Presenters give life to the Emmys
The big awards shows often net big ratings, but that doesn’t necessary mean they make good TV shows. The best awards shows — The Grammys set a consistently high standard for entertainment — are those that focus on performance and entertaining the audience at home. The Tonys do it by tapping the talent onstage, and the MTV Music Awards do it by getting nutty and letting it all hang out, as it were.
For an awards show that recognizes the best on TV, the Emmys often make tough going as a TV spectacle, oddly enough. As with the Oscars, it’s considered an industry awards ceremony.
The show itself is designed to recognize those who make TV; the audience comes second.
And so the viewer at home is faced with a multitude of categories — 26 in all, in tonight’s 64th Primetime Emmy Awards — and it’s often left to the host to do the entertaining.
Good thing, then, that the Emmys have Jimmy Kimmel to fall back on this year. If form holds, Kimmel will bring just the right amount of energy, comic timing and quick-witted irreverence.
Ricky Gervais will be there, as a presenter, so an evening that can drag at times might get a much-needed jolt of wake-up juice. Seven-fold Emmy nominee Louis C.K. — yes, he’s been nominated for a record-setting seven Emmys in the same year — made it onto the presenter list, where he joins Mindy Kaling, Amy Poehler and past Emmy winner Jim Parsons. Ginnifer Goodwin is taking a break from the 24/7 lockdown that is the Once Upon a Time set in Vancouver to present an Emmy. Once Upon a Time is back a week from tonight, Sept. 30, and is one of network TV’s most eagerly anticipated returns.
Port Perry, Ont., native and Revenge star Emily VanCamp is slated to present an award as well, along with Tina Fey, Zooey Deschanel, Kerry Washington, past winners Jon Cryer and Melissa McCarthy, and a pair of winners from last weekend’s Creative Arts Emmys: Martha Plimpton, who won the Emmy for best guest actress in a drama, for her appearance in The Good Wife, and Jeremy Davies, who won for his guest appearance in Justified.
The Emmy telecast itself will be in the hands of live-TV veteran Don Mischer, who counts some 80 live events on his list of directing credits, including the Oscars for the past two years , numerous Super Bowl halftime shows, the 2004 Democratic National Convention, at which Mischer famously blew up over what he perceived to be John Kerry’s lame acceptance presentation, and the 2010 Vancouver Olympics Opening Ceremony. (ABC, CTV — 6 p.m.)