Deep down, we should have known it was too good to be true: The American Idol executive producers who had signed on to produce this fall’s primetime Emmys telecast have begged off the project. Ken Warwick and Nigel Lythgoe explained that they’re just too busy working on this season’s Idol finale to devote their precious time to the Emmys.
This isn’t exactly the classiest move, for reasons which go beyond the general gaucheness of suddenly ditching a public commitment. Back when Lythgoe and Warwick took on this assignment, they had plenty to say about their new colleagues in the awards-show-production field. "Awards shows are starting to fail a little bit because there’s just a queue of people coming on and thanking their mum, dad, and Uncle Fred," Warwick snarkily told EW’s Tim Stack a couple months ago, adding that "We’d like to bring a little more entertainment back." I guess that turned out to be more difficult than he’d anticipated, so now he and Lythgoe are packing up and leaving the job to someone else.
But what’s worse is that they were completely right! Awards shows arestarting to fail, and not just a little bit. More often than not, theymanage to make the most entertaining stuff in the world — music,movies, TV (y’know, entertainment) — seem deathly boring to even themost devoted pop-culture fiends. Say what you will about Idol,it’s never that. Warwick and Lythgoe never announced how exactly theyplanned to spice up the Emmys, but presumably they would have addedsome sort of participatory twist — something along the lines of thisyear’s unjustly panned "My Grammy Moment" contest. Now, chances are theEmmys will get a plain old telecast like every other awards ceremony,which is bad news for everyone but, well, "Mum, Dad, and Uncle Fred."
What do you think? Are you still looking forward to watching the Emmys in September? Did you have high hopes for an Idol-izedbroadcast, or was I the only one? And what should the telecast’sproducers, whoever they turn out to be, do to make the Emmy ceremonymore entertaining?
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So I guess that means this year’s show won’t begin with Seacrest standing 50ft away from the stage saying “THESE…are the Emmys!”
Whoever’s producing the Emmys should bring Conan O’Brien back because he was absolutely brilliant. His opening bit with inserting himself into TV shows was great (ala Billy Crystal in the Oscars), his (i guess mandatory) musical number was surprisingly tolerable and charming, and his ongoing bit with Bob Newhart was classic. Bring on more stuff like that.
Oh, and also, I realize this has nothing to do with the telecast, it’d be great if whoever produces the show can make sure Tony Shalhoub DOES NOT beat Steve Carrell, Alec Baldwin and others for an Emmy again. I don’t want to have to replace another TV that’s been dropkicked.
There’s a reason that I always watch the Oscars, but rarely watch the Emmys – the same boring pretentious overrated junk that I don’t watch is nominated year in and year out instead of truly deserving shows like Battlestar Galactica, Veronica Mars, and in the past, Buffy TVS. If I want to see Tony Shaloub win AGAIN, I’ll just…wait, I NEVER want to see that again!
Like a geek, I used to fervently watch ALL award shows back in the 70’s and 80’s, but there’s so much garbage on now that I only watch if one of my favs are nominated. The last Academy Awards I watched was the year LOTR won. Music award shows I avoid like the plague. Way too self important for my stomach to handle.
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