Emmys 2024 Review: TV’s Biggest Night Plays It Too Safe With a Timid, Listless Ceremony — Plus, Grade It!

We’re back for our second Emmys ceremony in eight months — and maybe that explains why the whole night felt so listless. Sunday’s Emmys broadcast on ABC certainly had its moments and honored some outstanding shows and performances along the way. But overall, it was a disappointingly stuffy, by-the-numbers production that failed to capture the passion and creativity found on the small screen these days. TV is as daring as it’s ever been… but these Emmys weren’t nearly bold enough to reflect that.

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Now to be fair: This has been a very strange year for television. Several big Emmy favorites like Succession and Better Call Saul wrapped up their runs last year, and the dual Hollywood strikes put a lot of other prestige shows on hiatus, leaving us with an awards field that’s less stellar than most. (It’s reminiscent of 2021, when the COVID-driven lack of content led to head-scratching nominations like Emily in Paris scoring a best comedy series nod.) Peak TV has unfortunately peaked, and this year’s Emmy nominees were a clear indication of that.

That said, there was plenty to cheer here. FX’s Shōgun was richly deserving of its best drama series win, piling up an astounding 18 wins in total, and The Bear took home wins in three of the four comedy acting categories. But The Bear already won a bunch of Emmys earlier this year, so most of that show’s wins felt a bit like old news. A delightful exception, though, was Liza Colón-Zayas’ surprise win for best supporting actress in a comedy, where she was endearingly flustered as she paid homage to fellow nominees Meryl Streep and Carol Burnett. Lamorne Morris’ Fargo win was also a fun curveball, but genuine surprises like that were few and far between.

Hosts Eugene and Dan Levy — the father-and-son duo who both won Emmys for Schitt’s Creek — got the night off to a slightly awkward start with their monologue, making excuses right out of the gate for merely being “actors acting like hosts.” Their jokes were mild and fairly safe, too, treading familiar territory (enough with the “Is The Bear a comedy?” jabs already) and seemingly afraid to offend anyone in the room. I actually preferred the venomous banter between Steve Martin and Martin Short when they presented the first category of the night. Can they host next year?

The whole night had a slightly grandiose, self-serious air to it, more like the Oscars than any Emmys I can remember. The ceremony attempted to honor television’s past by bringing out classic “TV moms” and “TV doctors,” but the seemingly random combinations of actors were more baffling than anything else. Meanwhile, scripted segments like Ebon Moss-Bachrach’s cringeworthy bar encounter with Taylor Zakhar Perez fell flat, and John Leguizamo’s extensive rundown of the Emmys’ recent progress on diversity felt self-indulgent, like the TV Academy loudly patting itself on the back. (Note to the Academy, and Hollywood at large: You still have a looooooong way to go.)

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They also rolled out the usual big reunions and cameos — it was nice to see Henry Winkler elbow a jukebox again, and seeing the West Wing cast together was a thrill — but some of them were robbed of their power by all the TV reboots and revivals we’ve seen lately. (Like, we just saw Candice Bergen as Murphy Brown on CBS a couple years ago.) Bergen did get off a good zinger directed at Republican VP candidate JD Vance, but with the presidential election looming, most presenters and winners seemed hesitant to venture a political statement and suffer the wrath of angry trolls on social media. An understandable instinct, no doubt! But it contributed to the overly tentative feel of the whole ceremony.

I continue to think that the Emmys need to move some of these awards, like Writing for a Variety Special, to the Creative Arts Emmys to streamline the ceremony a bit and allow time for more surprises and more spontaneity. I also think the Emmys could do a better job of highlighting the shows that earned the most nominations, to serve as a sort of document of the year in TV. (If you didn’t watch Shōgun or Baby Reindeer before Emmy night, did you learn a single thing about them that would make you want to watch?) But really, this is the Emmys. This is about celebrating the best TV has to offer. Can’t it be a little more fun than this?

That’s our take — but what’s yours? Give this year’s Emmys broadcast a grade in our poll, and then hit the comments to share your thoughts.

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