TV Review - Twirling vs. Caterwauling.

Greetings my dears,

Being back in the UK, means that for the first time this year I had the seat wettingly exciting pleasure of watching the second greatest televisual events of all time over the weekend - namely the Strictly Come Dancing semi finals and the X-Factor Final (which was cynically spread over two nights, nominally to increase the tension and more realistically to push ITV's viewing figures into the stratosphere two nights on the trot).

For the uninitiated (those people who face the grim reality of having to talk to other people, outside their houses, away from the sweet nectar of the tellybox on a weekend - the fools) Strictly Come Chancing is a semi-celebrity sparkle fest where squads of whimpering nano celebs wiggle, gesticulate, thrust, twirl or have nervous breakdowns on the dancefloor.

A panel of specially selected judges then weighs up their efforts against each other to decide who the 'tallest Pygmy in the village' is that week, followed by a telephone vote by the general public who decide who stays to moonwalk another day and who has to return to a life of being berated by their evil publicist and are next seen cleaning up pigs guts on 'Celebrity Offal Sweeper' on channel Five.

The X-Factor is a similar campathon, but this time, hopeless, absent eyed members of the 'general public' are part of the action. A rigorous selection process whittles about a trillion hapless Brits, with notions that they can be successful singers but who's conceits are approximately twelve hundred miles above their ability level, into 10 slightly less abysmal finalists.

Each week the public gets to act out big game hunter fantasies and pick them off one at a time as the contestant with the least votes is booted off the show and cast immediately outside the warm confines of the X-Factor studio and back into the real world (that they probably never inhabited in the first place) to pursue their dreams of showing Simon Cowell that 'they don't care what he thinks, I'm going to be a star'. Lucky for them that McDonald's awards stars for the best cowcircle flippers so their dreams needn't die with his scathing report.

Actually, it's easy to scoff at those that dream of making the big time, but I can't help thinking that Cowell and co regard these desperate caterwaulers who sing for their love a bit like a heartless banker might inspect his fifth prostitute of the night; "Come on, put some effort into it. Can you dance too? That's it. Dance for me.... mmmm I love it when you let me tread on your dreams. Mmmm. Now get out."

Both of these Saturday night programs have enormous ratings that each channel build their schedules around like deckchairs round the dog turds on a windswept beach, and the format is pretty similar; come out, do your turn, a judge ranks you, the public votes you off, the contestant cries, they go home, they hit the kids, everyone's happy. Well, everyone apart from the kids.

What struck me with Strictly Come Dancing is how the definition of the 'winner' seems to change all the time. One might expect that the people who display the most dedication and skill and therefore, perform the best dance routine would be expected to win the most votes and sashay effortlessly forwards to dominant victory.

That doesn't happen in practice though as the public have routinely voted in droves for the pudgy chested, cheese headed, but totally likable BBC sports presenter (Chris Hollins) who once again won despite his clenched fists and furious, constipated expression resembling, not so much dancing, as him attempting to launch a metaphysical assault on rhythm itself.

The notion that his celebrity status holds some sway over the public holds little water. In 'Strictly' the celebrity status of the contestants is nominal as their ranks seem to be made up of cheery faced newsmen looking to show they have 'another side' to them other than reading an autocue, dough stomached retired sportsmen and daytime soap recognition whores. In fact the odd big star who's publicist went away on holiday long enough for the BBC to sign them up (Martina Hingis and Joe Calzaghe, I suppose), rarely do any better than the 'filler' celebs that are swept up from digital TV or Hollyoaks.

In reality, the celebrity element is there just to add a bit of flavor to the contest and to at least give the BBC some hope that when a camera and microphone are shoved in front of their astonished faces, they might have something more constructive to say than grunting 'hello mum'.

What seems to count in the contest is the hard work, dedication of the people involved and the character they display when things don't exactly work out for them on the dancefloor and they end up scuttling about on all fours like a drunk crab searching for a contact lens in a jelly mountain.

On the other side, this weekend the X-Factor was contested by Key-hole Kate wearing a lions mane, Daniel Beddingfield's cheeky alter-ego and a piece of wood with a pair of joke shop plastic red lips nailed to it. However, I can't argue that the three of them can't sing, so perhaps the actual talent of the contestants does count for something where the X-holes are concerned.

Perhaps that's the problem with X-Factor. The one thing it has revealed to people is that any idiot can hold a note. The contests pretensions of actually identifying then creating a lasting superstar out of the contestants is surely scuppered by the fact that they had to come find them at all. Sure, you can belt out a tune, but the drive and the skill (and luck) of a Prince or Madonna or Michael Jackson meant that their singing talent wasn't all they relied upon.

They all seemed nice enough, but ruthlessly, the Key-hole Kate-alike, Stacey Solomon, was kicked out despite being probably the most friendly of the three. She had a sort of demented innocence about her as she chuckled into the camera, which was a lot more charming than Joe's bland homliness and Olly's blokey loungesinger confidence. However, the public decreed she didn't cut it and left it for the two boys to armwrestle over who elicited the most prepubescant screams in the second part of the final (the final final final) the following night.

Perhaps this all means that the celebrity version got it right. On the one hand, the X-Factor reduced the notion of skill into who can make the most teenage girls run up their parents phone bill. On the other side, Strictly resulted in a likable, but less skillful person getting his just deserts by trying as hard as the people around him but maintaining a personable attitude.

If there is a moral left after the pound coins are squeezed out of all this buffoonery, perhaps it's that despite the efforts of the machine to make us hateful naysayers dividing up the population into the 'haves' and 'have nots', competitions can still be won by deciding who is the best person and it can be entertaining enough to draw millions of people to enjoy it too.

Either way, it's got to be better than watching the snooker....

Loveyouall.xx