There was a moment in last week’s semi-final when it looked like The X Factor was about to come off the tracks. There are supposed to be tears but, when Diana Vickers was eliminated, it wasn’t hers that were flowing but those of her fellow competitor Eoghan Quigg. He was inconsolable – shaking, sobbing, not wanting to let her go.

The X Factor doesn’t welcome such real-life intrusions. It manipulates whatever drama occurs during the four months of its annual tenure of ITV’s primetime Saturday night. The hard-luck stories are as rigorously storylined as any soap opera’s. The early stages feature plenty of guttural pleading sessions with the judges, after contestants have massacred Wind Beneath My Wings (“Oh Simon, please, please, Simon”).

These are weeks in which viewers snicker as the deluded and out-of-tune are disparaged by the judges Simon Cowell, Louis Walsh, Dannii Minogue and – for the first time – Cheryl Cole. She has become the show’s star, leading to rumours of tension: Minogue has admitted that she did feel “snubbed” that Cowell sat next to Cole and not her.

There were also rumours of orgies at “boot camp”, the second phase in which those with moderately good voices and colourful stories are sieved down to the 12 studio finalists. This year they included a heart-throb who could not stop weeping, a man who had lost his wife and a mother getting over drug addiction who disagreed with her mentor, Minogue, over her song choices. The final three are Alexandra Burke, who should win and go on to attain the stardom of Leona Lewis (winner in 2006); JLS, the boyband that tunelessly bounces around the stage; and Quigg, with his wild hair and babyish looks. Whoever wins is likely to be the Christmas No 1.

Cowell has already backed Burke to win, but this season has been more about Cole and crying. Her rehabilitation has taken her from pouty pop singer who punched a nightclub attendant and married the “love-cheat Ashley Cole” to national treasure. Her empathy with contestants is clear. Her tears began almost as soon as the auditions started. The final dawns with a flurry of stories – Cowell has said it is likely that Minogue will stay, JLS have sent Gordon Brown a present – but it’s all about the judges. The big question is, will Cole leave the stage without a stiletto in her back?

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