Thoughts on the Emmys

There it was.  I sometimes feel like I'm following professional tennis (one of the few sports I follow with relish) with the EGOT-there are only four ceremonies anyone seems to care about each year, and there's an incredible amount of pressure to win them all, even though they require a relatively diverse skill set.  I'm not even going to take a gander at how my predictions were (like everyone else, I did poorly, a fact that I'm most happy about), but I thought it would be worth investigating what most have considered a lackluster affair.  So, without further ado...

The Good

The triumphant Tony Hale and Julia-Louis Dreyfus

Easily the best part of the night were the great winks that the ceremony made toward followers of the nominated series.  It was stunningly a series of gags that almost everyone could pick up on, regardless of whether they watch the shows.  From the Girls television room replica to Julia Louis-Dreyfus's spectacular skewering of her character during her acceptance speech (bonus points to Anna Chlumsky's distracted texting) to Kevin Spacey's wry House of Cards monologue, these jokes not only had the audience laughing, I suspect they had people at home wishing they watched these shows (House of Cards is going on my Netflix queue as a result of that gag).

I also adored a couple of the early wins in the night-Tony Hale may not have been my choice (my husband Adam Driver looked dashing, didn't he?), but that speech was so heartfelt and full of genuine surprise.  Merritt Wever may have broken Twitter with her succinct and sweet acceptance speech (it's not the shortest ever, but it's been a while since someone pulled the "thanks and leave" card).  And Michael Douglas's speech managed to be both classy (thanking CZJ was a nice touch) and bawdy (I normally cringe when straight-actors-going-gay make a joke regarding their characters, but the top/bottom thing was a home run).

The Undecided
Isn't everyone going to relegate the In Memoriam here?  It was a cool concept, and it almost worked, except that they later did the full clip show (with applause-always a bad idea), so only the "important" people got the speeches, which seemed a bit unbalanced when you consider Larry Hagman was amongst those relegated to the pictures only.  Perhaps they should do what AMPAS did with Lena Horne a few years back-have the announcement of one person after the In Memoriam has rolled (probably Gandolfini would be most appropriate considering his untimely passing and recent successes at the Emmy Awards), and include clip shots throughout the roll to better negate the classlessness of certain people getting more applause than others.

Also, I don't watch a number of the shows that won (Breaking Bad, The Newsroom, Political Animals, and House of Cards most glaringly), and therefore I cannot say whether they were in the good or the bad.  I can say that I don't watch Nurse Jackie and was still cheering for Merritt Wever, though, so take that for what it's worth.

The Bad

Who is this woman?!?

Neil Patrick Harris has been excellent in past hosting gigs, but maybe the Tonys and the Emmys in the same year stretched him out too thin.  The host's highest profile bits worked well in theory but didn't land in execution-the past hosts storming the stage seemed like genius, but Kevin Spacey was the only one who landed a punchline.  The mid-show dance number felt like the show was begging people to go watch Breaking Bad, and was particularly out-of-place considering the choreography number later and that they were being downright vicious with playing the music for speeches.  And while I love How I Met Your Mother and chuckled a bit at the insider-y jokes in the trailer, it seemed inappropriate to give it a spot when it wasn't nominated for any major awards (if CBS wanted to skewer one of its own shows, The Big Bang Theory would have been perfect).

In general, the CBS cavalcade of stars didn't help matters either.  LL Cool J and Mark Harmon are hardly dynamic presenters, and there weren't any surprises with the actual presenters-why weren't there reunions up on the stage of classic television stars or something?  Jane Fonda was nominated for an Emmy this year-where was she?

And can someone please explain to me why Malin Akerman is famous?  Every time I see the woman I cannot figure it out.  It's like she's Olivia Wilde from a few years ago.

The Ugly
Ugly is not a word that one would normally use to describe the sexy Shemar Moore.  But what the hell was going on with his bizarre "let's-have-celebrities-stand-silently-and-awkwardly" cutaways?  Is he still on Young and the Restless?  Is Criminal Minds still a thing?  These were questions I'm guessing CBS was hoping for, but really it was just an excuse to latch onto social media and start thinking of clever and mean hashtags.

I could go into Modern Family and how it is a shell of its once glorious self (this is what happens when you don't allow for true conflict or for your characters to grow), but really the only other truly ugly moment of the night was the lackluster musical numbers.  I'm all for people singing-and-dancing at awards show, but I loathe singing and dancing that is not truly connected to the ceremony and what they are celebrating.  Who was in the CBS writers' room that came up with the bizarre justification for Elton John's and Carrie Underwood's performances?  If you're going to have a musical number, connect it in some genuine way to the awards year at hand-the only one of the performances that did this was the Choreography number, which incorporated nominees for the awards, the host, and a number of nominated programs.  Yes, it was a bit indulgent and odd, but at least it was related to honoring television, which is the entire point.

Those were my thoughts-what were yours?  What win pleased/displeased you the most?  What was the most cringeworthy moment?  And who else wants to switch lives with Julianna Margulies?