That’s right, leave “totally wiped out” to other places. The one untransmitted series will go out later in the year, Endemol are working on another show for Saturday nights. Saying that we are yet to see the cheaper show that was meant to replace The Whole 19 Yards.

Quite surprised, I assumed it was fairly cheap to make and pulled in decent if unspectacular numbers. I’ve been saying for ages that making obstacles impossible to cross gets a bit dull though, one or two people getting across something does not negate the comedy value of the 18 people who do not, and adds impressive texture.

What could replace it? 101 Ways To Leave a Game Slow is probably out of the question, but Endemol do have a format called XXS (video here), basically the alphabet soup game from Incredible Games writ large by the looks of things. Outside bet: what if they remade The National Lottery Big Ticket, but did it properly?

So there we are.

Yeah it was alright.

I watched the first ep on catchup this evening, I didn’t come into it with many preconceptions – I’m well aware of the Dutch original, and I’m well aware of the success the US version has had and I know how they work but I haven’t watched them – reality singing contests are a gameshow subgenre (sod off elsewhere if you want to argue that point) that doesn’t interest me all that greatly despite their prevelance on the schedules and the masses of viewers they can bring in. So with this in mind because it’s late, some bulletpoints:

• I really like Holly Willoughby, she’s bubbly and fun and can think on her feet, and I have no issue with Reggie Yates who, you know, was good in Trinity, but they were a bit anonymous here. Presumably they will have more of a presence after the blind auditions.
• I like the set. It is also very red.
• The coaches. Here’s the thing, basically everyone loves Jessie J and Tom Jones, Will.I.Am comes across as a little bit of a twat bless him whilst the surprise is Danny O’ Donoghue, despite being probably the least well known of the four, seems to have landed himself in some sort of Len Goodman judge’s spokesperson role. As a group they do have a certain chemistry.
• The way the show is structured as effectively four different competitions  building up to a sort of champion of champions finale is great, and makes much more natural sense as a coaches contest then the rather more mish-mash way The X Factor does it.
• If more than one judge turns round then the act gets to choose the coach. This is an ingenious power shift. Unfortunately there seems to be a natural inclination to choose Jessie and Tom over Will and Danny who currently feel very much like consolation prizes.
• Because of the way the show works, with the coaches building up teams of ten people but no more, my gut is suggesting that the later blind auditions are going to be much less fun because with fewer slots remaining there’s going to be less coach appealing to the artist and more of either Will or Danny turning round for anything they can get. This isn’t much fun. Would it be better to allow a looser upper limit and have a cutting down stage? Perhaps the contenders could be aware of how many people are on each team currently and make a strategic choice in the knowledge that going for the more popular coaches means a lower chance of making it through to the next round? Something like that.
• Yes, the singing quality was very good, but I found it didn’t hold my attention for the full 80 minutes. And let’s not forget that 50 of those 80 minutes were shots of Jessie J hovering her hand over her button and then sighing, and then hovering some more. And then sighing again. And then hovering.
• As a production I think it does manage to blow fresh air into a stale genre. I question whether it felt exciting, and I don’t think I’ll be going out of my way to watch it, probably until the next round. However I was chatting to my mum earlier and she liked it, so there we are.

The question is should The X Factor be running scared? TXF now has a few major problems, exacerbated by the fact that The Voice has hit the ground running. It’s been a largely successful formula for ten years and if it changes things now it looks like they’re only doing it because they’re scared of The Voice. People have been saying for years they should switch things up a bit, that it would be a good idea if the mentors could perhaps take an act from each section to represent them. If they had thought about it they could and should have bought this in last year with the new judges. Similarly they could have wholesale nicked the idea of the artists choosing which judge to work with, it could have been brilliant (and, as a added bonus, it would give more of a “it’s all about the talent” vibe even if it isn’t) and it would have had a massive headstart on The Voice as a UK concept but unfortunately that window has closed – it would look like a rip-off. It now sounds like this year is going to be full of tediously worthy “REAL music, yeah?” types and I’m not entirely convinced that’s what I want to watch, I think there are ways to balance a more credible direction and keep the elements of panto. Unfortunately the time for the best ones has gone.