The end of the world

There is bad news in the Times today everybody. The end is nigh – apparently.  And whilst it may not be the Armageddon forecast by mad religious cults, it does indeed sound catastrophic.  It appears that Simon Cowell is leaving American Idol.

I have to admit that my heart did indeed leap just a little when I heard the surprise news.  Admittedly this is some USA show that has zero interest over here – but maybe it is a sign of things to come.  Being a cynic of some experience I soon saw through the ruse.  Firstly it is apparently the start of that show in the USA, so of course they need all the publicity they can get.

And secondly – well in case you didn’t know, Cowell is repeating his trick in the USA of doing the same show with a sprinkling of old people, freak shows and made to measure groups – ie The X-Factor. 

If it wasn’t true, you couldn’t make it up.  Presumably Cowell might actually have to do some work before a USA X-Factor is launched (or at least get a lackey to do some work).  I am not sure that Abba night, Queen night, Robbie Williams night, Take That night will work year after year in the USA.

So perhaps Simon needs a little help.  Obviously we’ll be needing a rap night, perhaps an Elvis night and a Motown night.  A Carpenters night?   But from then on we might be struggling.  Dylan night  doesn’t sound very likely.

Michael Jackson night might work, although children might be well advised to watch from behind a sofa.   Blues night?  Jazz night?   Despite gaining enormous wealth by encouraging gullible people to make pricy telephone calls and buy third-rate covers of old songs murdered by the nobody of the week, I am not sure Simon Cowell understands music – and in particular American music.

Although he is the face of American Idol – it is in fact the brainchild of another Simon, his lookalike Simon Fuller.  Presumably he has had a few more years to make his gruesome show’s format more legally watertight so that Cowell can’t just repeat it with his X-Factor.  But then again, maybe not – it’s not exactly rocket science.

Whoopee – X-Factor is back

The good old beeb was advertising the new series of X-Factor this morning – which struck me as pretty curious.  I’d have thought by now that this much-hyped money-making machine for Simon Cowell might have slipped off our screens… but no, now the BBC apparently can’t get enough of it either.

 

Weirdly, the BBC’s excuse for promoting a crap programme on a rival channel was that they had an undercover reporter auditioning for the show.  Extra comedy value was then added by the floozie in question being titled ‘on-line reporter’ whilst sneering that some people will do anything to get on to television.

 

Further shocks were revealed. Apparently producers hand out banners and get the audience to behave like performing monkeys.  Who would have thought?  Rather tastelessly, the BBC then got right into the real reason most people watch X-Factor… the fact that it is an updated version of a Victorian freak show. 

 

I’m not sure quite when it became good TV to laugh at unfortunate people (probably when Big Brother was invented)… but it doesn’t make it any less unpalatable.  Granted, there is the convenient excuse that the people in X-Factor know what they are letting themselves in for.  But this is balanced out by the BBC pretending that what goes on in that puerile show is somehow newsworthy.,

 

However, it struck me that there is something newsworthy about X-Factor.  People seem to think it is a talent show… when it is actually a lack-of-talent show.  It is highly formulaic as well.  Even before the show starts you know there will be a kid who looks like a puppy dog, a shouty girl in a short skirt – and a talent less Scotsman….plus a few other wannabees to make up the numbers.

 

I think even Simon Cowell has given up the pretence that this is a search for talent.  Virtually every winner is quietly dropped once income from their Xmas number one has been banked.  Which just goes to show that if something is pushed hard enough on television….people will buy it even when they already know it complete rubbish.

 

This brings us back rather neatly to the new series of X-Factor.