X Factor (ITV1) & Xtra Factor (ITV2)

I must make it clear at the start that I do not actively seek out to watch X Factor, Helen does, but I also don't actively block it out like I do the soaps.

This week saw the final week of auditions, aka the weeks with idiots who can't sing so we can laugh at them edited around the idiots who can sing pretty well that will make the final. This is usually the period of X Factor's painfully epic run (it's on for almost 4 months) that is most entertaining, but this year it has failed. Instead of the usual crazies this year we were treated to nothing more than tone deaf idiots, each ones appallingness so blatantly obvious from the moment the camera cuts to them. And there's still 10 weeks of live shows where you get to watch the same mediocre singers perform lazy covers, a stretch that truly tests your patience as after 2 weeks you know the act that will have a pop career afterwards, but you have to watch them be whittled down only for the one with the closest approximation of talent to be beaten at the last by someone remarkably bland.

Xtra Factor is the hour long "behind the scenes" show that follows straight after on ITV2. This used to be the best part of the whole sorry affair as you could stare at Holly Willoughby's cleavage for an hour, but she's left now to be replaced by Mrs Charlie Brooker herself, the terrible Konnie Huq. I'm convinced the only way she gets work is by auditioning for the same jobs as June Sarpong.

Both of these shows were actually diverting in previous years I've had to sit through it, but this year even Simon Cowel seems to have realised it's run it's course.