David Kronke was appointed Mayor of Television after a bloodless coup in 2000. Since then, he has improved infrastructure, championed greater educational opportunities and fought for reforms that have utterly erased corruption and incompetence from the television industry. Since Mr. Kronke has ascended to power, Television is a far better place. Emmys: Ryan Seacrest doesn't screw up! (Well, much)
What Radar magazine declared the “Summer of ‘Meh’” ended appropriately, with a shrug of an Emmy ceremony.
The 59th Emmy Ceremony was billed as the “greenest ever.” They meant in terms of its environmental footprint, but it also would’ve worked in terms of some amateurish production work.
Host Ryan Seacrest wasn’t awful (though his interaction with the “Desperate Housewives” cast was pretty cringe-inducing, his appearance in a costume from “The Tudors” was pointless and Sally Field fairly frowned when he referred to her as “a legend”), mainly because the producers didn’t give him enough to do to affect the broadcast. He even had a couple of funny lines, shots at Jeremy Piven’s womanizing and “Kid Nation’s” child-labor practices. But unlike past hosts, you never had the impression he was clever enough to have thought those jokes up himself.
Clearly, the decision to stage the ceremony in the round was one that was profoundly unpopular in the Shrine Auditorium itself. It meant that half the audience had to watch the back of the action. A number of presenters, including Ray Romano and Stanley Tucci, commented on the discomfort, but an actual winner – “Boston Legal’s” James Spader – let it be known that going home with a trophy didn’t change his opinion of the setup. “I’ve been to thousands and thousands of concerts in my life,” he declared, “and I can tell you these are the worst seats I’ve ever had.”
Glitches, too: Ray Romano and Sally Field were ham-handedly censored (Romano for a pretty minor offense, it would seem), music and announcer cues were spotty and, when the producers of “The Amazing Race” were taking the stage to accept their fifth consecutive Emmy, all that could be heard was a confusion of wild sound, production room or auditorium banter.
As usual, a couple of the funniest moments came during the list of nominees for the Writing for a Variety/Music/Comedy show films listing each of the shows’ writers.
“The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” played its list of names over a montage of Alberto Gonzales saying “I don’t recall” during Congressional testimony. “Real Time with Bill Maher’s” list was recited as the memory of Senator Larry Craig was evoked – all we saw were feet tapping – and doing much more – beneath men’s room doors, before Maher exited the final stall and shot some breath spray in his mouth.
The rest of the comedy was, well, “meh.” The “Family Guy” musical number wasn’t bad, but really pulled its punches by that show’s standards. Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert’s bit on the greening of awards shows – “If entertainers stop publicly congratulating one another, then the earth wins!” Colbert barked – wasn’t as sharp as their routine last year.
As for the awards themselves, well, “The Sopranos” did win, but James Gandolfini and Edie Falco got robbed, and not because Emmy was honoring fresh blood – both James Spader and Sally Field, who beat the favorites, have won three Emmys. And even Tina Fey seemed to recognize that her “30 Rock” win had eerie echoes of “Arrested Development’s” triumph and tragedy.
Lame speeches, too, except for bits of Sally Field’s (the bit we didn’t hear, natch) and Katherine Heigl’s (though her mom was right – she probably didn’t deserve to win).
And we’ll all have forgotten about most of this by Tuesday.
Comments
I, too, thought the noise was strange when "Amazing Race" won, but then realized they were playing a clip from the show on the sceen (above the stage) of the contestants arguing with each other in taxis (a bad choice for clips, should have gone with an action clip and not a chatter clip).
Posted by: RD in Texas | September 17, 2007 7:01 AM