Emmys TV Review: Smoothly Executed Reunion-Rich Ceremony Lacks Spark With Few Surprises

It was a tame throwback Sunday at the Emmy Awards tonight with blasts from the past taking center stage in a show seemingly longing for another era.

Besides Hacks unexpected and well deserved Best Comedy win, the show was full of predictable and well deserved trophies for FX’s  Shōgun and The Bear, plus Netflix’s Baby Reindeer. Along with anticipated victories for True Detective: Night Country’s Jodie Foster, The Crown’s Elizabeth Debicki and Hack’s Jean Smart, Sunday’s nearly three-hour long nostalgia heavy 76^th Primetime Emmy Awards was punctuated by a crowd pleasing West Wing 25^th anniversary reunion.  

Even so, from burn on the “bit far-fetched, if not utterly ridiculous” politics of 2024 by Richard Schiff, there was not much new to be said there on this small screen display of back to the future.

“Our political landscape has shifted dramatically in recent years,” stated Janel Moloney,  with co-stars Schiff, Martin Sheen, Dule Hill, and Allison Janney standing nearby in a Jed Bartlet administration Oval Office replica. “But two things have not changed, the importance of everyone making sure to be registered and to vote,” the show’s Donna Moss added. “And the quality, the quality of the drama series on television,” said Sheen himself in best Bartlet fashion as the nominees and winner for the category were unveiled (Hint – it was the 18 Emmy winning Shōgun ).

If the appearance by everyone’s favorite fiction POTUS and his close aides wasn’t enough to make you sugarcoat the past, there was also a 50th anniversary Saturday Night Live reunion (no Eddie Murphy of course) , and a 50^th Happy Days reunion with the Fonz (Henry Winkler) and Ritchie Cunningham (Ron Howard). There was also Murphy Brown’s Candice Bergen name checking near forgotten former Vice President Dan Quayle and taking a slight childless cat lady swipe at current GOP VP nominee Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH)

The only thing missing from the flashback-filled affair was a walk-on by Bill Clinton.

Otherwise, people got awards, stars gave speeches and thanked spouses and agents, there was some beeped out swearing, and it was, as always, way too long. The gimmick of groups of presenters being lumped together via genre as classic TV Cops, Doctors, Lawyers, Coaches, and more was pretty quickly dusty with the exception of Niecy Nash-Betts thankfully kicking up a storm.

Thank God for those cutting to the core and honest acceptance speeches by Bay Reindeer’s Richard Gadd over the show’s many wins over the night Blessed be John Leguizamo for coming out at the two-hour mark to shatter the torpor with his razor sharp ripping of DEI critics and bigots. On this weekend celebrating Mexican Independence Day, the1998 Emmy winner, along with TV Academy Chair/CEO Cris Abrego, praised the power of inclusion, nominees Selena Gomez, Sofia Vergara, Issa Lopez, Kali Reis and Nava Mau, and the “progress” the industry is making to wide its scope on both sides of the camera.

However, on a day where a gunman got very close to Donald Trump on the former president’s Florida gold course, the elephant in the room of the upcoming election was pretty much unmentioned besides urges from a handful of winners for viewers to vote. Sidestepping any reference to either Trump or Kamala Harris onstage, Jon Stewart captured the ethos of the evening when he growled  “you have made an old man very happy,” as The Daily Show scored the Emmy for Best Talk Series.

Truth is, with a joke halfway through the show from co-host Dan Levy about the Emmys being the perfect age for CBS’ traditional demographic, the AARP fix was kinda in from the jump.

Almost immediately overshadowed by Only Murders in the Building’s Gomez, Steve Martin, and Martin Short’s banter before giving out the first award of the night, Dan Levy and his co-host/father Eugene Levy began the show in a distinctly low key fashion. Noting they were not stand-up comedians, the past Emmy winners and Schitt’s Creek co-stars did a tour of nominees and a few Dad gags before wrapping it up with a promise to be less Canadian than usual with litter tolerance for long acceptance speeches.

A promise that was promptly ignored, I might add.

Still, in the fourth largest Canadian city in the world by population, the True North quip went over well. In fact, in a generally smoothly executed fashion, the  Jesse Collins, Dionne Harmon and Jeannae Rouzan-Clay produced and Alex Rudzinski directed Emmys tonight overall went over like  a Spotify generated Sunday brunch acoustic playlist. Gadd and Leguizamo’s stints onstage aside, the soft show caused no offense and raised no eyebrows.

Leaving us with a ceremony will be highly forgettable except to the winners themselves.

Up against NBC’s Sunday Night Football’s line-up of the Chicago Bears battling the Houston Texans, the second Emmys of 2024 was almost always destined to be a hard sell even with yesterday’s last minute resolution of Disney’s carriage battle with DirecTV. As has become the norm for Hollywood award shows over the past 11 months, there were also pro-Gaza protestors in the streets surrounding the Peacock Theatre this evening and disrupting red carpet arrivals.

All in all, the 76^th Primetime Emmys was an award show that would have been business as usual in past decades – which is good but in this “tumultuous  time for the industry, the nation and the world, is just not good enough, even if President Bartlet was in the house.