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CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
4
Mixed:
20
Negative:
4
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Critic Reviews
Sep 13, 2022
Season 74 Review:
As telecasts go, we must acknowledge that this year’s show moved perhaps a tad too swiftly and offered plenty of laughs in the process. ... And if Thompson’s straight man routine helped buoy some moderately funny bits (Kumail Nanjiani bartending; modern dancers reinterpreting famous TV theme songs), it was Sam Jay’s voice and presence which helped set this year’s ceremony apart. The SNL writer helped keep things breezy, casual, and often outright hilarious.
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Sep 13, 2022
Season 74 Review:
It is a confusing but often entertaining time to watch television. Appropriately, the 2022 Emmy Awards honoring all that television was also a confusing, often entertaining experience. ... The Emmys was a little too much too fast — the broadcast sailed through 25 categories last night, one more than we typically see at the Academy Awards, and still finished right on time at 11 p.m. ET. But within that flurry of activity, the Emmys captured some unexpected, truly sublime moments.
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Sep 13, 2022
Season 74 Review:
Perhaps the affable Thompson, so reliable on “Saturday Night Live,” was talked into that awful opening, because he quickly returned to tell some jokes that successfully scored laughs. The remainder of the telecast was funny, entertaining and moved like a freight train.
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Sep 16, 2025
Season 77 Review:
The show opened quite brilliantly — perhaps confusingly, if you had missed Bargatze’s “Washington’s Dream” sketches on “Saturday Night Live” on which the routine was closely modeled. .... There were also some pure delights among the bedrock of desultory scripted banter and unimpressive tributes to old shows. .... The inevitable losses incurred by Bargatze’s charity gimmick provided a sort of running joke at the host’s expense, which he managed quite well.
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Sep 16, 2025
Season 77 Review:
A lot of his [Nate Bargatze's] jokes felt weirdly dismissive of the very industry the Emmys are supposed to be honoring. I’m all for taking the hot air out of a self-important awards show, but this actually ruined the vibe of the whole show. .... But the ceremony also threw in a few quick nostalgia hits to keep us entertained, like Gilmore Girls stars Lauren Graham and Alexis Bledel reuniting on their Stars Hollow porch. These kind of moments are what the Emmys do best.
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Sep 13, 2022
Season 74 Review:
Ultimately it was just another TV awards show among a thousand TV awards shows, long and stuffed with unnecessary montages and comedy bits. ... Thompson was a likeable host — but we knew that would happen, and so did the show’s producers. His warmth goes a long way toward buttressing too-easy jokes. ... With better material, he could shine.
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Sep 13, 2022
Season 74 Review:
Thank God for the winners, indeed. They are why we watch awards shows and for the most part they delivered—a reminder that, even at the Emmys’ most redundant or sloppy, good TV can come out of giving actors shiny things. ... The show as a whole felt like such a downer. Thompson disappeared, as hosts often do—but especially so, all but yielding the floor to announcer Sam Jay at the halfway point. The network promo also felt more egregious than usual.
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Sep 13, 2022
Season 74 Review:
Some amazing shows and wonderful artists won on Monday, but the TV Academy always overstretches. Two montages celebrated Doctor Shows and Police Shows, coincidentally all Shows That Barely Get Nominated Anymore. Thompson often felt less present than poor Sam Jay, a funny comedian who has to live down announcer patter like "These two go together like Hennessy and Tupac!" ... The show got better when it got out of the way.
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Sep 16, 2025
Season 77 Review:
This celebration of good TV didn’t make for very good TV. .... For much of the Emmys broadcast the host seemed like a deer caught in the headlights. .... Despite the timer gimmick and the usual platitudes, you could still find genuine moments sneaking through the cracks.
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Sep 16, 2025
Season 77 Review:
Bargatze’s standup style is pleasant and all-welcoming, qualities that could have been assets in a moment of massive anxiety and uncertainty. But his first Emmy hosting gig revealed an insistent tone deafness that he could not steer out of, and it made a parade of worthwhile wins into a slog.
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Sep 16, 2025
Season 77 Review:
From his opening monologue, Bargatze set an almost lackadaisical, apolitical tone for the evening. He lacked the enthusiasm and gumption needed to lead a three-hour-long award program and often seemed stunned to be in the spotlight. .... There were a hodgepodge of good speeches, and some heartfelt moments celebrating PBS and the legacy of “Law & Order.”
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Sep 16, 2025
Season 77 Review:
The broadcast - usually kind of a yawn - was so bland, while being strenuously policed, that it started to feel a little weird. Less clean and wholesome than correct in the Stepfordian sense. The line readings were stiff, the improvisation dull, and even the merriment seemed dutiful, strained. Things felt off. That was partly due to host Nate Bargatze.
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Sep 13, 2022
Season 74 Review:
Kenan Thompson hosted the 74th Annual Emmy Awards with the proverbial Just One Job, which is to make it not as humiliatingly awful as last year’s show. He got it done, by slightly less than the point spread. At least Emmy Night 2022 had a few surprises in the winners column — so, hey, thanks? And the winners made fantastic speeches, especially Sheryl Lee Ralph, Lizzo, and Zendaya. Those moments are the whole reason fans tune in. Unfortunately, they still had to fight against a ticking clock and whatever dipstick was conducting the Silence Jennifer Coolidge at All Costs Orchestra.
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Sep 13, 2022
Season 74 Review:
Back as a full-scale production for the first time since 2019, the Emmys moved, in moments, with a refreshing fleetness. But much of the production seemed strangely stuck in a hazy past. ... It remains hard to fathom, though, that the celebration itself is so staid, so afraid of leaning into the quirk and intrigue that has made TV such a rewarding medium for its creators, who sat through a Kenan Thompson dance routine in person, and its fans, who sat through it at home, or skipped it in favor of watching “Squid Game” or “Hacks” or whatever great thing might win next year.
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Sep 13, 2022
Season 74 Review:
The first 90 minutes of the show were a mixed bag. ... A “been there, done that” feeling suffocated the second half of the show. ... Thompson tried. ... We’ll definitely remember Sheryl Lee Ralph singing and Jennifer Coolidge dancing, but the Emmys show? Well, at least it won’t live in infamy.
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Sep 13, 2022
Season 74 Review:
After a couple of very unsubtle jabs at Netflix’s recent business setbacks — the show settled into an amiable and inoffensive, formless and graceless groove. Not much to get excited about; not much to get upset about. Another one in the books. ... One of the most noticeable aspects of the show was the weakness of the scripted portions. ... The speeches given to introducers and presenters were simultaneously banal and disjointed, seemingly half written.
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Sep 16, 2022
Season 74 Review:
Despite celebrating the craft of television, the ceremony was ineptly written and paced. Thompson’s comedy interludes had a wocka-wocka desperation about them, and the formerly low-key job of announcer went to the comedian Sam Jay, who stole focus with contrived introductions of the presenters.
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The Daily BeastSep 13, 2022
Season 74 Review:
This was one of the worst Emmys telecasts in recent memory. ... Award shows are fun to watch, and, in spite of itself, this year’s ceremony made that case. ... It was almost as if handing out trophies was a chore—a distraction from the mission to make viewers eye-roll as much as possible while watching insufferable bits. It’s hilarious, then, how moving most of the wins were. (Beyond that, I can’t remember a time I’ve seen an award show and thought almost every winner was the right choice.) ... Kenan Thompson hosted the show, and was, to keep it concise, terrible.
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