Okay, here we have the 2022 Emmys or the long name would be Primetime Emmy Awards and the title also gives away that this is the 74th edition, which means there will be a big anniversary next year, somewhat round you can say, but this also shows you how far back this event goes in history and from both perspectives the outcome here of the 2022 edition was a major disappointment. Because on the one hand an event with such a tradition deserves more class after all these years or otherwise you should think about discontinuing and on the other hand, the ceremony for the 75th anniversary deserves a great outcome and as far as they were away from that in 2022, it is difficult to believe they can overcome such a huge quality gap within one year. This one ran for over two hours and that did not even include commercials, so with those we are probably closer to the three-hour mark than to the two-hour mark. Much closer in fact. The director was Hamish Hamilton and he really did it all if you look at his body of work: Emmys, Grammys, Super Bowl halftime shows, Nickelodeon events and way more than that even. I wonder if he will one day win an Emmy himself with all the nominations he got so far. The exact same can be said about writers Macks, DiCenzo and Marchand with their combined 13 Emmy nominations and the craziest in the sense of most prolific from this trio is surely Jon Macks with over 200 writing credits. Marchand is also not too shabby and DiCenzo mostly delivers in terms of efficiency with four Emmy nominations out of only nine credits. Those came for working for Fallon and SNL. If you get in with one of those, especially SNL, you are almost guaranteed an Emmy nomination. Of course, with all that, I am talking only or "only" about Primetime Emmy Award nominations. The Daytime Emmys are a completely different field.
This show took place on 12th September by the way, so over two months ago now, and I am a bit late here in terms of posting my review. Sorry, guys. The reason is availability issues, but here we go now: The host this time was Kenan Thompson, another fella from SNL, and he already managed to win an Emmy in the past. I still found him relatively bland and uninspired here, so I cannot share the praise that came from a category announcer towards the end of the show for his hosting and career/talent in general. Then again, said fella is probably even worse. As for Thompson, of course the material was not really helping. No great lines and pretty lackluster delivery from my perspective. As for the show itself, there were no huge surprises I think, just minor ones. The big wins went to "Ted Lasso", "Succession", "The White Lotus" and John Oliver. Another big winner of the night was "Abbott Elementary" and you could wonder if this show would be able to upset "Ted Lasso" with the love it was getting throughout the evening, but in the end it was not enough. I haven't seen it, so I cannot say if I was rooting for it, but in general Sudeikis has grown on me, so I am okay with his and his show's win. Maybe it was a bit of an upset that the competition program category was not won by RuPaul this time, but by singer Lizzo. If you look at the contents of her show, you cannot really be surprised. Right up the alley of hypocritical liberal Hollywood (or the television equivalent). Variety sketch series was also won by SNL again and I am not even sure why this category exists. There was one other nominee this time. HBO brought Blacks and females to take on SNL, but not even this would be enough, even in times like these. It is still a joke. They kinda got it wrong in most other categories where there were simply way too many nominees and they just should have gone with five or six max if there is a tie. This way it felt as if nominations almost didn't matter anymore and even if one in so many 100 million people whatever the exact amount was could get nominated, let alone win, it made the nomination a bit pointless. Also the nominees video extracts were terribly rushed. Disrespectful.
I still think that television is in a great state right now, maybe not as brilliant as it was ten years ago, but still pretty good. Sadly, this show here honoring the best of the best or who they think they are was not on the same level. I am still happy for Squid Game's triumphs and they were maybe the closest to upsetting "Succession". They even took home lead actor, which was not to be taken for granted given the competition. Jennifer Coolidge is also as cool as her name sounds and I am happy for her, mostly because of how much I like her on "2 Broke Girls". I have not seen the show that she won for here yet, but I surely want to. The days really need to have 30 hours. Her speech I found a bit forgettable, but she was not worse than most others in that department. When she started dancing to the music that was telling everybody and her too that she needs to finish, that was hilarious and one of the funniest moments of the night. The unfunniest was maybe Will Arnett, but I don't like him anyway and I also don't blame him. Jimmy Kimmel is the real "treasure" there. He is just awful every single time no matter what he does. With lying he has so much experience anyway. Another moment that did almost nothing for me was the one that started singing during her acceptance speech. Cringeworthy, also how she stayed quiet for as long as she could to catch a standing ovation perhaps. She had zero authenticity to me, also the moment how she reacted to her name being announced. All fake. Some other female winners were better. Zendaya I did not like in the past and I always wondered why she is sitting in the front row at events like this, but she has had some solid success recently. And Jean Smart was also kinda funny when she talked about a little boy who knew her character and how she told us that a kid this age should definitely not be watching "Hacks".
One person where I have it the opposite direction compared to Zendaya is Kelly Clarkson. She did not win obviously because she is all about her awful daytime show nowadays, but I liked her music during the early years of her career and I also found her likable, but if we look at her now I guess that is what being part of the industry for too long makes with you. I wish she would care more about her health than about showing us literally the letters of the elite brand her dress comes from. On a positive note, Molly Shannon (who I like) and Vanessa Bayer did fine with their skit. Selma Blair I have no clue at all why she was there. And even for the final category of the night? What is going on? Whoever decided this should be fired. How about getting one of the Hughs they were talking about for that instead. I guess Grant's recent television work could justify it or Hugh Laurie would be a great choice in any case. Or just pick Charlie Sheen when we are speaking of Selma Blair. In general, you could see that they tried their best to get in as many Black category announcers as they could to avoid backlash and maybe the success of Abbott Elementary has also something to do with that, but I will reserve judgment there until I watch the show. As for the others, Oprah with her as always pseudo important speech, Sarah Paulson and Amy Poehler did nothing for me. The Latin American folks like Diego Luna, Selena Gomez and Gael Garcia Bernal did better. The in memoriam segment was quite a disappointment this time from the very start, no matter if we are talking about Anthony Anderson's introduction, John Legend's music or the way the dead were displayed. They deserved so much better. May they rest in peace. Legend I also liked more in the past than I do nowadays.
In general, this was not a revelation music-wise. Thompson's little number there was already not a convincing way to start the show. It was still nice how they showed us the characters of a pretty old series sitting on one table. Or the actors portraying those characters I should say and it was surely a memorable moment for everybody who watched the show back then. But it was gone in one second. I personally would have preferred to see some of the L&O franchise actors united too. I mean Waterston, D'Onofrio and Meloni on one table come on how awesome this would have been! Baffled to see by the way Waterston return as Jack McCoy. This was the one time I could forgive them for putting on ads in the middle of the show. Other than that, there is no excuse for that at all. Especially not for the one inclusion that was a full-on commercial in the middle of the show about a creepy neighbor friend guy in the second half. The commercial breaks are long enough anyway, keep stuff like that out during the broadcast. As for L&O, we still got to see a Hargitay and Meloni moment. That was fine, even if not great either. I assume this is pretty much it then or what else can I say? Oh yeah, Michael Keaton won and that is always nice to see. He is so full of ambition and energy all the time and his comment about losing at other awards shows was funny too. I still wish his speech could have been a bit less rambling. Jason Bateman I also always like to see and I would have loved him to win, but as I said already this was the category won by the Korean actor for "Squid Game" and I am not sad to see him win either. More shows for me to watch definitely. Oh and Ben Stiller was nominated. For directing, yep. Nice to see him get some recognition here. I like him. Both as a director and especially as an actor. Also as a tennis spectator. There were other nominees with long television histories, but they came short like Kaley Cuoco, Bob Odenkirk (once again), Sandra Oh etc. Or also people you rather know from the big screen like Oscar Isaac, a personal favorite. One who got lucky though was the mighty fine Amanda Seyfried. Geena Davis not so fine. Just like the bizarre co-host/announcer. Get rid of her right away. That is all, a rather forgettable awards event we got here.
0 out of 0 found this helpful.
Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
