The Emmys Featured Future-Looking Winners But Retro Production (Review)

Returning as a full-scale production for the first time since 2019, the Emmys moved, in a few moments, with a refreshing lightness. But much of the production seemed oddly stuck in a hazy past.

Why, for example, hasn't host Kenan Thompson uncorked his best material that after the first commercial break, after an opening in which he staggered through choreographed routines to TV theme songs? And why weren't these songs usually for the shows honored at this year's Emmys? We started with "Friends," moved on to "The Brady Bunch" — with a brief shoutout to the cast of this classic sitcom sitting in the audience, not to be mentioned again — and ended on "Game of Thrones," the great winner at the last pre-COVID Emmys.

Back then Emmys didn't need to reach to find ways to portray television as a unifying force: The best drama winner did so. But there was something striking about this year's show, how television's opportunity to honor its own ended up feeling embarrassed by its own medium. Television presented a lot of things for audiences to potentially latch on to; the Emmys seemed to bristle at every turn.

This is a review of the show, not the awards body. After all, the Emmys this year have honored shows as varied as “Squid Game,” an ultraviolent Korean drama; “Succession,” a cutting business satire; "Euphoria", a gonzo meme machine charged with teenage emotion; "The White Lotus", a dark nightmare of luxury living; “Ted Lasso,” a sports-focused festival of empathy; and “Abbott Elementary,” a truly successful network comedy. All of these series have constituencies, and significant constituencies.

So why was the opening of the show dedicated to promoting "Friends" and "The Brady Bunch", and - frankly - so much relatively lukewarm material from Thompson about the differences between streaming services? (Thompson's hippest moment came during his reunion with former Nickelodeon co-worker Kel Mitchell; the couple's kids' show "Kenan & Kel" last aired in 2000.)

It's impractical to expect an Emmys broadcast to feature music videos of actual length, or to avoid truncating speeches at all: Part of what is satisfying about broadcasting is the clicking instead of category after category, allowing the awards themselves to build a narrative . But the interstitial matter seemed to waste time while having only a vague idea of ​​where the pulse of the culture lay: even "Law & Order" fans must have been only moderately satisfied by a comedy sketch by Mariska Hargitay/Chris Meloni, and those who tuned in because they're fans of one of the legitimately popular shows that were nominated and were probably bored.

Meanwhile, the show's announcer, "SNL" writer Sam Jay, sounded confused and uneasy – failing to say people on stage were hot when she ran out of ideas – while duty DJ Zedd played confusing pop songs, seemingly related to nothing at all, for walks winners to the stage. Would it have been a while if multiple "White Lotus" acceptance speeches had been punctuated by this memorable theme song? Guess we'll never know!

There were great moments throughout the Emmys - mostly generated by articulate winners, including , in particular, Zendaya, a second winner honoring those whose struggles with drug addiction match those of her "Euphoria" character, and Jean Smart, enjoying her moment while wondering if some "Hacks" fans are a little too young to watch the show. And I appreciated both the revolutionary sense of the "Squid Game" winners in the fields of best actor and best theatrical director, even if the two seemed to be jostling each other in their speeches, aware of the red light on the verge to blink. But if the interest in the Emmys is going to come from the winners and not from the production, I wanted more: a rush to get things done on time meant that some speeches, including Jennifer Coolidge's, were cut short. (If there's any evidence that Emmy producers haven't paid enough attention to television over the past year, it's that they assumed we'd be ignoring the perfectly crooked speaking beat. by Coolidge.)

But the Emmys, for better or worse, have to end on time, and should include a monologue and various shoutouts to the home network. And you have to be glad they exist, to put in one place a celebration of so many hot things and...