‘The X Factor’ UK review: Did Christopher Maloney, Ella Henderson advance?

On Saturday, the results were revealed on “The X Factor” when it comes to the singers advancing to the live shows, and there were some surprises. We were not always spot-on when it comes to our predictions, but we did find ourselves asking this question often regardless: is there anyone this season that we legitimately think could be a recording star? The person with the best shot in our mind is Lucy Spraggan, but she is probably not going to be mainstream.

Before we spend any more time here on the details, let’s instead get to some of the results.

Team Tulisa (the girls)

Ella Henderson – An early favorite, and one of the strongest singers in the competition. She and Lucy are really the show’s best chance at advancing deep into the season.

Jade Collins– This is a good choice, but not a great one. We would have preferred to see Amy Mottram in this spot, mostly because she really has a little bit more of a memorable quality to her voice.

Lucy Spraggan – We knew that Lucy was a great artist, and this is really what carried her through to the live shows. Our only real issue is that we’re still not sure she can perform songs that are not written by herself.

Team Louis Walsh (the groups)

MK1 – In our opinion, this duo is the best group in the competition, and with that in mind, we hope that they actually do end up lasting for some time.

GMD3 – They still have an absolutely terrible name, but boy bands tend to fare at least somewhat well right now.

Union J – This is where Louis in our mind messed up a little bit. In picking Union J over Times Red, he guaranteed that he will have two boy bands in his category that are probably going to end up canceling each other out.

Team Nicole Scherzinger (the boys)

James Arthur – Why must Nicole and Louis toy with their acts’ delicate hearts so? James was the second victim of the “it’s not good news … it’s [insert superlative here] news” line of the night.

Jahmene Douglas – Does anyone else find it funny that Nicole told Jahmene to “grow some balls” just as she was rendering her decision to him? There is no question that his biggest weakness is his own confidence (or lack thereof).

Rylan Clark – We know that there are probably a good many people out there throwing popcorn at their TV over this, but Rylan is the right choice here. You need someone who gets people talking for some reason or another; now, we just have to hope we don’t hear him crying hysterically ever again.

The Gary Barlow (the overs)

Kye Sones – In our mind, Kye is still a frontrunner despite having a pretty bum note during his performance of Maroon 5’s “Payphone” on the show Saturday. He’s just so creative, and we also think that he has a likability that will make people gravitate to him easily.

Carolynne Poole – She’s finally made it! After a year of hardship following her rejection last year, she closest thing Britain has to a country singer is now in the live shows.

Melanie Masson – Really, this was the biggest debate of the entire competition in our mind. Both Melanie and Christopher Maloney really deserved to make it through to the next round, but there was only one spot remaining for them.

The wild cards – Britain now has the opportunity to vote on one of the following people for the final wild card spot on next week’s live show: Adam Burridge, Amy Mottram, Christopher Maloney, and Times Red. We have a feeling that Christopher will be the one to advance, but you never quite know with this show…

Do you think the right singers advanced?