The Primetime Emmy Awards

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.

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.

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.

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.

The clock is ticking, and the producers transferred their panic onto the night’s honorees. Desperate times may call for desperate measures, but desperation doesn’t have to be this damn boring.

Thompson was fine. Much of the night’s humor was fairly inside. ... The pace was fast, in a way that was somewhat exhausting. Did it feel like a party? One you were watching through a window, perhaps.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.