Emmy Wrap-up

This isn't Variety, so I'm not going to regurgitate a list of all the winners and what their numbers might mean for ratings/ad sales/blah blah blah, and it's not TVGasm, so I'm not going to give a detailed snark-filled account of the entire evening. This is, however, Pop Whore, and we would be remiss not to at least say a little something about the hallowed three-hour circle jerk that so thoroughly dominates the airwaves every September that the WB is forced to air Lord of the Rings on the assumption that the five people not watching the Emmys are probably the same five people who never saw LOTR on the big screen.

Anyway, one topic I think deserves some mention is the sadly one-sided relationship between the Emmys and the Oscars. In case you haven't noticed, the Oscar telecast is up for multiple Emmys pretty much every year, and usually it wins at least one of them. Then six months later, the 4-hour Oscar ceremony comes and goes with not even one mention of the word Emmy, or even the word television for that matter. To the Oscars, the Emmys are that pathetic friend who keeps inviting you out and offering to pick up dinner and drinks just because you were nice enough to hang out with him/her -- and if they even notice that you never call back to reciprocate, they keep quiet about it. The functional problem here, of course, is that the Oscars are a TV show, whereas the Emmys aren't a movie. In a few years, the TV Academy is going to pick up on that fact and, instead of relegating the ceremony to a Sunday evening on CBS, make the Emmycast into a $50 million Miramax epic directed by Anthony Minghella, with Jude Law as Conan O'Brien and Judi Dench as Whoopi Goldberg. (There won't be a dry eye in the house when Albert Finney as the cold-hearted Executive Producer tells Judi/Whoopi that she can't have her two extra minutes to do an edgy racial joke, as John Williams' haunting score plays in the background.)

Oh, and the actual awards? Well, it was nice that Lost won, even if co-showrunner Damon Lindelof appears to be about 15 years old. I'm not even going to mention snubbing Jennifer Garner for Best Actress in favor of Patricia freaking Arquette, because it will just make me too angry. Ditto for choosing Everybody Loves [the fact that] Raymond [is finally over] when Scrubs and Arrested Development were the only sensible (i.e., funny) options. And even if they're not ready to give her the statue, at least those crusty old Emmy voters were smart enough to nominate Kristen Bell for the stunning 22 episodes she turned in on Veronica Mars... uh, scratch that. But Gilmore Girls finally got some of the recognition it deser-- never mind. Clearly this stuff is a lot easier to tolerate if you're a pod person who watches exclusively bland big-network shows and HBO. So, in that spirit... hey, they nominated Will & Grace! What a consistently funny show that is, and isn't it amazing that it's lost none of its spunk and originality in all these years! And how lovely that Doris Roberts and Brad Garrett had their respectively brilliant work recognized yet again! Don't even get me started on The West Wing.... why, it's a show about the inner workings of our nation's highest office! How could it not be utterly fantastic? Who in their right mind would turn that off to watch a little blonde girl solving mysteries?

And with that taken care of, we return to our regularly scheduled blog. See you next September, Emmycast!