A few gaffes might have improved things in Kimmel’s virtual Emmys show

IF you turned on ABC’s virtual telecast of Sunday night’s Primetime Emmy Awards hoping to be wildly entertained by one gaffe after another as the show zipped and zapped back and forth from a fairly lonely but never nervous host (Jimmy Kimmel, stationed in Los Angeles’s Staples Center arena) to a zillion remote feeds in the homes of nominated stars scattered hither and yon – well, sorry to say, the whole thing went pretty smoothly.

“One hundred different feeds going on all at once, what could possibly go right?” Kimmel joked in his opening monologue. A couple of hours in, however, you’d have given anything for a hitch, a glitch, a true panic moment. TV producers have gotten extraordinarily good at surmounting the challenges that the coronavirus pandemic has dealt to live shows. In every way that counts, the 72nd Emmys (‘the Pandemmys,’ Kimmel called the show) looked a lot like all the Emmy nights that came before it.

If you turned the Emmys on to see a full sweep of the comedy awards by the increasingly beloved Pop TV series ‘Schitt’s Creek,’ a wry, heartfelt story about a rich family that has to reinvent itself in lessened circumstances, then it was a happy night indeed. The first hour of the telecast went completely to ‘Schitt’s,’ winning everything – including best comedy series.

In the drama categories, HBO’s ‘Succession’ won best drama series. The show’s Jeremy Strong won best actor, and Zendaya, the star of HBO’s ‘Euphoria’ won best actress.

And HBO’s ‘Watchmen,’ a topically provocative take on an alternate-reality America caught between lawlessness and vigilantism, won best limited series, with additional awards going to Regina King (lead actress) and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (supporting actor).

The Pandemmys attempted several different ways to make the most of an awards show that had no audience, no red-carpet buildup, no congratulatory hugs and kisses, little to no inperson banter between the host and presenters and a fashion sensibility in which a T-shirt with the name of Louisville, Ky., police shooting victim Breonna Taylor on it said more than any designer gown or fancy stayhome pajamas.

What the show did have was one big absurd punchline to refer to again and again: this dreadful stretch of time we collectively call 2020.

Kimmel opened the show telling jokes to what appeared to be a star-studded audience (using old clips from past shows). “Why would you have an awards show in the middle of a pandemic?” he asked.

“This is the year they decided to have a host?” The crowd roared with laughter; it was a suitable ruse until Kimmel spied himself in the audience.

An early bit between Kimmel and Jennifer Aniston involved the sterilisation of the envelope containing the name of the night’s first winner (‘Schitt’s Creek’s’ Catherine O’Hara, the award many tuned in specifically hoping to see) and a fire extinguisher. For a minute it seemed the two might have set fire – in California – to Staples Centre, but Aniston gave it a couple more bursts. That was about it for big laughs for the rest of the night.

The show did throw a bunch of different ideas out there. Real folks, including medical personnel, a rancher, a UPS driver, a teacher and an astronaut on the International Space Station got to present some of the awards, from their working environments.

Some of these stunts faltered (a bit about interns delivering the Emmys statuettes to winners at home, getting there in sporty little Kias, turned out to be little more than a shameless plug for Kia), but my hunch is that viewers were in a no-harm/no-foul mood about it – such as when Aniston turned up again via live Internet feed with ‘Friends’ co-stars Courteney Cox and Lisa Kudrow, or when trip-wired boxes were delivered to nominees’ houses, exploding open with confetti (and an Emmy statuette) for the winner. — The Washington Post