What happened to the old Simon? Much preferred his criticism and comments in American Idol times! Now everything is bit like forced, don't feel honesty in it.

I was thinking the exact same. He told Reggie N Bollie last night that they were 'SO GOOD'.

Really.

I think the R'n'B are not excruciatingly dire or hopeless like Jedward, Wagner etc and there is a fun energy about the performances.

I've thought for a while that he watches the soundcheck perfomances and prepare his responses in advanced with a team of script writers based on that. It's a bit like the Apprentice now where Lord Sugar's 'ad-libs' sound as natural as someone reading a bad joke out of a christmas cracker.

Yes, good point.

With The Apprentice I used to watch every week for a couple of year until the series won by Tom. I felt like my intelligence had been insulted that series as clearly the best "apprentice" all series was the one who finished 2nd whilst the clueless bimbo who had been crap all series ended up winning. Made the whole show null and void, and it's been like that ever since.

With X Factor, Simon seems to have mellowed a hell of a lot. It's like he bases him opinions on the reactions of the rent-a-mob who turn up for the live shows. A contestant burps their way through a performance, and the audience cheer afterwards leads to Simon saying "it wasn't perfect but I enjoyed it" where ten years ago he would've said it as it is "if you genuinely think you can win the X Factor then you're seriously mistaken based on that performance".

Maybe it's a lack of Louis and Sharon that's caused this. The only other judge over the years who seemed to be doing the show for all the right reasons was Dannii.

He sat on Judges seat for decades and saw some amazing acts like Jennifer Hudson, Fantasia Barrino, Carrie Underwood, Kelly Clarkson and other great acts in his own US & UK shows. IMHO he either has lost a bit of interest in finding real talent or soften up for some reason.

I miss "Mr Nasty"

He had the cheek to call it a singing competition last night. It hasn't been that for years the 2010 series proved it.

Everything he says has become so predictable. The old Simon would have ripped into Reggie and Bolle but now he is just churning out the same lines time and again.

There has been something weird about him the whole series.

The way he reacted to getting 'the overs' was disgusting and very unprofessional. I'm beginning to think he chose his contestants to deliberatly throw the competition. Why else would he pick mediocre Bupsie and Max? Anton's not much good either but people seem to like him.

This 'love in' with all the contestants and judges just seems fake and I genuinely do think he's lost interest. As a result, I've lost interest too.

This is just a money generating thing for him now.

There were some great moments including Josh's song & Anton's Botox joke, but otherwise too mechanical!

He'll bring back Mr Nasty tonight and will give it to Kiera and Lauren