Day: September 21, 2020

Emmys were fun — in a drearily monotonous way

The Emmy telecast had been on for 73 minutes Sunday, before an American won an award.
The entire first hour on ABC (yes, the American Broadcasting Company) was spent giving prizes to Canadians. “Schitt’s Creek” (shown here) swept all seven of the awards given on-air for comedies – best series, plus four acting awards and ones for directing and writing.
It was a remarkable – and monotonous – stretch for a pleasant little show that is usually ignored. Having finished its run on the obscure PopTV channel, “Schitt’s Creek” is now confined to the CW Seed streaming service. The Emmy voters had ignored it for years … then showered it with those seven on-air wins and two more (costumes and casting) before the telecast.
When all of that finally ended, it was time for the award for the best variety talk series … which went to John Oliver, an Englishman.
Eventually, the Emmys did find some Americans and revert to their traditional state … which involves HBO winning everything. That included Emmys for best: Read more…

The new TV season has started … sort of

(This is an updated version of a story from the previous week.)
We finally have an answer to TV’s peskiest question: When will the season start?
It started (sort of) on Sept. 21, with Fox’s “L.A.’s Finest” (shown here) and “Filthy Rich” and CBS’ “Manhunt.” It will be smaller than past years, but there will be lots of new shows on the five commercial broadcast networks.
Fox is the most thorough. With one exception – it has to wait a couple weeks for Thursday-night football – it will be rerun-free. Read more…