Time To Nuke Luke?

Nov 29, 2013 by Rob

It’s back to a Strictly overlap this week, Strictly not finishing until 8.15pm, so trap 1 is going to miss out on some valuable audience at least for his or her first song. Tamera in trap 1 might be a warning sign for her, but trap 2 probably more so.

Whoever kicks things off this week, our money would be on Rough Copy getting this week’s pimp slot, and have taken the 3-1 with Bwin for this to happen. The thinking goes, given the way this show operates, they are very likely lined up for maximum pimpage to try and ensure they bounce, and the show achieves its objective of getting them to the final 4.

Outside of Rough Copy, the 2 who look most likely to be in danger of the bottom 2 are Luke, coming back down off a bounce – a bounce potentially inflated by One Direction fans – and Tamera, possibly without the aid of sympathy, assuming she gets through her 2 songs unscathed this week.

Luke looks to have a song choice in Mumford & Sons’ ‘I Will Wait’ that will suit his busker style but might it be a rather dull tune for X Factor’s younger voters, who likely boosted his pv the week before? While there’s no denying Mumford & Sons huge popularity the cool kids would be the ones who like their skiffle band shtick, and the cool kids arguably aren’t the types to be voting on X Factor.

Nick also has a suitable choice in Take That’s ‘Greatest Day’ in the sense it plays to his MOR strengths. Bobby Brown’s Every Little Step in a medley with R Kelly’s ‘She’s Got That Vibe’ sees Rough Copy go the full R&B this week. ‘Back to doing what you do best,’ ‘A gap in the market for a group like you,’ ‘Well done guys, your best performance of the series.’ And repeat.

Sam B trying to pull off a more uptempo Whitney song in ‘How Will I Know’ could easily come across as a drunk wife at a karaoke bar getting carried away, but in terms of her older demo, it shouldn’t damage her too much.

‘We Found Love’ will see Tamera try and get her Rihanna groove on. You have to be confident she will be able to remember the chorus:

We found love in a hopeless place
We found love in a hopeless place
We found love in a hopeless place
We found love in a hopeless place

It’s the verses you have to worry about:

Yellow diamonds in the light
Now we’re standing side by side
As your shadow crosses mine
What it takes to come alive

It’s the way I’m feeling I just can’t deny
But I’ve gotta let it go

That’s a full 6 lines and will test Tamera’s habit of memory loss under pressure. It’s a suitably modern R&B song for her, and there is room for big Tamera redemption this week. Probably more so if she gets to perform the Roberta Flack classic as her second song choice, and properly nails it. But if the judges merely offer up mild praise x 2, that will probably ensure she is bottom 2.

The second song choice for each contestant will be decided by viewers and revealed tomorrow night. We might expect a young voter bias with these choices.

Intuition says Rough Copy were bottom of the public vote last week so they are going to have to jump ahead of 2 other contestants to escape the bottom 2. No easy task and they certainly won’t be getting the mega-bounce James Arthur enjoyed at the last 5 stage last year.

Nick’s treatment series-long can be viewed as mainly vote-dampening – last week being a case in point when he was in trap 1 and invited to be a Joe McElderry clone. But you sense Nick’s MOR appeal still makes him a tough nut to crack in terms of dragging him into the bottom 2 at this stage and we know from the Daily Star he has still managed to top the vote twice.

It looks a week to keep pre-show investments to a minimum as there are simply too many unknown variables at play. Even with the show’s ramping there is no guarantee Rough Copy will escape the bottom 2. Making them more urban is a potential vote-loser and the show’s first objective will likely be to at least ensure they are not bottom of this week’s public vote so there is the opportunity to save them via deadlock.

The big question is, if Tamera lands bottom 2 will they decide to vote her off the show? The simple answer is: we don’t know, which is another reason why this week’s episode goes on the ‘too difficult’ pile, at least pre-show.

We come back to any 2 from 3 out of Tamera, Luke and Rough Copy. Prior to Tamera’s meltdown last week, the view here was Luke was being lined up to be eliminated this week in a sing-off, most likely vs Tamera. Given this may well still be the plan, and the fact Luke would likely lose a sing-off against Rough Copy, the advice here is to back Luke to be eliminated at 7-4 with Boylesports.