So the eagerly anticipated and drastically overhauled X-Factor returned to our screens last night, but would it live up to all the hype?

With Simon, Cheryl and Dannii gone from the judging panel, the remaining Mr Beige a.k.a Louis Walsh is now joined by Kelly Rowland, Gary Barlow and Tulisa With No Surname.

Louis, Tulisa, Kelly and Gary

This opening episode certainly felt different. It featured far more talent than it did hapless delusionals. This would usually be a good thing, although I suspect most people would agree with me that the fun of the audition stages is laughing at the lunatics and seeing the judges’ bemused reactions.

Without Simon’s incredulous faces, Cheryl’s failed attempts to be tactful and Dannii’s pained expressions there was a lack of humour, despite the newbies obviously enjoying themselves. I didn’t even see Louis giggling helplessly at any point.

The most amusing contestant, 48 year old Goldie, a tai chi instructor, who had spent her backstage time vomiting and belching, hoped to be as big as Tina Turner.  She chose to sing Copper Bell, which turned out to mainly involve her chanting ‘ding dong’ whilst touching her boobs, grunting and rubbing herself up against the judges.

Gary spoke up (in his awful awful voice) to say he didn’t like it. Kelly wasn’t sure but new best friends Louis and Tulisa found her entertaining. They put her through.

Apart from her, most of the other featured contestants were fairly impressive. A cheeky, but refreshingly honest guy was first on. 18 year old Frankie wanted to become famous and ‘sleep with as many women as possible.’

Irritatingly, his rendition of Valerie wasn’t half bad and he sailed through, though not before bearing his bum to show us the names of seven girls tattooed on it. That’s class, that is. Kelly seemed to like him however, flirting with him…a lot, which I found annoying.

Next we met Kitty Brucknell, 26, who was in possession of a powerful voice and an intensely grating personality. She was put through to boot camp but none of the judges wanted to actually mentor her.

On the contrary, along came Northern Irish, Janet Devlin, 16, who was an absolute sweetheart. Shy and humble, she impressed everybody with a lovely and individual version of Elton John’s Your Song and deservingly got four ‘yes’s and a standing ovation from the audience.

Finally George Gerasimou exploded onto the stage, one member of the infamous group Triple Trouble who auditioned in 2009 ending in him throwing down his microphone and shouting at the judges. Making his return, George did a bit of grovelling and explained how he’d matured since then and worked on his music.

He then caterwauled his way through…well I can’t actually remember what the song was, I was too stunned by the “quality” of his voice. After leaping off the stage George wasn’t best pleased when Gary stopped the music and said they were ready to judge.

Things went from bad to worse when after some aggressive arguing he heard their verdict. Gary said he had ‘matured like bad curry’ and Louis agreed he had ‘zero likeability’, strangely prompting a torrent of abuse directed at Tulisa who he called ‘a scumbag’ and ‘a dog’, before being removed by security.

Surprisingly he didn’t get through.

And there it was, the first X Factor of 2011. It was okay I guess. The good singers were genuinely good and the George fiasco provided the drama.

But the judging panel is a bit of a let-down. Predictably Gary and Louis were rather dull. Kelly was fairly likeable save for her penchant for flirting. Apart from that she seems slightly on the serious side, dishing out pointless words of wisdom- ‘be true to yourself’- that sort of thing. Surprisingly, I warmed to Tulisa. She seemed eloquent but fun and handled herself well with George.

Maybe the judges just need a little time to get to know eachother and get to know their jobs. I hope so. I can’t help being a bit disappointed though. It seems X Factor has lost its X Factor.