The Emmys hit a 60- year low Sunday night when five reality- show hosts bombed with an opening that emphasized the frequent vapidity of their genre.
Now we know why reality shows are scripted.
Tom Bergeron, Heidi Klum, Howie Mandel, Jeff Probst and Ryan Seacrest embarrassed themselves with a blather of cross-talk, ineptitude and excuses, aiming to demonstrate what unscripted “reality” looks like. The 60th annual televised festivities weren’t the time or the place. Tripping over one another in a mess of cross-talk meant to appear candid and unrehearsed, they failed as the night’s opening act.
“We have nothing. This is nothing,” they uttered together. Correctly.
Bergeron and Klum were left to deal with the disaster, calling William Shatner to the stage for an absurd strip- the-girl moment.
This is “reality,” get it?
A shameful start, only partially ameliorated by Oprah Winfrey’s presence as a sort of über-host.
Thank goodness “Mad Men” scored the best drama award and “30 Rock” won best comedy; Alec Baldwin, Glenn Close, Tina Fey — classy picks in a mostly goofy, backward-looking evening. Sadly, there was no Hugh Laurie acknowledgment, but the “John Adams” steamroller was the recurring theme. The best line of the night was Julia Louis- Dreyfus’ reference to the “Friends” masturbation episode, which she turned into a knock on the awards themselves, citing: “The gratuitous indulgence of self-gratification . . . but enough about the Emmys.”
No one should be surprised if the ratings drop further after this mess.
On the plus side, Steve Martin was clever, recalling his days as a young writer in the 1960s on the controversial “Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour,” canceled by CBS. Sunday, he gave the show’s star and co-writer, Tommy Smothers, the overdue Emmy that the writing team won 40 years ago. Martin explained that Smothers had insisted his name be taken out of the running because Smothers’ outspoken anti-war stance at the time might have hurt the team’s chances.
Smothers was reliably political, touching on current wars. He stressed the importance of freedom of speech and suggested “there’s nothing more scary than watching ignorance in action.”
Martin Sheen gave a nice nonpartisan shout-out to the idea of voting.
“Laugh-In,” terrific in its day, was not so great in a decades-old replay. The “sock- it-to-me” recycling also fell flat.
The fake suspense of the reality-show host category, delayed by Jimmy Kimmel until after a break, got a laugh.
And Josh Groban provided the oddball entertainment highlight of the evening with a ridiculous medley.
Joanne Ostrow: 303-954-1830 or jostrow@denverpost.com
