The X Factor, seventh live show, review Tonight was the night that X Factor ate itself. To celebrate a whole decade of frittering our Saturday nights away in front the show, this year's finalists performed hits by previous winners and were "mentored" during the week by the likes of Shayne Ward, Leona Lewis and Little Mix, who all took time out from their hectic schedules of provincial Christmas light switch-ons to dispense some suitably soundbitey nuggets of wisdom to the people who want to steal their careers. The good news is, the show's first ever winner, Steve Brookstein was notable by his absence - like most of the British public, he was probably busy watching Dr Who instead. The bad news is, we were subjected to one of the weakest live shows of the series so far; a little disappointing since at this stage of the competition and with Sam Callahan finally a distant memory, standards ought to be a little higher. Star booking Olly Murs set the tone by opening the show with some forgettable song or other, and then Nicholas "He's like a little Louis Walsh" McDonald performed some other equally forgettable song or other (OK, it was Joe McElderry's The Climb, originally released by Miley Cyrus while her tongue was still stored in her mouth). Hannah Barrett briefly perked things up with her bubbly personality and an impressive rendition of Hallelujah - the much-covered song that Alexandra Burke claimed as her own, safe in the knowledge that Leonard Cohen probably prefers Dr Who too. Token vaguely rocky type Luke Friend was pretty decent too, as he put his throaty vocals to a One Direction song, and may well, as Sharon Osbourne suggested, be the "dark horse" of the show, but likeable trio Rough Copy were a little less fun and infectious than usual as they covered Little Mix covering En Vogue. In a rather obvious act of favouritism, Sam Bailey was given the best-known and most powerful X Factor winners' song - Leona Lewis's Bleeding Love - and closed the show in her typically flawless, but slightly boring, style. Thankfully, there was a little bit of drama during an otherwise mediocre night of light entertainment. Tamera Foster is gorgeous and has a great voice but she isn't so hot at the whole remembering the lyrics part of being a pop sensation, which is pretty important since even lip-syncers need to at least look like they know the words. Not for the first time, she screwed up royally, didn't look particularly remorseful about it, and therefore definitely deserves to go home tomorrow night. "She's only 16!" shrieked Nicole Scherzinger repeatedly. But so what? Toddlers know all the words to What Does The Fox Say, so Tamera ought to be able to tackle a James Arthur song. There will be some sort of fleeting national outcry if the judges keep her in over any of the acts who did bother to put the hours in. There's simply no other option - perhaps she can come back next year when she's learned that "you" rhymes with "true."