Thumbs Down: The Emmy Awards

Wow, this was dreadful from start almost fully to finish. Ryan Seacrest by default wins the award for least interesting host. Honestly, if he was not there, would anyone have even noticed? I hardly cared that my Fox reception started cutting out sound during some of his earlier monlogues and wholly unnecessary costume changes. Blah. I feel like this year more than ever viewers were assaulted with pairings of new fall stars and joking advertisements of their shows (the worst of which was Jimmy Smits and Kate Walsh). The presenters were hardly amusing, and only a few were even memorable. Was the whole "Don't Forget the Lyrics" scene really needed? One joke, sure, but a whole five minutes wasted? They could have capped the show on time at three hours. And what a shock: "The Sopranos" won. Who could have expected that after they had a tribute to the series in the middle of the Emmy broadcast?

The good: Unfortunately, very few moments, in no particular order.
1) "30 Rock" winning Best Comedy Series for its stellar selection of episodes, and Tina Fey thanking the "dozens of viewers" for watching the show.
2) Terry O'Quinn, wearing a pink shirt, winning and being genuinely happy about it.
3) Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert keeping us laughing at least for a moment (see below for the following moment).
4) Same thing with Ellen DeGeneres. Too short though.
5) The "Office" montage with the cast members saying how they hate Steve Carrell, basically.

The bad:
1) "The Office" loses out in every category except for the inexplicably loved "Gay Witch Hunt" episode.
2) Jaime Pressly beats out Jenna Fischer for the Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series trophy. I, for one, am not jumping for Joy.
3) Helen Mirren presenting the Best Drama Series award and trying to seem really cool about it. Who cares? Does this woman need to dominate everything?
4) Katherine Heigl winning an Emmy for her poor performance in her episode over some spectacular "Sopranos" ladies. Maybe Emmy voters watched "Knocked Up" instead and neglected to screen her episode.
5) "Longford" missing out in its three categories. It is so good. Rent it on DVD.

The ugly:
1) Sally Field's speech. The corniest thing I have ever heard. And she sucked in her episode.
2) James Spader winning another Emmy for his tired performance in "Angel of Death". Enough already. Give it to House even, I don't care!
3) Thomas Haden Church's speech. What was that guy talking about?
4) Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert calling up Emmy loser Steve Carrell after winner Ricky Gervais was not in the house. How does that work? He lost the award! Well, I guess he deserved it so at least he got to on stage.
5) Lewis Black's rant about putting ads for other shows on the bottom of the screen. Too out-of-place and harsh, and overdone about a minute in. The CNN crawl thing was totally unfounded and unrelated, and the lame joke at the end was completely predictable.

As far as my predictions went, I came in with an embarassing 7/31 or 22.6%. The one positive about those stats is that this is the second consecutive year that I have correctly predicted both Best Drama Series and Best Comedy Series. I am very angry because I feel that most of this year's wins were so terrible (Sally Field, James Spader) and undeserved (Jaime Pressly, Ricky Gervais) and that the show as a whole did nothing to enhance the lame awards ceremony. I guess I was still hooked on the excitement of this past year's Oscar ceremony, which was a terrific show complete with great winners. In any case, I can honestly say that I am officially not excited for next year's Emmy awards after two disappointing shows in a row with repetitive and underserving winners. I will say that I think I will enjoy the Golden Globes, which like to think a bit more outside the box, honoring fare like "Nip/Tuck" and the like.

I really do hope that Steve Carrell, Kyra Sedgwick, Minnie Driver, Rainn Wilson, and Jenna Fischer (not to mention snubbed Eddie Izzard, John Krasinski, Jane Krakowski, and Michael C. Hall) eventually get their due. I am never a fan of too-late recognition (see "24" and Kiefer winning last year), but right now, count me in.

At this point, I will move in to a much more exciting prospect: the fall TV pilots. Check back over the next few weeks for reviews of all the new network pilots, which will hopefully prove more exciting and inventive than this year's Emmy Awards.