Y’know, there’s any number of things one can criticize the Emmys for. The strangeness of nominating Tony Shalhoub for Best Actor in a Comedy, but not “Monk” for best comic series, even though he is the show; the utter bizzareness of nominating “House” for best dramatic series but not Hugh Laurie who, again, is the show. Ellen Burstyn being nominated for best supporting even though she only had fourteen seconds of screen time; nominating Alan Alda for best supporting and Martin Sheen for best actor even though Alda had far more screentime, and completely ignoring Bradley Whitford who was the pulse of “West Wing’s” last season. Strange strange strange.
But jumping on the opening sketch which depicted Conan’s plane taking a nosedive (was I the only one expecting snakes?) and his crash landing on the island from “Lost” because of the tragedy with the airplane in Kentucky…that’s really pushing it. People are howling about poor taste and insensitivity, and no one’s allowing for the possibility that maybe it just didn’t occur to the producers to make the connection. It sure didn’t occur to me. In fact, Kathleen was so ahead of the curve that the moment she saw him in the plane she said, “They’re going to spoof ‘Lost.'” (I was busy anticipating snakes, see above.) Hurley’s comment about how they weren’t invited was scathingly brilliant. I’m not trying to downplay the real life tragedy, but come on…should we also accuse the Emmys of not taking terrorism seriously because they spoofed “24,” or that they were dissing sick people because Gregory House was examining Conan? Maybe…*maybe*…the timing was regrettable, but it’s absurd that people are demanding apologies from NBC and the Emmy producers.
Please.
For me, what made the evening was the running gag with Bob Newhart…although, of course, that could be interpreted to be making fun of people on life support or people who have been trapped in disasters and suffocated.
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