What's really wrong with the Emmys, Amazing Race's amazing run, in defense of Boston Legal and more!
Ryan Seacrest hosting the Emmys
Question: After watching the dreadful
Emmys, I'm wondering if there is any thought of eliminating this awards show, or at the very least completely overhauling the format. Who could honestly claim that this year's show celebrated the best in television over the past year? Let's review the problems with the Emmys: 1) The nomination process: When only three networks existed, I'm sure it wasn't difficult to decide who to nominate. But now with five major networks and dozens of free and pay-cable channels, it seems impossible to properly choose the five best candidates in each category. 2) The winners: Every year seems to be this mixed bag of the confusing and predictable. There never appears to be any consistency in their picks. How could
30 Rock win for best comedy and yet
Alec Baldwin not win for best actor? 3) The categories: I have nothing against
Tony Bennett and I'm sure his special was great, but to lump his one-night special against shows that air every night seems unfair. 4) The bloated performances: The show would be long enough with just the awards, but they feel they have to add these musical numbers in as well, and they're usually terrible. Can anyone say the
Jersey Boys' performance was a fitting tribute to
The Sopranos? I'm not sure what the solution is, but there has to be a better way to celebrate fine shows and performances. Why are we spending time making jokes about
Vanessa Hudgens' nude photos and
Paula Abdul's drug problem when we should be focusing on TV shows themselves? If they can't properly praise these great programs, then they shouldn't do the show at all.
— Adam, Raleigh, NC
Matt Roush: All excellent points as we conduct a postmortem on this year's debacle. (After today, I'll do my best to keep the Emmys topic in the dustbin where it belongs, at least for a while.) The one thing here that should be fixable is the Emmy show itself, which did everything possible this year to diminish the year in TV rather than celebrate it. The nomination process, and the random nature of the voting, is probably beyond anyone's control at this point. The TV Academy keeps trying to shake things up, but it's probably a lost cause for the reasons you've already detailed: the proliferation of too much good TV from too many disparate sources and a membership that can't be bothered to watch. I can only imagine how we'll be gnashing our teeth a year from now over the snubs AMC's
Mad Men is likely to endure, given the obstacles for a show like that to get noticed. As for the murky categories, where Tony Bennett is put in the same mix as late-night comedy hosts, I agree it's bizarre, but far be it from me to suggest even more categories be added to the bloated Emmy mix. In short, it's an imperfect system, but at the very least the show itself should be able to get its act together. This year, it failed miserably.
