Techtite's TV Reviews!

"Everybody who deserved a win did, but the Emmys need to realize that when it comes to live TV, less isn't always more."

---from the review

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May We Quote You? Here's some random quotes of the evening worth repeating:

---“Next to the Oscars, the Golden Globes, the People’s Choice and the Grammys, [the Emmys] are TV’s biggest night!” (Conan O'Brien as Presenter)

---“I’d like to thank the Academy, and I’d like to thank my mother…and I’d like to thank my mother again, because I forgot to thank her last year.” (James Spader, accepting as Best Actor, in a Drama)

--- “All year long they’ve been asking us, ‘do you think now that your show is going that this means the end of [sitcoms]? ’…and I want to say…yes. I also think that beyond that it’s the end of laughing, and soon, the end of smiling.” ---(Philip Rosenthal, producer, Everybody Loves Raymond, which won for its final season on the air).

The 57th Prime Time Emmy Awards (2005)

A Techtite Review

Not so good, not so bad. That’s the 2005 Emmy awards in general. I guess the same can be said of the season this awards show commemorates, so who can complain? Still, one has to hand it to an awards show that included at least two political rants, at least three “dark horses” winning their races, and the obligatory outlandish acceptance speech, yet at no point did the awards show seem overbearing, pompous, arrogant, and for that matter...well...all too exciting.

Not that it’s Ellen’s fault. For whatever reason Ellen DeGeneres was “host” only in the most casual terms. Her opening monologue played second fiddle to a song by Black Eyed Peas. That was hardly insulting though; what was insulting, was how Ellen was barely seen in between awards, with cartoon clips shown instead...and what's more; the cartoon was Family Guy. Whether or not you’re a Family Guy fan is immaterial. Cartoon clips in between major award presentations spoiled the whole mood. As if to add insult to injury; the jokes these cartoons told weren't that funny. Ellen played second fiddle to cartoons so we could hear a dated 1990's joke about Arsenio Hall? How embarrassing! So sorry, Ellen.

If only an occasional cartoon clip was the only err this year. An apparent audio glitch led to many awards offered without any music in the background, which may seem rather minor, but the nonmusical silence was rather deafening. If this was indeed an audio glitch, it may also explain why some award speeches were cut embarrassingly short when loud music cued time running out...while other speeches were allowed to ramble for many minutes. However, it's not that I'm saying live TV is a picnic. I can understand the difficulty to keep a live telecast running smoothly, so let's just move on.

To be fair: there were some highlights this evening. A tribute to Peter Jennings was hosted by Tom Brokaw and Dan Rather, showing how they may have been on opposing networks, and yet they still respected one another as news journalists. It’s a shame that for whatever reason, a similar honor couldn’t be given to Johnny Carson, who got a nice enough memoriam hosted by David Letterman, yet no other talk show hosts were present. Given how Jennings’ “rivals” were able to stand together in a memoriam for him, it’s a shame that Leno, Letterman, and Conan couldn’t do the same for Johnny.

Darn; I tried to not be negative. Let's cover the one moment of the evening that can't be treated negatively, if just because it was so enjoyably silly! Namely: an “Emmy Idol” reality show parody, had various TV stars sing classic TV tunes of yesteryear throughout the telecast. The winners were Donald Trump, dressed in bib overalls, singing the tune to Green Acres next to an "Eva Gabor"-style Megan Mullally. Other “Idol” moments include Veronica Mars' Kristen Bell singing the theme to the TV series Fame, CSI’s Gary Dourdan singing "We're Movin' On Up" from The Jeffersons, and William Shatner himself, narrating the classic opening to Star Trek. Did I mention yet how awards shows need to bring back more musical and dance numbers, to keep the show from getting so boring? Well they do. This one did, and it made the audio glitches and other errors elsewhere totally immaterial because of it.

Now, let's consider the presenters. While it's hard to name the "best" or "worst" presenter, Most Interesting Presenter would have to be Blue Man Group, who would present the Emmy for Best Reality Show. How ironic is this? Love or hate them, these blue men have to be the most “unreal” performers today, with their blue heads and in this case, TV monitors as helmets. I don't know what to say about this moment aside from it made me laugh hysterically. I wish I could say the same for the producers of The Amazing Race, who didn't seem terribly amused that their award was presented this way. I can see their point if they were really upset. It's not that we don't like Blue Man Group, but when presented a prestigious award, we'd all prefer a sexy TV star dressed to the nines, right?

As for acceptance speeches, fodder for many a talk show host's monolog will have to be Epatha Merkerson (Lead Actress in a Mini-Series or TV Movie, Lackawana Blues), who began with some spiel about losing her written speech in her dress, and then just rambled for whatever little time the Emmy telecast gave her. You have to give her credit though; when told to wrap it up, she actually did (!), with a simple “Okay…thank you!” and a humble walk off the stage. Remember when Julia Roberts’ wonder bra won a Best Actress Oscar and Julia thought it was hers? The resulting Oscar acceptance speech had Julia cackling for what felt like an eternity. Julia could learn from Epatha.

Not that Epatha's win was a surprise, really, but here's one that surprised all of us: Jon Stewart, whose Daily Show won for Outstanding Variety, Comedy, or Music series, with an additional Emmy for Best Writing. When put up against Conan O’Brian, Jay Leno, and David Letterman, is this not a surprise to anyone else...? It’s sort of like Yoda and Obi-Wan losing a Best Jedi award to a 9 year old "Annie" Skywalker. At least Jon Stewart was humble about it, keeping both acceptance speeches brief and even flattering Letterman in the second, saying that it was funny how all of the praise David Letterman gave Johnny Carson in his memoriam, Jon’s generation feels about Dave. That was a nice thing to say, so we won't get too upset about his Emmy win. It still seems like the veterans losing to the "new guy" though.

One parting thought was how Emmy straddled the fence in the great online debate between fans of Arrested Development, and fans of Desperate Housewives. Well, neither would win Best Comedy series --so there!-- with the Emmy given to the final season of Everybody Loves Raymond. Even so, Charles MacDougall won a Best Directing episode for the Desperate Housewives pilot episode, while Best Writing went to an Arrested Development episode (Mitchell Hurwitz, Jim Vallely, “The Righteous Brothers”). In the latter acceptance speech, non-watchers were still reminded of the critically acclaimed sitcom that's always been in the Nielsen's toilet, with the following comment by the writers: “We’d be remiss if we didn’t point out the fact that the academy has twice rewarded us for something that you people won’t watch!” Ah, the fodder this will give the message boards...until next year's Emmys, anyway.

                                                                    ---Techtite

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