It seems like the whole world is getting sick and tired of the X Factor sob stories.

Leon Jackson springs to mind from tonight’s show. If he tells us that he is doing it for his mum one more time, I may have to get the next plane to Glasgow and slap him myself!

The Unreality TV forum has been buzzing this week with X Factor fans who wish the show was focused on the actual talent on display and not the dead fathers, brothers, uncles or dogs of the wannabes who show up in their thousands.

And it seems as though Unreality TV readers aren’t the only ones fed up with all the XF drama. Apexnemesis ranted on his blog:

I’m a single mum, i’m a single dad, i was adopted, i was in a violent relationship, I had a serious illness, my parents just died, i live in an area full of gangsters, i’m an asbestos remover etc booo hooo.

It’s more like a competition of who can cry the best rather than sing the best.

And the reasons they want to sing – I want to sell loads of records and be knighted by the queen, I want a better life for my kid, I want to do it for my dead parents to make them proud.

None of them want to do it simply because it’s in their hearts to be an artist and they all want the easy route – get someone else to write the songs and they’re just going to be a hired singer who gets all the glory.

Well put Apexnemesis! I love the X Factor. It is honestly the TV highlight of my year. But this series has made me wary and cynical. Much seems staged and much seems manufactured. This show should be about the singers and the songs. Producers take note!