1991/1992. It was on roundabout the time Gladiators and Noel's House Party were in their first series.

I do fear complacency is slipping in, though. Tonight was badly planned in that the strong dancers where either near the beginning of the show (Georgia, Anita, Peter) or the end (Helen, Jay, Kellie) meaning the middle dragged badly. The judges were nasty as well, particularly Bruno. Craig we expect it from so when he turns round and says that Bruno was going too far it says a lot. Strictly needs to remember it's roots, what makes it successful.

I actually enjoyed The X Factor tonight but more in the 'are they actually serious?' way rather than 'wow this is good'. Saying that, the begging was desperate and unnecessary. I think they wanted to spice up Judges Houses somehow because the audience has always drifted away at this point, had no idea how, so just put a bit of the live shows and the Six Chair Challenge into it to see if it worked. At least the audience was better than the last few weeks I suppose!

I thought Olly and Caroline were fine presenting; arguably Olly could have done it on his own though.

Fair enough (also I realise my last post came across as slightly rude which wasn't intended so apologies for that). I think it is quite a different show now to what it was in the early years and that isn't going to be everyone's cup of tea. For me I thought it felt more stale in 2011 and 2012 when they didn't make any format changes despite falling ratings. 2013 was a much needed freshen up in the early stages but the live shows weren't really changed and thus still felt stale. 2014 was a bit of a weird one. They didn't really change the format but the talent was pretty good which kept it going, but again the live shows were very stale. This year I thought the auditions felt stale but since then I've enjoyed it, it's felt fresh and I've liked the changes since then. Still not sold on the panel though.

I've said on here before that ballroom dancing just doesn't do it for me hence why I don't watch Strictly. I personally find it a bit twee but it does what it does very well and I can see why it gets such a large audience. It is a warmer show than X Factor which I think particularly works for the older audience.

Whilst Ninja Warrior is perhaps an odd fit for Sunday I do think there's some logic in this. It would make it easier to fit everything in as well as with those two having 13 episodes each I don't see how both of them can fit along with Takeaway, Take Me Out and You're Back in the Room.

The only issue is they've not announced anything that could go against The Voice for those first 6/7 weeks.


I agree, although I think it's less that the chasers deliberately get them wrong and more that the celebs get asked much easier questions than the civilians and they are much more pop culture based which is the chasers weakest area.


Perhaps. I'm just very conscious that it was the first Saturday show for weeks, it was judges houses which didn't do great last year and it was very long.

Xfactor was abysmal last night. So dull. 2 and a half long hours and still couldn't get it all done if they stopped padding shit put they could get it all in. Didn't like the new format, the old one was way better and had more emotion.

ITV took the wise decision to promote Jekyll and Hyde during the X Factor. I hope it does well. ITV have long needed to start creating ambitious programmes, and this is hopefully one of them.

I thought X Factor was fine. It was a very different format for Judges Houses that will probably be a one-off as I suspect we'll be back to ten live shows next year.

Olly and Caroline weren't bad, reckon they'll improve as they settle in.

Wonder if TXF has reached its jump the shark moment after the terrible reaction to last night's show on here, with Cowell apparently looking bored and unhappy at a badly done live show. Remember it's Syco, not ITV, who make the show and he could cancel it if tonight's has seen ratings fall to an all time low.
However, for ITV's sake, they would probably quite happily keep a show that is such a big part of the schedule and rates higher than most of their lame entertainment shows. Even if TXF was to drop to 6 million this year and next, it's still a big deal to them and the demos are better than most of their other shows. Yet you always get the feeling Cowell wants to be top dog and dominate the ratings.

4.34m for Doctor Who according to Gallifrey Base.

Chris McCluskey ‏@chris_maccc 31s31 seconds ago
9.3million enjoyed @bbcstrictly last night with a peak audience of 10.4million on @BBCOne making it Saturday's highest rated show on TV