Finally! We can drop the whole, "We're not the X-Factor. Honestly!" nonsense and get down to a reality sing-off that resembles reality. The good old BBC decided, of course, to do things a little differently though by just having two teams battle it out instead of all four.
Why might this be, I wonder? Surely, in the interests of fairness, everyone sings and everyone gets compared to everyone else- right?
I suppose the Beeb would argue that having twenty acts (I refuse to call them 'voices'- you know why) singing a song each would make too long a show but Th'exfactor manages it with sixteen and they have commercial breaks to contend with.
It just seemed a bit odd.
This format basically allows all those poor deluded punters who literally can't watch a program without picking up their phone, to vote four times as often. Think about it. What if your favorite wasn't on tonight? Do you wait for them to appear next week and just try to enjoy this week's show without a recorded voice thanking you on one ear? Hell no! You gotta vote, right? Pick another favorite and vote for them- go on! And remember, it's just within each team so you'd better vote twice!
And what about the acts themselves? The weaker ones have had their chances of survival quadrupled from 20-1 to 5-1 in a stroke!
"Only two teams will compete this week and someone from each team is going home." No matter what, so the weakest from a strong team will go even though they're better than someone from another team who stays.
On ITV it's a free-for-all and the act with the least votes goes home. It doesn't matter which team they're on.
I don't want to get bogged down in the format but it STILL feels like they're making rules up just to be different.
This week we had Team Will against Team Tom. Team Jones would have been a better name but that would have meant they were against Team 'i.am' and I think there's already a pet food manufacturer sponsoring a bunch of tabbies with that name and we all know what a nightmare that can be. Just ask 'Rhythmix- sorry, Little Mix.'
I'd hate to see a gang of highly trained pets who jump through hoops and roll over for treats having their name taken away because of... a load of cats.
Now don't get me wrong. I was relieved that the wise old general public were allowed to take the wheel at last and do the right thing for a change. Until, that is. I saw Joelle standing there in the last two next to Sophie while Tyler returned, unchallenged, to his wind tunnel. At least she went through, and quite right too, but in the other camp we were left with cartoon Sam and Mattsuleen (I'm seeing them as one person now- it's easier to think like uncle Tom that way) who are probably chuffed to get through in spite of missing out on this week's goat sacrifice back at the 'henge'.
Neither are as good as Sophie, I think, and yet this weird 'team' setup means they didn't compete with her anyway.
The low number of songs meant a lot of filling was needed and Holly, bless her, try as she might to get anything like a decent conversation going, ended up wilting under the strain and held the microphone so low while Adam Isaac droned on about his 'chipped bone' in his arm that she almost gave him curvature of the spine to go with it.
It was sweet to see Tom filling up when he had to dismiss Sam but it was ok because Sam had been consoled by the overly emotional Holly just long enough for him to curb his bitterness in a final confusing flourish of, "I'm really gutted... but happy too." Which was his way of telling Tom he'd had enough time in the arms of his first non-inflatable blonde to reflect on his dismissal and will, in fact, forgive him and not nail his quiff to the gates of Castle Sexbomb (Motto: Lie Bach and Prestatyn) after all.
Tom managed to pull his hard-assed, "look, boyo, it's life. Someone's gotta go and I'm afraid it's you" act out of the bag in between a mere dozen ways to describe how 'hard a decision' it was, but Will bottled it!
When it came time to ditch Sophie he crumbled and basically promised her a recording contract regardless of being told, in no uncertain terms, that she was about as popular with the British public as Nick Griffin. (Not true of course, she's a lovely and talented young lady with a bright future, I'm sure).
"Don't worry, me and Dante and all my team will give you whatever you want." He said, and I'm pretty sure he meant it so fair play to Willy, but as the weeks roll on and eliminations of more talented people than poor Sophie pile up, his other 'team' are going to wish he'd be a lot less sweet and a lot more 'Sugar' and just fire people without promising them their own pod with the 'Peas'.
In the end, of course, the public did mostly the right thing and the eventual winners, Jaz and Ruth went through.
Next week it's Danny against Jessie where I imagine the other Ruth will be given a series of golden envelopes and told to pick a key to avoid, Vince will be backed by the rest of the Lost Boys and Becky Hill will threaten to glass everyone in the country if they don't vote for her.
Should be fun! Can't wait.
I will be tweeting, live, through next week's shows so join me @elywhitley... if you dare.