So another Emmy Awards has come and gone. I don't even know why I watch. The whole thing is annoying and Carrie and I spent the whole evening bitching at the tv.
My main complaint about the Oscars is that series on HBO (and Showtime, though they're fewer and far between) directly compete with series on the networks. Completely unfair. Series that air on the networks have to come up with ~22 new episodes every year, whereas series that air on HBO have seasons that last closer to 13 episodes and appear when the creative teams behind them feel they're ready. I imagine it's a heck of a lot easier to put out a consistently good show when you have 2 years between seasons to work on them. I mean, the fourth season of The Sopranos ended on December 8, 2002. The fifth season began March 7, 2004. That's a year and a quarter. The whole thing just frustrates me.
And what was up with the announcer pointing out when Sarah Jessica Parker won that she was married to Matthew Broderick, an Emmy Award winner? It what way does that matter? When Bradley Whitford won, did they point out that he's married to Jane Kaczmarek, an Emmy nominee?
It was kind of neat that they brought in "real people" to present the reality show award (yay, Amazing Race!), though the whole thing seemed a bit condescending. Like, "Ooh, look at the Real People! Aren't they cute?" And the stars seemed a bit unnerved by them being there. Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston looked like they wanted to make sure the Real People stayed at least 50 feet from them at all times.
All that, combined with the terrible job done by Gary Shandling and the painful patter from the presenters (I was squirming during the Chris Noth/Sarah Jessica Parker one), I'm sad that for some reason I watched this instead of Jack & Bobby. At least the thing ended on time.
Current song in my head:
"Wonderful Night For Oscar" because of that clip in whatever montage
Oh, I missed the Emmys. Hm.
Posted by: Spike at September 20, 2004 11:01 AMThe thing you have to remember about the Emmy awards is that it's not the body of work that's being nominated - it's generally one individual episode being chosen to represent a series. In the cases of individual achievements (writing, directing), you can have multiple episodes of the same show nominated - in fact, I think two years ago, four of the five nominations for dramatic writing were for episodes of The Sopranos. But because the nominations are based, for the most part, on single episode submissions, the cable shows are on even footing with the broadcast shows.Remember, too, that there's no rule saying that a show HAS to run 23 episodes to be a season. If I remember the rule, you just have to have 6 qualifying episodes. I think Arrested Development only had 6 episodes in its initial order. It got picked up for a second season, which started over the summer, but the nominations last night were for the initial six episode run. Also, BBC America's The Office would have been eligible for Outstanding Comedy Series, if they hadn't submitted an episode for the international Emmys - they only ended up with 5 eligible episodes in series 2.As for the "walk-up" voiceovers...that's something that started on the award shows in the UK, and got imported over here. I've never much cared for it - I'd rather have a mic in the aisle so I can hear what's going on. (But that's just me.)From what I've been reading, the whole "real people present the reality award" was because the Screen Actor's Guild didn't want a SAG member to present that category. (Not like that matters - it still tanked.)
Posted by: M-D at September 20, 2004 10:16 PMD'oh. There WERE line breaks in there...
Posted by: M-D at September 20, 2004 10:16 PM