I have an unusually high tolerance for award show corn - at least in the "big shows" (Oscar, Grammy, Emmy, Golden Globe). It seems to me that most people are not really enjoying themselves watching one of these shows unless they can bitch about how long and boring they are - but my view always is that most of what people don't like *is* the show - if you don't like that stuff, don't watch it.
I think tonight's show was different. My subject header does not mean that tonight's Emmy's were horribly bad, just that they were genuinely bad. People who always hate the Emmys will of course hate this show, but my point here is that even people who usually like the Emmys will probably not like it (at least, this person like that did not). This WaPo article, by Hank Stuever, captures 99.9% of my thoughts and feelings about the broadcast: http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/tv/the-2013-emmys-self-mocking-humor-doesnt-rescue-a-boring-show/2013/09/22/6ceccbe6-23d7-11e3-ad0d-b7c8d2a594b9_story_1.html. The only exception: Unlike Stuever, I thought Kevin Spacey's bit was one of the five entertaining pieces of business of the night. The others: Merritt Wever's, Julia Louis-Dreyfus', Stephen Colbert's and Steven Levitan's acceptance speeches. Which just goes to show my main general complaint about these shows - the obsession with making sure they don't go long has drained most of the real entertainment and spontaneity from them. They drowned speakers in a sea of their own show's theme music just as anyone threatened to say anything mildly interesting. NPH is generally likable, but he came across as really flat and, frankly, self-involved tonight. He obviously felt self-conscious about possible over-exposure, but playing off of that so much is off-putting, as it assumes the audience cares, or is even aware, of what he has done in the past as much as he and his friends obviously are. A lot less self-reference would have gone a long way; and if you are afraid your song and dance numbers are getting long in the tooth, try actually doing something fresh, rather than a lame pseudo-meta piece. The VIP Obit pieces were less of an issue than promised - not least because people like Jack Klugman maybe wound up being the lucky ones to have been left out. I think I appreciated Rob Reiner's the most, and Jane Lynch made me less irritated with Monteith being included. But the rest seemed to be about as awkward as I guess the thing actually is. The actual winners show again how, even in award show terms, the Emmys are practically irrelevant (I think a Golden Globe might mean more these days than an Emmy). Either shows and actors win three and four times for basically the same thing over and over (its kind of like if the Godfather and Marlon Brando kept winning the Best Picture and Actor Oscar because the film was exhibited for money in some theatre, somewhere in the US every year). Or, someone with a really good publicist or incriminating photos pull an Emmy out of their ass (yes, I mean you Bobby Cannavale and Jeff Daniels). -- -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
