2013 Emmys roundup: W-R-O-N-G

     "Breaking Bad" creator Vince Gilligan accepts the 2013
     Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series.
     Photo Credit: Reuters, ATAS, CBS

Just as the title indicates, these Emmys were pretty much nothing but wrong, in a few senses of the word. As a piece of televised entertainment, this was an especially weak Emmy telecast, stuffed with bad, time wasting musical performances that only occasionally had some connection to television. And on the awards side, all of the trophies they gave out were either wrong in the "just plain wrong" sense (Jeff Daniels, Gail Mancuso, etc.) or were wildly pleasant, left-field choices that I imagine did an even bigger number on my yearly predictions than usual.

It was interesting to hear Grantland's Bill Simmons describe being in the theatre for the actual show. While the overly long and inconsequential Elton John performance was unbearable to those of us watching at home, the actual audience in the Nokia Theatre welcomes this sort of visual stimuli to pass the three hours they're stuck in their seats. While I felt the dance routine choreographed by the nominees in the Outstanding Choreography category to be an interesting idea that was poorly executed, I understand why that's a nice break from giving out trophies to the celebrities who actually attend the event, and especially to those who found out early in the night that they hadn't won.

Steve Levitan (and if there is one thing I am most furious about in this entire telecast, it's that we came so close to making it an entire year without having to listen to him giving ANOTHER speech upon his mediocre show being hailed as the second coming of Christ in 22 minute form) called attention to the somber, deathly tone of the show, and he wasn't wrong for doing so. I understand why people don't like the necrology because people are always left out and always will be no matter how many award shows we live to see. But paying specific tributes creates two problems: as mentioned, the repeated reminder of death casts a shadow over an event that is ultimately a celebration. There's nothing wrong with life being the thing you're celebrating, but the tribute segments meant the somber feeling was inescapable. If you pay all tributes during the "in memoriam" segment, you can fade to commercial and then come back with the wacky stars of "The Millers" and pretend that nothing happened. This made jarring tonal shifts a constant component of the telecast.

The second is that even more than the complaints of people left out of the necrology, this creates such a disgusting popularity contest out of death. Jack Klugman's son was understandably disappointed that the Academy chose not to give his father a specific tribute during the show, and Larry Hagman, arguably the biggest TV star of the 1980s, didn't get one either. For the Academy to give the thumbs up to creating a situation in which it was now a competition to see which lost icons were more worthy of attention than others is so ridiculous and dumbfounding that it could only come from the same organization that votes for the Emmy awards. And on the note of death as a popularity contest: I happened to catch Emmy host Neil Patrick Harris on "The Talk" late last week, where he specifically mentioned that he didn't like it when the audience can be heard clapping at varying levels for celebrities of varying levels during award show necrologies. He assured that any noise from the theatre would be muted during the actual telecast, and of course, come Sunday night, we got to hear about 6,000 people remember to continue clapping for agents and studio executives they didn't know while the applause escalated for talent who worked in front of the camera. Just a disaster.

Simmons also mentioned that during commercial breaks, clips were shown of past Emmy acceptance speeches. A nice tribute to television, which the Emmys seemed to be sorely lacking this year. I actually found myself missing the way the show used to separate the night by categories, if only because we didn't get the "Year In (Comedy/Variety/Miniseries/Reality/Drama)" montages of actual TV clips from the past year that we've gotten for the last few telecasts. I also understand why people didn't like that the extended tributes to James Gandolfini, Cory Monteith et al. also did not feature any clips of the actors performing (or in the case of Gary David Goldberg, clips from the shows he worked on), though if you couldn't tell, that's not my biggest gripe about how those were handled.

Neil Patrick Harris proved to be a somewhat problematic host. His reputation as a song-and-dance man who opens awards shows he doesn't even host (like that weird duet he did...by himself to open the Oscars that one time) precedes him, and I think it was an interesting idea to say up front "I'm not doing that this time." But all of the comedic bits about him saying that weren't funny in the slightest. Even his opening monologue, which wasn't intended to be all that funny so that the past hosts could berate him for doing such a bad job, never turned a corner into anything actually entertaining.

Show highlight: Even though she's great on "Veep," I wasn't all that happy to see Julia Louis-Dreyfus repeat. I would have much rather seen Laura Dern or Amy Poehler pull off a surprising but well-earned victory. But the moment of the night was easily seeing the "Veep" cast all in-character as Louis-Dreyfus accept her award, with fellow Emmy winner Tony Hale standing right behind her, holding her purse and reminding her what to say, while nominee Anna Chlumsky sat in the audience on her phone.

Show lowlight: "Hi, I'm Elton John. Here's my latest single. It kind of reminds me of Liberace, a guy who HBO made a movie about this year but has actually been dead for 25 years. Michael Douglas, Matt Damon, please stand perfectly still for these next six minutes as I play the song in its entirety. As I play, be sure to put your ear right up to the television. You might be able to hear all the speeches that will be cut off for the rest of the night."

The results of my predictions after the break...

Sunday reviews: Excellent outings for "The Walking Dead" and "Homeland"

   David Morrissey of "The Walking Dead," and Claire Danes
   and Damian Lewis of "Homeland"

Wow. That was a damn good night for TV, featuring fantastic episodes from two shows I could easily rank among my favourites.

With "The Walking Dead," I place more emphasis on "could" since I don't think I've really liked an episode of the show since the season 2 premiere. Last year I found that much like the creatures who threatened our heroes, "The Walking Dead" became very stagnant and slow moving, thinking what it was doing was enough to be effective...and it wasn't. With the reputations of critical darlings like "Mad Men" and "Breaking Bad" preceding it, AMC's zombie hit attempted to reach that level of storytelling and character development, and for the most part failed. I longed for the days of season one when the show was just running around and shooting zombies - a show I could at least enjoy as a guilty pleasure. After a season finale I didn't hate last year, I came into the third season with renewed optimism but still some reluctance to forgive, and this week was a major step in the right direction. I've spent two weeks yearning for a return to stories focusing on Andrea and Michonne, and having long grown tired of Rick and the gang's wacky misadventures, how refreshing it was to watch an episode where they are reduced to but a passing mention from one handed Merle, of all characters. More importantly, how refreshing it was to be introduced to new characters on this show who didn't make me want to stab my eyes out. David Morissey's mysterious "The Governor" (just "The Governor," never his real name) piques some serious interest, certainly more than the blink-and-you'll-miss-them prisoners from last week. I almost convinced myself I wanted to see more of them, and by the time they were dead I couldn't care less. Instructions for next week, writers: take us back to Woodbury, and shows us more of the Andrea/Michonne relationship. Also, I'm in no rush to see Rick and his soul family again. But I doubt you'll be interested in taking me up on that last bit.

"Homeland" continues to be a televisual force of nature with tonight's episode "Q and A," in which Carrie and Brody have an hour long conversation that simultaneously wins Claire Danes and Damian Lewis next year's Emmys. Holy. Crap. I was on the edge of my seat during most of the interrogation scenes, but no more so than in the second half of the episode when Carrie turns off all the cameras and gives Brody the "Wouldn't it be nice to stop lying?" speech. Have you ever seen such outstanding acting it actually wanted to make you pull your hair out? After tonight's episode, I can say that I have - weird as that may be. Whenever I discuss "Homeland" with my brother, the question we usually come back to is "What now? How does the show possibly continue into a second season? How does the show finish season 2? How does the show go into season 3?" After Brody's arrest last week, the question was never more prevalent. And tonight's answer of immunity for Brody in exchange for his help in unravelling Abu Nazir's plot is going to make for one hell of a second half for what is already a fantastic sophomore season. Then, we come to Kim Bauer and her cougar  Tyra and Landry's 12 state killing spree  Dana and Finn's hit-and-run. Already people online are comparing those fondly remembered subplots to tonight's adolescent antics, and while I'd like to think those people are wrong, there's too much evidence to suggest this doesn't spiral out of control (especially considering enough of the creative team behind "24" is now working here). Prove me wrong, kids. Prove - me - wrong! Still, all in all, a phenomenal episode. The funny thing is, given how absolutely exceptional Danes and Lewis are, it's almost plausible that they could turn around and top this next week. But to ask that would be greedy, because tonight, we got "Q and A" - one of the best television episodes of the year.

Emmys 2012: Did the voters watch more than three shows this year? (No, not really)

   The team from "Homeland" accepts the Emmy for Outstanding
   Drama Series at Sunday night's 64th Primetime Emmy Awards

They say the easiest way to win an Emmy is to have already won one, and last night's 64th Primetime Emmy Awards crowned very few new winners. The television academy's favourite new drama series "Homeland" took home a number of trophies on the drama side, but "Modern Family" once again undeservedly dominated the comedy awards, winning every category they were nominated for (it's still so very pleasantly weird they didn't get a nomination for comedy writing). Below are my thoughts on each individual winner as well as some notable moments on the telecast, plus the results of my post-nomination predictions. (Spoiler: I did poorly, as usual)

2012 Emmy nominations post-mortem: The surprises, the snubs, and the shameful

     Kerry Washington of ABC's "Scandal" and late night host
     Jimmy Kimmel present the nominations for the 64th Primetime
     Emmy Awards.

The Primetime Emmys sting of disappointment every year, and this year they stung even earlier. Not long before the nomination announcements, Nick Offerman from Parks and Recreation Reads Tweets From Young Female Celebrities had to bail on announcing because of a travel delay. In the end, though, I was glad that the actor giving the funniest performance on television did not have to get up so early in the morning to announce to the world that his own show, the best comedy on TV, was being ignored in favour of shows that move at a glacial level in terms of character development and humour, like The Big Bang Theory and Modern Family.

I could write long, generic paragraphs about what I liked and didn't like, but I'd better go through the major awards category by category, so as to keep my thoughts under control and in their proper places. I'll also make note of who I think should win (as in who I feel is most deserving and who I want to win) and who I think will win. I have nothing to say about the miniseries and movie categories, so why waste time trying to write about them? A combination of joy and disgust after the break.

My hypothetical 2012 Emmy ballot

The nominations for the 64th Primetime Emmy Awards will be announced in a little more than 32 hours, so before that, I reveal my hypothetical Emmy ballot for I guess record's sake, as well as which nominee I'd vote for to win. I stuck to acting and series categories because I feel like there's too much to sort through with writing and directing categories and the variety and reality categories bored me. Onward...