It’s hard to make a yearly awards show feel special when it’s staged twice in one year. Such was the challenge facing the 76th annual Emmy Awards, which aired just eight months after its warmly nostalgic predecessor due to the prior show’s strike-related delay. (Both shows were helmed by the same producing team.
) Factor in the Television Academy’s tendency toward repeat honorees — and more recently, select shows to sweep all awards in their category within a given year — and it’s understandable why Sunday’s broadcast was a relatively muted affair. But drab is drab. Whatever the justifications, the 76th Emmys were a far less dynamic and more stilted watch than the January show.
Take the signature flourish of a night that was otherwise straightforwardly staged: grouping presenters by archetype of character, from fathers to villains to doctors, and surrounding them with custom sets and backdrops. The motif recalled the January Emmys’ amped-up cast reunions, but less specific and evocative (if still endearing, which Connie Britton, Kathy Bates and Mindy Kaling could be with their hands tied behind their back). And inconsistent to boot: “The West Wing” got the classical reunion treatment to present the award for drama series to “Shōgun,” making for a confusing switch-up of MO at the eleventh hour.
The same feeling was evoked by various theme songs deployed seemingly at random: Jessica Gunning’s win for playing a disturbed stalker on “Baby Reindeer�.