Emmys afterthought

I didn’t watch the Emmy Awards last night. I had a play performed at a theatre.  Not that there was any suspense.  TED LASSO, THE CROWN, and THE QUEEN’S GAMBIT took home most of the gold.  Glad to see HACKS and Jean Smart getting her Emmy, although if ever there was a shoe-in (if that’s the way you spell it… I’ve never seen shoe-in spelled).  In any event, the awards were deserved.  Congratulations. 

But did I miss anything (assuming any of you watched)?  

I did come home and caught the In Memoriam segment and it was shocking how many people I knew.   Of course the actors got most of the attention, but we lost some magnificent writers.  Allan Burns, William Link, Charlie Hauck, William Blinn, Ann Beatts.  How lucky we were to have them, and me especially for being friends with Allan Burns and Charlie Hauck.   Roy Christopher, who was the set designer on FRASIER, BECKER, and quite a few Emmy ceremonies, was also included and that warmed my heart.  

My other takeaway was what an embarrassment for the major broadcast networks that they were almost entirely shut out of any category that had a cable or streaming competitor.  Netflix and HBO and Apple + dominated.  Major networks aren’t even competitive.  They don’t even get nominees.  

Why these networks continue to air the show makes no sense.  First off, the ratings are horrible, and why would CBS last night want to devote three hours to how great Netflix is?   At some point the networks are going to say fuck it - let Amazon Prime carry them.  

I’ll be writing this same article next year during the Oscars when Netflix wins everything there too. 


from By Ken Levine