Story by Jonathan Storm / MCT
I’m not supposed to spoil your viewing experience by telling you what happens on the first two-hour episode of the TV season’s biggest new series, “The X Factor,” which airs at 8 p.m. EDT Wednesday on Fox.
But even Simon Cowell would like you to believe it’s totally different from “American Idol.”
Eighty jillion people line up to be the next big star.
A few of them make it through to be seen by the four judges who try to inject some of their personality into the equation.
Some of the performers are ridiculous, some are pretty good, and one or two rip your heart out of your chest and make you cry.
By now, you know if you have what it takes to sit through hours every week of the caterwauling, the frequently forced judges’ bickering, the overblown sound and visuals, the audience’s enigmatic voting patterns, and the annoying host’s hype to get to those powerful moments.
About 50 million people a week still do, if you add the viewership for the show’s two nights, making “Idol” TV’s No. 1 show eight years in a row.
“The X Factor” is different as follows: The contestants can be as young as 12, and there is no upper age limit; additionally, there’s a category for groups.
Auditions, which make up the show’s first four hours this week, take place before big audiences in big arenas in Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, Miami, Newark, N.J., and Seattle.
About 90 winners go to a “boot camp,” where they train and perform under the tutelage of the judges, as the field is winnowed.
Eventually, there’s a series of live competitions, just like “Idol,” and the TV audience narrows the field until there is one winner.
And instead of having big Coca-Cola cups from which to drink their sodas while the grueling judging drags on and on, Cowell, Abdul, big-time record exec L.A. Reid and former Pussycat Dolls lead singer Nicole Scherzinger will sip from Pepsi cups.
The winner will perform in a Pepsi ad in the Super Bowl and snag a $5 million recording contract.
“The winner is guaranteed to walk away with $5 million in cash,” Cowell told TV critics at their annual meeting in Los Angeles this summer.
In a medium where people rarely have a clue what will succeed or fail, “X Factor” is perhaps the most obvious TV hit ever developed. Las Vegas would go broke offering gambles like that.
There’s another “X Factor” certainty: For the next three months, the only way to avoid the blaring discussion of the show and its judges and contestants (some in Wednesday’s two-hour premiere are truly marvelous) is to move out of the United States.
But be careful where you land. “The X Factor” is already a hit in more than 30 countries from Australia to Kazakstan.