You know how people refer to someone who is no longer in their lives? They say "My EX - this" or "My EX that". Simon Cowell will soon be saying - "My EX show the X Factor"

If X marks the spot the only spot that this show marked is where Fox will have a blank time slot soon. My cat makes a more exciting spot in her kitty litter box, although both the show and the cat spot have about the same odor.

How is this different from American Idol or America's Got Talent? The Voice?

There is a vast difference. This is is worse! It's more boring, seems longer, more tedious and the talent is hopelessly MIA. OK, so the first girl 13-year-old Rachel Crow  was EXCELLENT.  Then there was 42-year-old Stacy Francis who definitely brought her "A" game.  From then on it was all downhill.  We won't even mention the guy who made Paula walk off the set.  Why talk about insignificant little things?

Absent are the witticisms, the tension between judges, the brightness of the contestant. In AI it was always fun to see the new contestants sing a capella in their first audition, because that's where the real personality often came out.  Not here. The canned music seems to detract, not add. Gone is the fabled "Golden Ticket to Hollywood", gone are the pre and post blurbs from the contestants - heck, we even miss Ryan Seacrest, although not sure why. Steve Jones does a marginal job in that role.

If money changes people it has sure changed Simon who is but a mere shadow of how he began in AI years ago. The uber zillionaire's new sandbox is just no fun, and the kids he invited to play with him all lack the "X Factor" that makes people stand up and listen. Even Perky Paula has lost a lot of her charm, so what's left is a cheap imitation of what used to be a good show.  The other judges seem to follow each other's lead at times, a clear case of the bland leading the bland. What's with switching Cheryl Cole for Pussycat Dolls veteran Nicole Scherzinger in the middle of the show?  And who is A. J. Reid anyway?

TV has a voracious appetite and voraciously we answer it. But the X Factor just doesn't fill the hunger for the need to be dazzled, amazed or stupefied. In the new season of TV where extraordinary is the norm, this X just doesn't factor in.