The 74th Emmy Awards were handed out Monday night in a show that featured the now-standard slam at former President Donald Trump and left reviewers seeking for ways to describe its overall vapid essence.
The New York Times, for example, summed up the show as “light and forgettable.”
Reviewer Mike Hale dismissed the production by saying it “settled into an amiable and inoffensive, formless and graceless groove. Not much to get excited about; not much to get upset about. Another one in the books.”
And another anti-Trump moment.
Actor Martin Short, who presented the award for the Best Variety Talk Series category, tried to make a Trump joke work.
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“Really, what an audience you are,” he said, according to The Hill.
“I wish I could box you up and take you home, like classified White House documents,” he added.
The Hollywood Reporter declared that the show made “some woefully bad production choices” as well as “odd, sometimes terrible telecast decisions.”
“I barely remember the telecast at all. But hey, at least it wasn’t a catastrophe?” Daniel Fienberg wrote for The Hollywood Reporter as he compared the show to the Oscars awards show made famous by actor Will Smith storming on stage to slap comedian Chris Rock.
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Fienberg wrote that “a ‘been there, done that’ feeling suffocated the second half of the show.”
Even a brief highlight left other parts of the show looking flat, he noted, panning the work of host Kenan Thompson.
“It didn’t help when Steve Martin, Martin Short and Selena Gomez presented together and had much better material, prompting no end of ‘Why aren’t they hosting?” tweets,” Fienberg wrote.
Kinda wishing Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez were hosting the #Emmys pic.twitter.com/bwaGVvKOUn
— Jarett Wieselman (@JarettSays) September 13, 2022
Writing for Variety, Daniel D’Addario noted that “much of the production seemed strangely stuck in a hazy past.”
At Deadline, critic Dominic Pattern said the show “made the small screen feel just that bit smaller in its lack of real ambition.”
Noting that the show had highlights, including Sheryl Lee Ralph’s song and remarks after winning an Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for her role as a kindergarten teacher on ABC’s “Abbott Elementary,” he concluded that “the Emmys spent too much time tripping over its own feet tonight.”
Before a brief speech, Ralph belted out the beginning of the women’s rights anthem “Endangered Species,” as NBC reported.
“I am an endangered species but I sing no victim’s song. I am a woman, I am an artist, and I know where my voice belongs.”
Woah….. Sheryl Lee Ralph really took us to church with her amazing acceptance speech at the #emmys last night! ???? pic.twitter.com/o6UmM2CiYw
— Anthony Buchanan (@anthonyscountry) September 13, 2022
“What exactly was the 2022 Emmys trying to be?” Pattern wrote. “Because, tying to be all things to all people is spreading yourself way too thin and ends up pleasing few in the end, as many an Oscar, Grammy and past Emmy show has shown.”
