A helicopter each and some dramatic flames reminiscent of the Hear'say fart-set-on-fire from the Pure and Simple video, and the X Factor is back with its brand new set of judges. Apart from Louis, actually. Louis' still kicking about. He always is. Anyway, what we're trying to say is that the X shaped void in our Saturday night has been re-filled, and it's new ingredients - Tulisa, Kelly and Gary - have gone down a treat. For the first time ever, we are pleasantly surprised and, get this, HAPPY.

Who'd have thought, eh?

The Next Generation of X Factor made its TV debut last night and we loved every minute of it. Apart from the adverts, and all the boring bits about the contestants' lives, and the token public humiliation of a mentalist, and the rest of the adverts. But yeah, apart from that, we loved it.

Alright, we missed Simon - we'll always miss Simon - but we didn't miss Cheryl. And we certainly didn't miss Dannii. The whole show was refreshing, like taking a nice, cool shower, or switching from semi-skimmed to full-fat milk for a change. And you always know you enjoyed a TV show when you can compare it to changes in milk-drinking habits.

The new judging panel were a treat. Kelly Rowland put on an Irish accent and said things like "if you can't take the heat then you need to get out of the kitchen", Gary Barlow stuck with his own monotone accent but kept us awake with lines like "things mature nicely like a red wine or a cheese, but you've matured like a bad curry, mate", and Tulisa got off her seat prepared to slap a mouthy auditionee square in the face. Louis was similarly amazing, but that's a given, really.

In terms of the contestants, we didn't get the hype for Frankie 'cheeky chappy' Cocozza (average voice, abominable personality), Roxy was the most impressive and deserved more airtime, while Janet Devlin, aka the love child of Ellie Goulding and Diana Vickers, has clearly already been picked for the live finals, but we did like it when she sang the word 'life' as 'loife'. As for Kitty Brucknell ...

We're struggling to pick a highlight between Goldie vomiting into a Morrisons bag and Dermot stepping in and playing the knight in shining armour - "watch your mouth, don't call girls that" - but we think The Dermotologist just edges it.

Roll on next week, it'll be Christmas before we know it.