Originally Posted by James J:
“The X Factor, quite simply, started off so promisingly this year then royally f***ed it all up. The auditions were great. Well edited and structured, shot and paced. Proper old-school with a modern visual style. It was shaping up to be the best year since 2010.
Then came bootcamp which was over before it began, or so it seemed, but still went quite well. Six chairs is where it started to regress, with the ugliness and blatant fixing ("I have six chairs, so I'll put everyone through knowing full well the better acts are on their way so we can rip some poor person's dream apart in an arena of howling banshees"). It started feeling really fake at this point, and shifted from being vintage to more of the same old shit.
By judges houses, it was a joke. Great acts being sent home, including those who had been edited to seem like clear live show contenders. Christian Burrows, whose audition got so much social media and reduced many to tears, sent home for odd choices like Ryan, who wasn't a patch on him; other girls who were promising being sent home. Sending through those silly gay guys, was a farce. Sending home Christopher Peyton, who was sensational, over someone like Relley C (who had barely featured prior, and was evicted last night), would have really rubbed people up the wrong way.
Unfortunately these decisions and the clear falsity of it spilled over into the lives. The chicken boys left week one, Relley left last night, and I feel that there were several contenders who should have made the live shows based on their exposure through the auditions and bootcamp. The whole narrative was building nicely for several contestants, who were at the eleventh hour replaced with odd choices, some of whom who had barely featured in the aforementioned previous stages.
The wheel of fortune which they insist is random but is clearly fixed (as shown last night with it landing on Fright Night for Halloween, as if by magic!) is just another nail in the coffin. It started off so well but the rot set in at six chairs, and the show died at judges houses. I doubt I'll bother with the series again - in terms of talent it's worse than last year's.
Next year, extend bootcamp and ditch the six chair challenge, and put through to live shows the right acts - the ones who have been loved in the audition phases by viewers. Don't piss the viewers off by making ridiculous unfathomable choices at judges houses. And ditch the six chair challenge - yes it's a talking point but it leaves a bitter taste in the mouth, and ruins all the feel-good fun the previous stage cultivates.
I would say most of the final 12 were the wrong choices, actually. Maybe 3 or 4 were right; around 8 or 9 who should have gone through based on the editing of the auditions and bootcamp, were sent home. That's what's killed this series - the ineptitude of the producers and the ruining of the 'journeys' of contestants which had been building nicely.”
The six chair challenge rated well. The judges houses was done after the auditions were shown (I believe) so it's perfectly acceptable for the auditions not to match up with the ones who made it.
You don't like six chairs and you don't like some of the contestants who got through at the expense of your favourites. Everybody sees people go out who they'd rather not. That's been the case with XF from the beginning and used to happen just as much in the heydays.
Some people don't watch the live shows. I very much doubt they stopped because they put 'the two gays' and others through. It's a pattern now.
The Apprentice is better so I'll probably favour that. 
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