‘The X Factor’ UK results: Did Shelley Smith or Lorna Simpson become first act eliminated?
Sunday night marked the first “X Factor” UK live show, which meant for many an opportunity to have at least a good half-hour of their time wasted. At least ITV tries to make the first half-hour entertaining, but it is a long-held tradition that you can tune in to a results show 30 minutes in and miss absolutely nothing … unless you want to see Cher and Ellie Goulding perform, which you can do on YouTube whenever you want and with better sound quality most of the time.
What perhaps made this particular results show so yawn-inducing was that it was obvious from the beginning what was going to happen. Sharon Osbourne made a big mistake choosing her contestants for live shows, in particular when it comes to Lorna Simpson / Shelley Smith over James Whelan. He had the screen time, and brought something different to the table where as these two ladies, while talented, don’t have the Sam Bailey factor or the distinctiveness vocally to make it deep into the competition. The only surprise is that Lorna received more votes than Shelley last night.
So now, we have the nightmare situation for Sharon as she knows that one of these two ladies will go home, and the other will probably be in trouble again next week. The change thanks to the voting is that there is no more deadlock: If the judges tie, then it guarantees that Shelley will go home. Therefore, she has her work cut out for her trying to last.
Before the results came in, let’s go through the “save me” performances.
Shelley, “One Night Only” – A very good vocal, but she probably has an advantage in that she’s had a little bit of time to prepare for this, but she’s still a little theatrical. She’s just been in this industry too long to take that out of her.
Lorna, “There You’ll Be” – Could these two have chosen any more dated songs to perform for their “save me” songs? This is why we don’t see the winner of this sing off getting that many more votes next week, regardless of if they both have more talent than some of these other people.
As for the voting, did anyone else think that Gary Barlow set up Nicole Scherzinger to have to make the deciding vote? He seemed to prefer Shelley, but made the vote a tie, anyway. In the end, Lorna was gone first, and this was something that most of us sadly saw coming. This is what happens when you don’t give a contestant any airtime.
Do you think the right person went home? Sound off below, and click here for our complete take on how they each performed on the show last night.
Photo: ITV