Popular Reality TV

X Factor »     by Andy Dehnart / November 7, 2011, 7:19 AM The first results show for The X Factor continued the show’s tradition of plagiarizing heavily from American Idol by starting with a bad group number that was lip synced by the show’s contestants. Fox has admitted that the contestants lip sync group numbers and also use backing tracks for their live performances. (The UK version admitted auto-tuning its contestants’ performances ; Idol admitted to group performance lip syncing back in 2009.) On Thursday, group’s performance of “Without You” opened the show and was very obviously lip synced from the very start, well before LeRoy Bell forgot to raise the mic to his mouth when his track started, which means he’s getting unfair attention. Fox admitted that the contestants lip sync, telling TheWrap , “All survival songs are performed live, with just a backing track. For the group ensemble performance, the vocals are pre-recorded to allow acts to concentrate on preparing for thei...

In one hour—less than 45 minutes, really—Survivor burned through content that would normally fill two episodes. That’s because the old Ometepe tribe is picking off members of the Zapatera tribe one by one, and there was little drama or suspense about either vote. First Mike left, then David: two smart, strategic players, two obvious choices. There was no hope for them, despite David’s voting strategy: He wrote Rob’s name four times on the vote and added, “Please count this as four Robs.” Jeff Probst, buzzkill, refused. Despite having merged, Ometepe’s members are sticking together and staying loyal to their cult leader, Rob Mariano, who has fed them so much Kool-Aid they didn’t even eat fish the other tribe members caught. Their alliance, as we learned from a hilarious Phillip speech at the second Tribal Council, is called “Stealth ‘R’ Us,” which reminded me of the old Toys ‘R’ Us commercial song, which could describe this alliance: “I don’t want to grow up / I don’t want to play the ...