X Factor Blog: Astro doesn’t want to sing?

What a shock of an elimination this week on X Factor. While the final result was predicted and deserved the bottom two was certainly not expected.

Before I get into the insanity that was the results tonight I feel it’s time to address something about one of the contestants…Leroy Bell, what is it that you are doing during those group performances? How hard is it to NOT miss your cues? Every other contestant is doing it fine, but twice now you have bollocksed it up! Disappointing Leroy, disappointing!

This weeks results finally had a decent celebrity performer on it. For all the Simon Cowell is touting this show to be the ultimate competition etc etc the celebrity performers so far have been a little lacklustre. Rihanna though is fitting of such a show (and considering she A)assisted during judges houses and B)has a new album coming out soon (though that is an occurrence that happens ever couple of months with her) it was a forgone conclusion we were going to see her perform) and I enjoyed her performance of her latest single…though I am still torn over the idea of an artist just singing over their track, it seems like she’s cheating a little…

The other irksome thing this week was the order that things were presented in. What on earth was up with the awkward and rushed announcement of the first two acts to make it through. The judges weren’t on stage and everyone had a “what the hell is going on?” look on their faces. Paula had to run onto the stage to hug Lakoda Rayne who made it through (thank goodness America, finally!), then we cut to an ad break, then to Rihanna’s performance, and then to the results proper with the introduction of the categories and the judges coming out on stage with them…it seemed a little lackluster after the advanced announcement of the first two acts going through.

The bottom three this week was the most tense moment so far. Rachel, Astro and Stacy were left on stage and it was a nail biting wait for Steve to announce the last person to go through. I did panic that Rachel was going to be in the bottom two, but Astro ended up there with Stacy. While Stacy was expected, and proved her place there with her truly truly awful rendition of Amazing Grace, Astro was a real surprise and I was sorry to see him there. He is a talented performer and did not deserve to be in that position. Unfortunately his age got the better of him. I worry he has cost himself a lot of votes in the future with his immature behavior and that whole “should I even perform?” schtick. It was childish and it nearly caused Simon to vote him out over Stacy. I truly hope we never see a carry on like that again from him.

In the end though it was three against one and Stacy Francis was sent packing. She never quite found her niche on the show alas as she was talented. I appreciated her parting words. I think she went out like a lady and I thought they were well thought out (she knew she was going from the judges comments the night before so had clearly practiced).

Next week we are treated to an X Factor staple, the double elimination. So whoever polls the lowest next week is outta there, no save me song, no chance of redemption. It will be interesting to see who goes bottom 3 as it’s been hard to pick crowd favourites this season. Bring on the excitement!