My Reactions to the 2024 Emmys, Part 2

Why I Never Review My Opinion of Emmys Broadcasts — And How Both Of This Year’s Finally Solved Many of My Problems With Them In The Past

Last night’s Emmys gave me more pleasure than I’ve had watching the Emmys in a very long time. And having seen two Emmy ceremonies in less than a year, it has helped me realize just what’s been missing from ‘Television’s Biggest Night’ all these years and why the Academy finally seems to have realized it too. For that reason I’m going to break precedent and do something I’ve never really done in all my years of reviewing almost every award show for this column and that’s actually look at last night’s broadcast from a critical perspective. (Don’t worry; I’ll get to the actual awards tomorrow.)

If you’re a long time reader of my column (and the fact that you’re reading this article in the first place probably guarantees that) you know that I have a very odd approach when I look at awards shows for my column: I rank my enjoyment of it based on how much I liked the winners and their speeches. This might seem bizarre to many people; it seems very much like someone who reads Playboy for the articles. But I’ve had a method to my madness.

For starters there is the fact I do take TV very seriously and perhaps care more about who actually wins than most people should. Considering that this is the era of Peak TV, I’m actually surprised that more people don’t. I understand the logic to be sure — if anything, I’m more aware of the foibles and lapses in the judgments of the Emmys than the average viewer and I understand why they would count them as less than meaningful. But as someone who is a fan and loves the majority of the shows that are nominated I do care more who wins and who loses. So the awards do count more.

However I must admit that over the years I’ve tended to take on that old cliché regarding these awards shows: if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all. It’s practically de rigeur of all critics to yell at how self-congratulatory, bloated, and awkward all awards show are. I do understand that logic but just as you don’t read the Bible for its prose, you expect all of these things to come up in a awards show by design. If at this point in your life you’re actually watching the Academy Awards for the purposes of being entertained and not because you’ve seen any of the nominated movies, I think you seriously need to question your entire approach to life.

So I come to most awards shows with the expectations of someone who’s going to the dentist: you know it’s not going to be fun, it’ll probably be painful, and you just want it to not take any longer than necessary. That doesn’t mean that with the Emmys I have been more disappointed with how the ceremonies have played out that most awards shows. It’s actually annoyed me the better the class of nominations and awards with each passing year. How can your product keep getting better but the night where you pay tribute to it still plays like an Oscars broadcast circa 1983?

Part of the problem might be the nature of what network hosts the Emmys: it rotates between all four networks with each year and each network is not going to use the same host who did so well the previous year. No matter how good a job Stephen Colbert did in 2017 — and I think his work was one of the better ones — there was no way NBC was going to use him in 2018. But it doesn’t excuse the fact that so many of the hosts I’ve seen during my viewing experience have proved woefully inadequate to the task. It says something that Colin Jost and Michael Che now openly mock their stint hosting the Emmys in 2018.

But there’s a larger problem that the Emmys have also had which is about the way they acknowledge their history. It tells you a lot that over the years the way the Emmys have done it have made the Academy Awards efforts at paying tribute to the past — which frequently manage to stop dead shows in their tracks — look subtle by comparison. And it’s that part that truly irritates me more. You guys are paying tribute to the medium you work in and you still can’t get it right? I acknowledge that Laugh-In was a historic show: why did we have to have the surviving cast present an award in their trademark style? There have been some bits that worked better — the 2011 tribute framed through the style of The Office is one of their finest hours — but they have been exceptions to endless periods of stilted action, often done through montages that don’t work.

Some hosts have managed to do better jobs over the years — Jimmy Kimmel has managed to perfect it during his three stints (including the one in lockdown) and Andy Samberg struck the right note of mockery and respect in his stint in 2015. But most of them have only been able to do what the framework will allow them and it can make even the joyous moments feel like a drag.

So when the Emmys for 2022–2023 ended up taking place this past January, my expectations were at their usual low marker. It didn’t help that the work stoppage the previous summer had dimmed my enthusiasm and that I was dealing with what was going to be a protracted new season. The fact that this was the 75th anniversary of the Emmys didn’t encourage me one bit: anniversaries have chosen to up the ante of stilted tributes with even less reward.

If you read my review of the Emmys last January you know how much they surprised me. A large part of the credit must go to Anthony Anderson as the host. I expected him to struggle at the job. Anderson did start his career as a standup comic but he hadn’t been one for years. I have great respect for him as an actor but I thought he would be inadequate to the task. Instead he almost single-handedly raised the bar not just for an Emmy host but any awards show host.

Anthony Anderson.

I don’t know how much Anderson did in regard to the presentation of January’s Emmys but there are few performers who would have more suited to it. Anderson’s career on television practically extends throughout Peak TV as a whole. His breakout performance was as Antoine Mitchell on The Shield; he then did fine work as Detective Bernard on the final three seasons of Law & Order’s original run and then moved to black-ish in 2014. He had a great friendship with Norman Lear in the last decade of his life and starred in more than one of the recreations of episodes of his shows that made him visible again. He’s hosted more than a few game shows for Fox (which was broadcasting that year). Few performers know television better than Anderson.

What he chose to do was forego the traditional role of the emcee and pay more of a respectful host through the many exceptional moments television has provided us. He sat in Dr. Melfi’s office and reminded us of The Sopranos, showed connections between The Twilight Zone and American Horror Story, was willing to talk about Mad Men and Grey’s Anatomy with respect and was always willing to let certain shows that had been overlooked — such as Martin — get their due. (I really do think the cast reunion was his work.) By the time we ended the show with him introducing the Iron Throne in regards to Best Drama, it didn’t seem heavy handed in the least.

And as a result there was not a single tribute or presentation that seemed heavy handed or badly done at all night. There was an appreciation for the past and respect for the present. When Anderson mentioned that the Emmys were taking place on Martin Luther King Day, it wasn’t heavy handed because of the groundbreaking diversity among the winners. Consequently I didn’t just enjoy the Emmys because of who won; I enjoyed the Emmys, period.

And throughout last night’s Emmys it clearly seemed to be that ABC seems to have decided to take a similar approach to what worked just eight months ago and find a way to give a fresh spin on it. It helped matters immensely in their choice of hosts: Eugene and Daniel Levy.

Like Anderson both father and son have a connection with television that goes deep. Eugene Levy broke into television with his work on SCTV and has been one of the most frequent guest performers and hosts over the decades well before he and his son collaborated on the classic Schitt’s Creek which made Emmy history in 2020 when it swept every major category in Comedy. Dan spent the better part of a decade trying to make a name for himself in film but didn’t get there until he created Schitt’s Creek and as its star rose (pun not intended) so did he. He’s probably not proud of everything that’s happened since (I have little doubt he regrets his work in The Idol) but he’s a link to television present and future.

And from the start of their appearance both Levy’s went out of the way to mock the shows but did everything in their power to turn on each other. Eugene started by saying that he played many dad’s in his career but his most rewarding role was ‘your dad’. There was an emotional aww and the moment the applause ended he added: “on Schitt’s Creek. Because, you know that’s when I won my first Emmy.” Dan returned the favor in the monologue later in the monologue when he paid tribute to Baby Reindeer by comparing his father’s text messages to the ones that Martha sent. He then posted them on the screen in the exact same font.

This back and forth mockery played throughout the night. Just before they were about to pay tribute to TV dads Eugene asked his son if there were any dad role models. Daniel thought for a moment and said: “Coach Taylor. He got me from some hard moments in my 20s.” Eugene then said: “Anyone else?” Dan paused: “Tony Soprano.” Eugene looked baffled. “Tony Soprano killed people.” “Yeah, but his heart was in the right place.” This may be the funniest dad joke ever.

Later that night in regard to The West Wing Dan said: “Fun fact. The first choice for the role of Toby Ziegler was my father. But he passed and it went to Richard Schiff, who won an Emmy.” (I don’t know if that’s true but it might be.) Eugene asked: “How is that a fun fact?” “Well, it was fun for Richard.” Eugene then asked: “What happened when you auditioned for Ripley?” After the laughter Dan said: “I haven’t heard back yet.”

This mockery was gentler and not labored the way so many TV jokes are and therefore the punches were gentler. After mentioning that The Bear had been nominated for 23 Emmys Eugene said: “Now some might question whether The Bear is a comedy. But much like The Bear, we will not be making any jokes about it.” Levy also had enormous fun with his more recent co-stars from Only Murders in the Building which played out when he introduced Steve Martin and Martin Short as “from The Golden Bachelorette.”

The Emmys continued the theme of tributes the way they did last time out but with their own spin. When they paid tribute to the fiftieth anniversary of Happy Days it didn’t seem out of touch because both Ron Howard and Henry Winkler are still working in television; Winkler just finished his work in Barry and was nominated for an Emmy just last year and as he pointed out to Howard, he had just won several Emmys for producing a documentary on Jim Henson. Much of the night was spent towards paying tribute to the 25th anniversary of The West Wing and that came at the end of the night with the presentation of Best Drama. Martin Sheen, Allison Janney, Dule Hill, Richard Schiff and Janel Moloney were all there for it. I should mention that while this bit including the understandable digs as the 2024 election (Schiff made the joke that these days politics has storylines that our writers would have found implausible) it didn’t seem as heavy-handed mainly because with the exception of Moloney all of the performers have been working in television constantly ever since the show was canceled and indeed Janney was there as part of the cast of Palm Royale.

ABC’s approach was to take on the various tropes in TV and this was always done with the right amount of respect and self-deprecation. When George Lopez, Damon Wayans and Jesse Tyler Ferguson came on as TV Dads, Lopez asked them to pay tribute to their wives. Ferguson gently asked if they saw my show. Lopez said: “All 90 seasons of it.” The TV moms who came out — Meredith Baxter, Connie Britton and Susan Kelechi Watson — paid tribute to the kinds of mothering roles available. Britton gently remarked on the four mother’s she played — including the one on American Horror Story who gave birth to the Antichrist — and then they remarked on how far mothers had come since the start of TV, including them finally asking how if couples swept in twin beds they became mothers at all. TV villains were represented by Kathy Bates, Giancarlo Esposito and Anthony Starr. Esposito was fun when he remarked how when he went out to dinner “drug dealers come up to me and ask how to expand their empires.” They played similar respect and deprecation through doctors, cops and lawyers, all of which they handled well and with a proper mix of TV history and diversity. Gina Torres was there along side Christine Baranski and Viola Davis for lawyers and while it might have seemed out of place to have Niecy Nash-Betts there with Don Johnson and Jimmy Smits, it more than paid off in the punch line. (Watch it on YouTube; I wouldn’t dream of spoiling it.)

The tributes came in so many other smaller ways: Candice Bergen came out to present Best Actress in a Comedy and remarked on everything that happened involving Murphy Brown and Dan Quayle in 1992. “Look how far we’ve come,” she said to a huge laugh. “A vice-presidential candidate would never dare admonish a single mother for raising a child. My work here is done. Meow.” Steve Martin, Martin Short and Selena Gomez came out to present the first award and it was wonderful watching Gomez crack up in front of these legends. I’m still not sure which was my favorite part: Martin and Short cracking up when Gomez told the audience awards don’t matter “She’s so young,” Short said or Martin’s line saying “if I haven’t seen your show I just say: ‘I love that thing you did with Nicole Kidman. And nine times out of ten, I’m right.” (This was made better by the immediate cut to Laura Dern and Reese Witherspoon sitting together. Season 3 of Big Little Lies can’t come soon enough.) And as you’d expect the inevitable conclusion came when Daniel and Eugene were onstage and Annie Murphy showed up because she thought she was the comedy legend to present Outstanding Comedy Series. Naturally the last award was given by Catherine O’Hara.

Even John Leguizamo’s speech about diversity in the Emmys, which would have been heavy-handed under other circumstances wasn’t because it was actually appropriate as much this year as last year. The Emmys was more diverse than it had been and it was more than willing to recognize LatinX nominees than ever before. (Leguizamo was relatively modest: he neglected to mention Nestor Carbonell’s win for Shogun at the Creative Arts Emmys among those highlighted.) And it came as part of the Governor’s Award to Greg Berlanti, one of the most brilliant showrunners of the 21st century particularly when it comes to LGBTQ+ characters in all of his series. His speech, like the man himself, was modest, humorous and self-effacing and I was glad to see him get the recognition he deserved.

In short both of this year’s Emmys ceremonies have done something I had long since given up any hope of actually happening: an Emmys that was worthy of the same respect to the medium it was honoring. Of course there were some moments that were cringeworthy but that’s part of the reason we watch awards show for. (And seriously, Meryl Streep has been told she could get nominated for reading the phone book. I think she can handle being compared to a jock strap.) I don’t know which network gets the carry the Emmys next year (two in the same year has thrown my calendar off) but I hope they take the lessons learned from both of the ones in 2024 and find a way to keep building on it. This is the standard I’ll be holding Emmys broadcasts to from this point on.

Tomorrow I will deal with the actual winners. And trust me, they were worthy of the broadcast.