Thursday, May 26, 2011

Should Cheryl Cole return to the UK X Factor?

With Cheryl Cole now ditched from the American X Factor, is there still a place for her on the UK version?

How quickly things change. Just eight days ago we were being told that Cheryl Cole, fresh off the plane to LA, had already become such hot property stateside that she'd caught the eye of Angelina Jolie and was being showered with more film roles than she knew what to do with.

But that's all over now. Maybe it was the accent, maybe it was the colossal hair, maybe it was the time she wore a dress that was quite similar to Paula Abdul's. Whatever the reason, Cheryl Cole's American X Factor dream is now officially in tatters.

This might not come as a surprise to anybody who saw the show's first real promo last week. While Simon Cowell effusively burbled on about the other judges, Cheryl was relegated to the briefest of wordless cameos, getting roughly the same amount of exposure as Aiden Grimshaw from last year's series. And when you're not even allowed more screentime than a boy whose USP was not being quite as good as Katie Waissel, the writing's on the wall.

But what now for Cheryl? Could Cole crawl back to British X Factor with her tail between her legs and reclaim her TV crown ? or should she move on to bigger and better things?

Right now the former seems like the cleverest option. Cheryl's departure from the American series might have temporarily thrown its judging panel into turmoil, but it's easily fixed. After all, America still has Simon Cowell and Paula Abdul reprising their much-loved American Idol double act, plus a proven starmaker in LA Reid ? and now possibly Nicole Scherzinger too, who filled in admirably during Cole's bout of malaria last year.

British X Factor, on the other hand, seems to be caught up in some kind of terminal death spiral. Simon's gone and Dannii's gone, and Louis Walsh has become the show's sole voice of authority by default, aided by the boring one from Take That and an N-Dub. That's plainly terrifying. Getting Cheryl to come back and shore up the judging panel over here could be the smartest move all round.

But maybe Cheryl is so furious about being dropped that she'll never return to X Factor, in any of its incarnations, again. She's still got her pop career, even though the bulk of that rested on her sole annual X Factor performance. And don't forget that she's still a remarkably good shampoo saleswoman. They'll never be able to take that away from her.

And, above all else, at least Cheryl can pride herself on the fact that she's still recognisably Cheryl. America couldn't change her accent or rehabilitate her attitude or botox her face into a nightmarish immobile deathmask. Compare that to the way that Sarah Harding has transformed herself into an RP-speaking Jessica Rabbit-alike just to present Dating In The Dark on Living and Cheryl's still got plenty to cling on to.

But what do you think? Should Cheryl come back and be a judge in this country, or should she cut her ties with Syco altogether? More importantly, do you even want her back? Your thoughts below, please.


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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2011/may/26/cheryl-cole-the-us-dream-is-over

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