According to the X Factor's premise, it is a 'television music competition to find new singing talent'. It has always been the case since it first hit our screens that if you wanted a sure-fire route to pop stardom, then a turn on the X Factor is what is required. On Sunday night the boundaries were shifted and could this have an irreparable effect on what the show is trying to achieve?
It seems that Stevi Ritchie is the living definition of guilty pleasure and whilst you will struggle to find someone to admit to voting for him, there are evidently thousands that are and it seems that the views of the judges have shifted too.
The problem is that this TV singing competition is now voting to keep the one act in the show that can't sing. They say that practice makes perfect but will there be enough weeks of X Factor left for Stevi to get there. The good news for him though is that he is a thoroughly nice person, a showman and gives everything in each performance and it seems that is now more important than the voice.
When Paul Akister was ousted from the competition, his mentor Mel B was spitting feathers and bemoaning the fact that this should be judged on singing ability, the recording voice and that there is no room for joke acts that she just doesn't 'get'.
This week, all of a sudden, she does 'get' Stevi's shtick and though Jay James was lighter than beige with his performances, it seems that his ability to sing counts for nothing.
Cheryl Fernandez-Versini also boarded the Stevi bandwagon and you were left wondering, is this some kind of Simon Cowell stitch up?
Sending the vote to deadlock and letting the public decide was always going to end Jay James' time in the competition as we all love Stevi but for Mel and Cheryl to oust Jay was a great way to protect their own acts from a superior singer.
So it seems that there was either a conspiracy to engineer a better path to the final for Andrea Faustini and Lauren Platt or the competition has become a watered down version of Britain's Got Talent and as long as you put on a show, what it sounds like can be glossed over.
It doesn't really send the right message to Andrea and Lauren about their mentor's belief in them to beat all comers to the title, if tactical voting is going to come in to play, as they both have the voice and personality to see them through regardless of who they are up against.
As for Stevi, he now has the opportunity to go all the way as the barriers have been pushed over and he now should capitalise on this with bigger and better performances. At the end of the day, this is what Mel and Cheryl are saying that that public want to see and the one thing that is guaranteed from Stevi is that he can put on a show.