Critic’s Notebook: 76th Primetime Emmy Awards Oscillate Between Freshness and Fatigue
I have no clue if the expression “run it back” originated in sports, but I most frequently hear it in the context of the end of a successful season, when a player or coach or owner expresses the desire to keep all of the key pieces in place in order to repeat the prior achievement. Sometimes it works and a dynasty is born. Sometimes, though, an effort to run it back falls flat, proving how ephemeral the initial triumph was in the first place.
Back in January, the strike-delayed 75th Primetime Emmy Awards proved to be one of the best awards telecasts in recent memory. Hosted by Anthony Anderson, the show was packed with memorable moments that reflected a love for and pride in the medium of television.
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It was such a likable change of pace for a telecast so frequently driven by TV’s perpetual artistic inferiority complex that it isn’t the least bit surprising — if you assume that the dismal ratings were an aberration — that the TV Academy decided to run it back.
Sunday night’s 76th Primetime Emmy Awards telecast boasted the same producers (Jesse Collins, Dionne Harmon, Jeannae Rouzan-Clay), the same director (Alex Rudzinski) and the same affectionate and reflective approach to television. It wasn’t a disaster.
I would say that this was, by general Emmy telecast standards, an above-average show. But it was still a letdown. Because of the repeated formula just nine months after the last telecast, the 2024 Emmys suffered from fatigue and even staleness. The nostalgia didn’t hit as hard, the affectional tableaus didn’t have the same vitality, and entirely too many of the winners — especially in the first half of the show — sounded like they’d run out of things to say or lost excitement at being in that sacred position at all.
It was actually a show filled with surprises, none bigger than the climactic outstanding comedy series win for Max’s Hacks, which came in as a prohibitive underdog against FX/Hulu’s The Bear (which won back in January) and was competing with a second season that was even more acclaimed than the first. The sense of inevitability only increased as Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Jeremy Allen White won their second Emmys in a row and Liza Colón-Zayas prevailed for supporting actress despite a second season that reduced her character to an afterthought.
Colón-Zayas’ win almost felt like more of an affirmation for the divisive third season, in which her character, Tina, had multiple standout episodes. Plus Colón-Zayas seemed both stunned and grateful in an appealing way, which could not be said for the been-there-done-that speeches from White and Moss-Bachrach.
But then Jean Smart beat Ayo Edebiri for lead actress and the Hacks creators scored a stunning writing win, topping the script for “Fishes,” which won The Bear creator Christopher Storer a directing Emmy. Still, I would have put money on The Bear to win the series prize, which is why I don’t participate in Emmy pools. Was the Hacks win a rebuke of the third season of The Bear? Was it a rebuke of The Bear‘s placement in the comedy category at all, an ongoing debate that was the subject of a cutting jab in Eugene and Dan Levy’s opening monologue? Maybe the tiniest bit of each, but I’m going to go with a simpler explanation: The third season of Hacks was great (and Hollywood loves saluting shows about itself).
The drama series win by Shogun was inevitable from the moment FX transferred it out of the miniseries field by moving into development on future seasons. But it lost in some of the evening’s biggest jaw-droppers, including Billy Crudup beating Tadanobu Asano for supporting actor and Will “Despite my name, I come in peace” Smith winning for dramatic writing (Slow Horses), so there was at least a little uncertainty at the midway point in the show. That was temporary. By the time Hiroyuki Sanada and Anna Sawai celebrated their emotional victories, the record-breaking coronation was complete.
Surprises help awards telecasts because they keep audiences on their toes and because surprised winners often give the best speeches. I loved how giddy Lamorne Morris was to have knocked off heavyweights like Robert Downey Jr. for supporting actor in a movie/minseries/whatever for Fargo, and how astonished Baby Reindeer writer/creator/star Richard Gadd appeared with each of his trio of wins. Gadd had the line of the night when he acknowledged Hollywood might be in a slump, but warned, “No slump was ever broken without a willingness to take risks.” Then again, I also appreciated the sincere gratitude expressed by both Jean Smart and Jodie Foster, neither of whom should ever be amazed to win anything.
And the night’s most likably out-of-sync speech actually came from its least surprised winner, John Oliver, who wins every year and was in a category with only one other show. Yet he managed to call his son Hudson “Husband” and then had to fight through the play-off music for a half-bemused/half-saddened tribute to his dog: “This is for all dogs. All dogs. You’re very good girls. You’re very good boys. You all deserve a treat. PLAY ME OFF NOW.”
Speeches are, as always, a cross-your-fingers part of the show for producers. They’re not a production choice.
For this show, the production choices were mostly well-intentioned and bland.
More than anything, the January show had a consistent mission and agenda. This show? Not so much. There were all the tributes to archetypes, bringing back various well-liked, but far-too-recent TV stars to deliver poorly written prose about doctors and lawyers and mothers and fathers in front of re-created sets that lacked visual pop. I spent more time trying to figure out the casting strategy for the segments than enjoying them.
A couple of reunions, instead of delivering powerful or meaningful moments, felt more like, “Oops, we probably should have honored The West Wing and Happy Days in January.” In January, when nearly every winner was a foregone conclusion, the reunions and tributes were the heart of the show. This year, too often, they were a drag.
The telecast also continued the never-ending award-show struggle with the obligatory In Memoriam segment. The weirdly self-important Jelly Roll introduction to his performance of the tonally questionable “I Am Not Okay” was a bad start, but at least the rest of the segment was just by the numbers, complete with an insufficiently muted audience.
But then, instead of a somber fade into commercial, Jimmy Kimmel came out and stumbled through a tribute to Bob Newhart that wasn’t badly written, but absolutely warped the mood in a room that wasn’t sure if this was the time to laugh about how often Jon Stewart wins Emmys. It’s my assumption that something went pear-shaped with the schedule, causing Kimmel and the Newhart tribute to get slotted after the In Memoriam song rather than before, because I can’t begin to imagine that this was a choice.
Let’s turn, speaking of choices, to my favorite positive. Award shows have given up on giving out honorary awards as part of the main telecast. This is and has been a mistake. Giving Greg Berlanti his Governors Award in the main show was the right thing to do, his speech was fantastic and I hope other shows, especially the Oscars, realize that an honorary award or two can be a real asset. John Leguizamo’s speech discussing the strides television has made in diversity was a little overlong and a little self-congratulatory, but I appreciated the necessary history lesson he imparted.
Finally, how about Eugene and Dan Levy as hosts? I thought they were good, and they might have played even better in a more effective telecast. Their monologue was a little clunky at first, but they got some good lines by the end and their bits throughout were low-key charming and affectionate in a way that worked for me. They were, to use their own frame of reference, extremely Canadian as hosts.
Were there other memorable presenting bits? The SNL stars joking about Lorne Michaels never winning and then realizing he’d won countless times was good for a few chuckles, especially Maya Rudolph’s reading of the word “robbed.” But why was it treated as a “reunion”? The three stars of Only Murders in the Building continue to get impressive mileage out of what has definitely become repetitive schtick. And I liked Diego Luna and Gael Garcia Bernal presenting mostly in Spanish, just because.
The truth is that award shows are typically more bad than good, and when something works, the tendency is to run it into the ground. Like the one year a host-free Oscars went really well and they said, “Wow, we don’t need a host!” And then they realized they needed hosts. Running it back for this Emmys telecast made sense. It might make sense to do it again. But not next year.
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