My other big TV pitch would be for a brand new talent show in which contestants wear motion/performance capture suits and do their piece away from the judges. Then, using visual effects and post-production techniques, contestants’ performances are giving a polish. Imagine the possibilities with magic acts – you’d outdo David Copperfield and Lance Burton something chronic. It’s not camera trickery/cheating – it’s an enhanced performance! The judges then base their opinions on the finished article, with the best contestant(s) and associated production team sent to boot camp. Winner gets to star in Avatar 2 as a talking plant.

Crap dancers can be made to dance like devils, dancing and singing dogs can really dance and sing (with the voice of Frank Sinatra), singers can look and sound like their idols, jugglers can juggle elephants, and so on. The possibilities are endless.

Yes, the M-Factor would be a TV ratings smash hit. Come on – this is Simon Cowell’s dream. Extremely polished “normal” people. I’d call the show, Britain’s Got the M-Factor. Sponsored by Jar-Jar Binks. And the beauty is that you could get two shows out of one. Given the tight fitting nature of the performance capture suits, you could also film Hole in the Wall at exactly the same time!

Update: X-Factor production admit to tweaking voices due to “the number of microphones used during recording”. Which seems utter bull to me, as we’ve never heard this sort of nonsense in previous series. Personally, I prefer my “interview” with the X-Factor sound engineer over the real one.

Watched X-Factor last night and found it very odd that ITV/Syco or whoever is in charge these days appear to be using an autotune/vocoder sound system to improve the voice of select contestants. A select number because we didn’t hear the system kick in for the G in G&S, and the Michael Jackson tribute bloke (who sounded like a wounded mouse).

So just why is ITV/Syco using such a system?

Well, if they’re going to be using autotune/vocoder/digital jiggery pokery – I’m going to enter my laptop for auditions next year. I’ll simply have a table set-up on stage, walk in carrying the laptop, set it on the table, press a button, sit on a chair next to the table and read a newspaper as the laptop starts singing in a Stephen Hawking monotone robot voice about the virtues of believing in life after love by that well known philosopher, Cher.

My laptop would have various advantages over human contestants. The first is that is has no emotion. No begging the X-Factor judges that it’s always wanted a pop career. No crying when told by Simon Cowell that it’s crap. The second advantage is that there is no accompanying sob story about how it’s RAM is a bit dodgy and it’s hard drives have been knocked about a lot by it’s owner. No sir, this is one loved laptop. And the laptop can probably dance better than most human contestants too. And is more photogenic. AND it can take direction.

Better still, let’s get enter of those fantastic Toyota/Hyundai humanoid robots AND a laptop as a group. A sure fire win.

Look out for X-Factor: Rise of the Machines next year.