How many thought last year’s pandemic Emmys, where the beloved Schitt’s Creek swept every major comedy award (Note: Including, at last, one for the beloved Catherine O’Hara), and in turn launched tens of thousands of Halloween/gay pride costume ideas, was a one-time thing?
Well, it only sort of was.
Shiny happy Moiras!
Yes, SC is no longer with us, leaving this year’s comedy trophies likely to come down to a battle between Apple’s Ted Lasso and HBO’s Hacks. But do you know what else IS still with us?
Envelope, please –
THE PANDEMIC!!!
Woo hoo?
So live from coast to coast on CBS for three hours plus on Sunday night beginning anywhere from 5:00-8:00pm, depending on your time zone, is
Drumroll, please —
THE PANDEMIC EMMYS!!!!
Prepare the “Ted Lassos the Emmys” headlines
Yes, it’ll still take place at the Microsoft Theatre in downtown L.A., where many of us in L.A. haven’t been since, oh, pre-pandemic days. But instead of getting perennial awards show host Jimmy Kimmel, this year CBS is trying something different. They’re giving us –
CEDRIC the ENTERTAINER!!!
Now truly, he happens to be a funny guy. And he’s the star of the CBS series The Neighborhood which certainly has nothing to do with this year’s Emmys except that, well, it is on CBS.
There better be good hats!
But let’s not digress.
You might be saying to yourself right about now: Chair, why do I give a flying fig about the best on television when the world is falling apart and I haven’t received my COVID booster shot yet because I’m nowhere near as old and connected as you are????
Well, the reason is:
You’ve freakin’ been doing nothing BUT watching TV most weekends this year (Note: Because you’re still alive) so OF COURSE you’re going to care!!!!!
Don’t act like this is not you!
That being the case, please join both The Chair and Holly on Tuesday as we unpack the SECOND ANNUAL PANDEMIC EMMYS on THE FIRST ANNUAL EMMY EPISODE OF —
We will recap what promises to be yet another strange awards evening, among so many strange evenings in the last 18 months; applaud and hiss the winners and losers and snubbed; and perhaps even politically incorrectly dish a couple of the outfits, especially among any perceived anti-vaxers.
Of course, none of that is as important as JEAN SMART winning for BEST ACTRESS IN A COMEDY for her career-topping performance in HACKS but, then again, what could be??? #IfSheLosesItsRigged.
Jean and the Emmy Technicolor Dreamcoat
The only thing we could think of is getting the vaccine, masking up AND having a few laughs.
What’s more meaningless and wasteful and escapist than watching an awards show during a pandemic several days after human rights icon and US Supreme Court Justice extraordinaire Ruth Bader Ginsberg died?
Not much. Especially since at least 12 different people have assured me in the last 24 hours that the world as I know it will soon end.
As if it already hasn’t.
Welp
Anyway, this is one of many reasons why I decided to tune in to the mostly virtual 72nd Primetime Emmy Awards Sunday night.
What could be better than escaping into a sea of pop culture calamity?
My hope was for a night of diversion and bitchy commented asides that would allow for the venting of so many things that, okay, I haven’t exactly been holding down.
At all. And not towards anyone.
If you’ve been reading here lately, or ever, you know.
And we still love you completely
Still, my husband and I are suckers for free Hollywood crack so gathering ourselves and our guacamole and chips around the TV at 5:00 PST to not exactly hate watch, more like love-hate divert, seemed like the best idea in at least five minutes.
Plus – we don’t have to social distance, wear a mask or even think about that sh-t – I mean, patriotic duty and kindness towards our fellow citizens – which we do happily since it’s no big deal and, truly, why would anyone in their right mind be complaining about it at this point?
Wear the damn mask
Like your past, who you are and what you are thinking follows you around like the plague and can rear it’s ugly head at any inopportune moment. Which is why it’s best to show that unsavory, albeit snidely fun side of you only around people who get you’re not the total a-hole you seem to be, people like your significant other, best friend or even pooch…..during a Hollywood awards show…when you can talk back or even catcall to the screen at people in fancy clothes and over-privilege who can take it.
Even virtually.
WWJRD (What would Joan Rivers Do?)
This, of course, was not to be on Sunday night.
None of it.
This, in fact, was the opposite of what we hoped. Overly polite people trying their best to gingerly entertain in a responsible way while consistently making the point that there was nothing really important going on this evening on this show except, well, group human hugs in a particularly difficult time of what could be our soon-ending civilization.
Ugh. How disappointed were WE at my house? (Note: Okay, mostly I).
Fortune 500!
But, I mean, what did we think? That host Jimmy Kimmel wouldn’t wear rubber gloves to hand the winner’s envelope to in studio presenter Jennifer Aniston?
Or that we wouldn’t soon see that despite the early canned laughs and celebrity shots the massive Microsoft Theatre really had no audience at all and Kimmel was really speaking to a sea of appropriately empty seats?
Or that instead of buying seats and ads and throwing lavish after parties the studios and TV Academy would pool their money and combined raise $2.8 million during the broadcast to feed hungry kids? (Note: nokidhungry.org).
Really channeling my inner Larry David
Or that many of the award categories, nominees and winners would be read by COVID-19 first responders like nurses, doctors, farmers and truck drivers?
The people putting their lives on the line to keep society going? People taking time out of their day to appear on a silly awards show to amuse the likes of me?
These were people I bet were even expecting half of us watching at home would make fun of their hair, how they spoke or at least whom they were wearing. That’s how cool they were.
Alas, we couldn’t do any of those things. Nor, I suspect, could much of anyone else.
This but there’s nothing else on
Because despite how much we might very, very, VERY much want it, there is no true escape from the reality of these days.
I mean, if an award show can’t even deliver that, we truly have no choice but to face facts and become the actual heroes and heroines on our favorite TV shows in real life.
At least partly.
So yeah, it’s great that Schitt’s Creek set a new record for a TV comedy and swept in every major category – series, directing, writing, actor, actress, supporting actor, supporting actress. And that an out and proud gay guy, showrunner Dan Levy, took home four awards in one night.
Melting my cold dead heart
It’s also great that Succession, a show that takes on the unfeeling, corporate rich, won best drama series, best directing, best writing and best actor.
For this scene alone, Jeremy Strong earned it
Not to mention it’s great Watchmen was awarded best limited series, writing, actress and supporting actor for its original genre bending depiction of the destruction of Black Wall Street and the justice that, in turn, could have wrought.
I mean, is anyone better than Regina??
Kudos to all of them. And many, many more not mentioned.
But what this year’s Emmys will best be remembered for, if it is at all, was for being the first major televised awards show up that best encapsulated the strangeness of our times. (Note: Feel free to substitute strange with the angriest, or bitchiest, word of your choice).
This works too
As much as it did its job I’m hoping next year the 73rd go-round are A LOT worse, and, in turn, bring out the worst in those of us at home.
Because that will mean all of us, on the whole, are doing a hell of a lot better.
notes from a chair 