Well, after dragging the story out for what seemed like forever, Ronnie found out that Danielle was her daughter, only for her to be run over and killed a few seconds later. No doubt the Eastenders writers thought they were being smart and clever, making this storyline lead to some Shakesperian tragedy. But the truth is, soap watchers invested their time in seeing this develop. Danielle may have just been a plot device to them, and a prop for the character of Ronnie. But to many viewers, this one included, Danielle wasn’t a prop - she was a lovely character who had a bucket of shit tipped her on at every turn by these sadistic writers. And in their final slap in the face to Danielle and the viewers who followed her, she was allowed just a second of happiness - the briefest of smiles as Ronnie finally acknowledged her as her own daughter - being before being run over. They couldn’t bear to allow viewers the happy reunion they had been waiting for.

And so we carry on now but next time Eastenders tries an involving storyline, just remember not to care too much because these writers won’t respect how much you like the characters and get to know them - they’ll kill them off in whatever silly, absurd “twist” that gets their rocks off for them.

At the end of the “reveal” episode, they ran a helpline for those affected by the issues in the program. I wonder if there was a rush of calls from people who also had their adopted kids run over in front of them.

Oh, and since then, Peggy has gone from the council candidate spouting “family values” to gangster matriach, demanding Phil murder Archie and then furiously chucking him out for not doing it. More absurd writing from the Eastenders team, just to prove that their cock up in killing Danielle wasn’t a fluke - they are serially in-ept.

What do you think of the choice of Matt Smith as the new Doctor Who? Post your comments below…

Later on in the show, Simon said that Alexandra hadn’t had many breaks in her life which was a bit odd because she’s the daughter of a former hit recording artist, so this isn’t much of a rags to riches tale, but I guess you’d have to say she was a worthy winner although really I wanted JLS to win. I hope they aren’t made to wait a year before they release some material. Holly Willoughby asked Louis to make sure they don’t just do ballads on Xtra Factor and he replied ominously “Ballads sell records”. Eugh, let’s hope JLS have some creative influence in it!

Next week is Best Of British… here’s my predictions of what songs they might sing, just for fun:

• Eoghan - Careless Whisper (George Michael)
• Ruth - Daniel (Elton John)
• JLS - Back for Good (Take That)
• Daniel - Sex Bomb (Tom Jones)
• Rachel - Son Of A Preacher Man (Dusty Springfield)
• Diana - Thank You (Dido)
• Alexandra - Diamonds Are Forever (Shirley Bassey)

What do you think they might do?

Daniel continues to get a load of stick from the judges, but this week I thought he was actually pretty good.  Simon said it was “arguably the worst performance” they’ve ever had on the show. His favourite word seems to be”arguably”- I’d say he’s arguably talking rubbish. Perhaps he is so over the top in his criticisms because he knows the game by now and that people will vote to keep the underdog. It’s a TV show after all and Daniel’s story has better narrative than most.

After Austin’s performance, Simon said he hoped he stayed in. Interesting comment and I wondered if he was attempting to lead the viewers because he raised the prospect that Austin wouldn’t be back, and guess what, he won’t!

Alexandra, Laura, Diana and JLS were fantastic. Notice also that Will Young sounded as good live as he does on the radio. Compare that with Girls Aloud when they performed live!

An edgy comedian pushing the limits sometimes needs to be reined in but I don’t think that in itself damages the BBC’s credibility. What does do enormous damage to the BBC’s credibility is when serious programming - such as the Election night coverage - reduced to an absolute joke by Jeremy Vine and the computer graphics department with cringemaking displays that embarrass us all. So on the topic of apologising, Mr Vine, how about you say sorry for making the once might Beeb look absurd with your awful election night performance?

Just in case you missed it…

First up was Scott who soundd much too boyish to credibly perform “That’s Life”. Daniel was as flat as we’ve come to expect. Laura has that super powerful voice, but it was almost like a wall of noise and I couldn’t discern much of a melody which didn’t make it an enjoyable performance for me. Eoghan got rave reviews from the judges, but to me he sounded blooming awful. Duff notes a plenty in there, but maybe I’m wrong? Alexandra was great and looked amazing although the song wasn’t one that I was familiar with. JLS, Diana and Rachel all delivered the good though.

When it got to the results show, all the finalists (with the exception of Daniel and Ruth who were apparently locked behind a jammed door) performed their charity song, Hero. I say performed but don’t infer from that that they were singing, because it was clearly obviously mimed. A bit  embarrassing really that they weren’t singing it live.

The final two were Scott and Daniel. To be honest, I thought Daniel murdered the song and seems to trade a little too much on the backstory, but it was a believable performance maybe Scott was just going through the motions as Louis said. So, a severely gutted Scott was sent home. He was dumbstruck and had nothing to say until suddenly changing his mind.  At that point, I thought he was going to go bananas and slate everyone on there but he thanked his friends from Pontins. Maybe he was rueing the fact he didn’t have someone to dedicate a song too.

The result perhaps added a sad and cynical tinge to what was an otherwise excellent night of entertainment.

What did you think? Who had the X Factor for you??

Diana Vickers was brilliant and brings something very different to the competition. She reminds me a bit of Will Young in that she might not be the best singer in the sense of being able to do the huge Celine Dion numbers etc, but she can brilliantly give her own interpretation to a track and make it spell binding. She’s probably my favourite to win at this point.

And then there was Ruth, who I thought was pretty good earlier on but ended up in the final two with Girlband. I wouldn’t be surprised if Simon’s negative comments earlier swayed the vote against her. But then she knocked it out of the park with an awesome rendition of “Purple Rain”. Maybe the best peformance of the live shows so far but Simon didn’t have the grace to admit it and was again spouting off about the lack of Spanish and forced it to deadlock instead of doing the right thing and sending Girlband packing although I imagine he knew the public vote results anyway.