Emmy night ’06 proved that the talk about the awards being adrift isn’t just talk. The mostly uninspired list of winners was matched by a stodgy, bloodless show.
There was nothing remotely envelope-pushing in all the envelope-ripping at the 58th annual Emmy Awards.
The event has been losing its sheen in recent years. This year was dull, duller, dullest.
OK, one timely touch was the depiction of the “variety show” nominees on iPods and cellphones supposedly held by members of the audience. The variety/special directing award – summoned onscreen from inside a Howie Mandel briefcase and bounced from master control truck to auditorium as the director called the shots – was another clever bit.
Kiefer Sutherland finally got to make a speech; “The Office” got its due.
Otherwise, it was an unremarkable show, tailor-made to be hidden deep in August.
The most remarkable moment didn’t occur onstage. When Simon Cowell led the tribute to Dick Clark, the audience at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles booed. The fact that Cowell has been in the vanguard of the “reality TV” wave that has battered television wasn’t lost on the audience that has witnessed a job shortage thanks to the unscripted-TV trend. Considering the circumstances, however, the response was rude.
Clark, who suffered a stroke in 2004, made a rare appearance before the hushed crowd, expressing his thanks for a lifetime in show business.
Then back to blah: Megan Mullally, Alan Alda, Barry Manilow, Mariska Hargitay, Tony Shalhoub, “Amazing Race” for the sixth time. It was all about yesteryear.
The ads were infinitely more hip than the show. (Discover’s barrage of scissors cutting up credit cards was fun.) In terms of presentation, pacing and sensibility, the Emmy proceedings were bleak.
Host Conan O’Brien scored with a “Music Man” parody, recasting “Trouble” to reflect the woes of his network. “We got trouble, right here at NBC!” he sang, observing that things are so bad, they’re relying on Mandel of “Deal or No Deal.” But O’Brien’s opening cried out for an editor: A simulated plane crash, like that on “Lost,” was sickeningly close to the day’s top news, a plane crash in Kentucky that killed 49.
At least “My Name Is Earl” got nods for directing and writing, although it was shut out in the acting categories.
Likewise, “The Sopranos” was recognized for writing, not for acting.
Just as the commercials were more memorable than the show, the presenters were more impressive than the winners.
The most forward-looking (not to mention hottest) pair all evening was Evangeline Lilly and Wentworth Miller as presenters. Give Lilly an award for carrying off that dress, too.
The late Aaron Spelling deserved his salute, of course, and the Shrine audience seemed touched. But, for viewers, there must have been a better way to salute the king of “guilty pleasure” TV.
Slow, slower, slowest.
Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert came close to saving the proceedings in their biting presentation of the “reality TV” category.
They were too little, too late.
Maybe next year the Emmy show should be buried in July.
TV critic Joanne Ostrow can be reached at 303-954-1830 or jostrow@denverpost.com.
