Half and Half

'Angels,' 'Sopranos' hit high notes

My record of Emmy prediction improves! Five out of ten isn't bad, right? Random picks should result in two of ten, so I'll take this.

Anyhow, I thought the show itself lacked a spark. Garry Shandling's best days are clearly behind him. I missed his monologue--we were driving home--but nothing else he did over the course of the evening made me think I'd missed anything special.

I was gratified to be wrong about Michael Imperioli; his win as Christopher was richly deserved, and Steve Buscemi's character wasn't as interesting as critics seemed to want to make it. Gratifying also was my error in suggesting that Kim Cattrall would beat out Cynthia Nixon; over the course of six years, I think Miranda was the more interesting (and harder to play) character, even if Samantha's final-season cancer battle brought out the best in Cattrall. And I was pleased to see the bookends for Frasier's Kelsey Grammer and David Hyde Pierce, especially because the latter blocked perennial winner Everybody Loves Raymond from the podium altogether. And I was pleased everywhere I was right; the Adriana award was a wonderful thing to see, and Drea DeMatteo's "puke, choke, and die" line was a great in-joke for the Sopranos audience. Seeing Sopranos finally win the big one was a perfect note for the conclusion, even if they did break away from James Gandolfini's last-minute tribute. (He was going to praise a unit in Iraq that named their tank after Tony Soprano's boat, in case you were wondering.)

Not as pleasant was seeing the two Sopranos leads left out in the cold. It would be fine if I felt good about their successors, but Allison Janney again for a half-baked season of her show? She was stunned, Edie Falco was stunned, and asking the other nominees to come up on stage was weird and ill-considered; isn't it hard enough to be gracious in defeat without getting up in front of millions of people? If they just had to give a trophy to the no-longer great The West Wing, a career achievement Best Actor award for Martin Sheen, who's zero-for-five as President Bartlet, would have been better than tossing the thing to James Spader just to give it to someone on a network.

I can understand the impulse, though. After a night when HBO won at least 15 awards, with the remaining comedy awards going to a high-minded farewell season of a classy show ( Frasier) and a little-watched critic's darling (Arrested Development), the folks who run the Emmys have to be wondering if they've gotten too good for the TV audience. No trophies for Friends, no trophies for Raymond, and the most popular reality shows (Apprentice and Idol) and late-night shows (Letterman and un-nominated Leno) lost to an unwatched but critically loved Amazing Race and a cable gem, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. A miniseries about gay men and AIDS wins more awards than any other program. This made me feel good about my TV watching habits, and about my choice to have both discs of Angels in America ready and waiting for viewing this week, but is it the kind of pattern that makes average viewers want to tune in? It felt like a sop instead to people like me, and I just don't think I'm in the majority.

Nevertheless, to improve a show that seems destined to aim to please me rather than the masses, here are some notes to the Emmy producers: First, we don't mind hearing stars talk for a full minute. Enough with the music when they've just gotten started! And, in case you couldn't guess, I don't think you should invite Garry Shandling back. Jon Stewart, Conan O'Brien, and Ellen DeGeneres were all funnier in their brief appearances. Pick one of them for next year. Finally, I miss the days of showing clips of an actor's work. They did this for the variety category, showing Bill Maher and Ellen Degeneres and Elaine Stritch and Chris Rock at work, but it would be nice to see clips in the acting categories. It would let people who haven't seen every nominated program get a glimpse of why they're considered good--and isn't that part of the point of having an awards show to begin with?

Six Feet Under in 2005!