Award show awfulness

It’s not too often that five minutes into an award show the audience can already tell how ridiculously awful the entire long, drawn-out process is going to be.

But unfortunately, this year’s Primetime Emmys proved that there’s a first time for everything. Even for those people who enjoy television and all its award-show glory like myself, the 2008 Emmys were as disappointing as possible.

Aside from a few of the actual winners, every facet of the show seemed off, and that’s probably why the ceremony saw a 6 percent decrease in viewers from last year’s telecast. People didn’t even stick around for the important awards at the end, it was so awful.

First of all – and all due respect to their supposed talent – this year’s hosts were clearly the major flaw in the entire operation. Jeff Probst, Howie Mandel, Heidi Klum, Tom Bergeron and Ryan Seacrest opened the show with a dumb skit “about nothing.” Sure, it was a nice gesture to prove what happens with writers not around, but those five aren’t at the top of any improv lists. Even seeing Heidi have her suit ripped off could not save it.

Furthermore, throughout the night the group struggled mightily with all of the scripted bits they were given. Klum overreaches way so much it was annoying, and the weird interaction between Mandel and Bergeron during the “it’s the accountants” skit sucked tremendously. Seacrest has done so many things by now he was comfortable enough, but Probst is still too good for this crap. It’s unclear who was more bored, him or the audience.

Secondly, it seemed like almost everyone was cut off during their acceptance speech throughout the night. It’s so weird that in all these years of award shows, no one has figured out how to block off some extra time just in case a winner gets a bit long winded. Maybe they should have nixed the Josh Groban theme song melody – even though it was neat – to do just this.

But unluckily for us, that didn’t happen. Instead, as winners were in the midst of thanking the important people in their lives or making enlightening political statements, we were watching a promo for the upcoming season of “Private Practice.” Especially disheartening was when Kirk Ellis, writer of the big winner “John Adams,” noted how happy he was to work on a project about “a period in our history when articulate men articulated complex thoughts in complete sentences,” but before he could take two breaths, the commercial boomed in.

Finally, there were a few issues with the winners, mostly in the drama-acting department. It’s arguable that all four winners for lead/supporting actor/actress – Bryan Cranston, Glenn Close, Zelijko Ivanek and Dianne West – were definite surprises.

There’s really no way that Michael Emerson (“Lost”) and Jon Hamm (“Mad Men”) should have lost in their categories, but the Emmys are rarely spot-on with what should be. At least “30 Rock” cleaned house.

If there were an award for worst award show in recent history, this year’s Emmys would win in a landslide.