The Emmys Was the Rare Joyous, Fun Award Show

This year’s Emmy Awards did something that should seem obvious, but turned out to be quite novel: The telecast, in contrast to so many recent awards shows—especially the borderline unwatchable Golden Globes—actually celebrated the medium it was rewarding. It was an awards show that actually seemed to like the fact that it was an awards show.

The show—from host Anthony Anderson’s opening, to the multiple reunions of iconic casts, to various set pieces, like the tribute to I Love Lucy—was all about the role that television has played in our lives, how integral it is in our formative memories, and how it has the power to transform and influence society. It’s become the instinct with awards shows to roast the industry or figure out ways to make the ceremony feel as little like an awards show as possible. It’s refreshing, then, for there to be a production that embraced the purpose of the ceremony, while also appealing to fans.

It was a peculiar Emmy Awards because of circumstance—Monday night’s show took place five months after originally planned, delayed to accommodate (and, one assumes, to support) the writers’ and actors’ strike. That meant the nominations were from an eligibility period that ended on May 31, 2023. The White Lotus, Dahmer — Monster, Fleishman Is in Trouble…these shows felt like they aired ages ago.

Then there’s the fact that the ceremony was airing one week after the Golden Globes and a day after the Critics Choice Awards. Winners like The Bear’s Jeremy Allen White and Ayo Edebiri, Beef’s Ali Wong and Steven Yeun, and Succession’s Sarah Snook, Matthew Macfadyen, and Kieran Culkin each gave three speeches in the span of the week. That should have been unbelievably boring for a ceremony that was already going to feel dated. Yet the Emmys pulled off something incredibly enjoyable: a telecast that remembered that awards shows are supposed to be fun and joyous.

Anderson certainly fared better than Jo Koy at the Golden Globes. Koy’s monologue centered around complaining about things like how long the nominated films were, and then, after the audience reacted poorly, he excused himself by saying other writers penned the jokes that didn’t land, throwing them under the bus. (In a great moment at Sunday’s Critics Choice Awards, host Chelsea Handler followed up one of her laugh lines by saying, “My writers wrote that joke,” shading Koy—who also happens to be her ex-boyfriend.)

Anderson set the tone for a night that was all about our collective connection to TV by singing a medley of theme songs, and throughout the telecast, introduced reunions of both classic series and series that never got the recognition they deserved when they were airing. During their Martin reunion, Tisha Campbell-Martin and Tichina Arnold pointed out that the influential comedy was never nominated for an Emmy, while the cast of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, which is the longest-running scripted series in TV history, pointed out that they had never even been invited to the show before.

Then there was the simple joy of watching the original casts of Cheers, Grey’s Anatomy—with Katherine Heigl!—and Ally McBeal reunite in mock-ups of their shows’ sets. By the time Calista Flockhart and her Ally fellas were dancing around their unisex bathroom set, I was sold: This was an awards show that remembered that these proceedings should be enjoyable.

There were silly bits that ended up being charming, like Anderson’s mother heckling winners instead of the traditional method of playing them off when their speeches run long. Honoring television icons was as emotional as it was entertaining, with Christina Applegate, for example, receiving a standing ovation that moved her to tears when she took the stage. (Applegate revealed in 2021 that she has MS.)

It was fascinating for a telecast that paid tribute to classic series to also be so indicative of how far the industry has come when it comes to diverse, inclusive storytelling. Abbott Elementary’s Quinta Brunson won, Beef dominated the limited series race, and there was a special award given to GLAAD in recognition of the organization’s work to ensure that the depiction of LGBT+ characters has been responsible and, more importantly, visible over the years.

Awards shows are often so tedious, and producers have often mistakenly assumed that distracting from the task at hand—honoring art—is the best strategy to convince people who don’t have any investment in the awards to watch. But this Emmys proved how lovely it can be when an awards show is simply an awards show.

The speeches were so considerate. Even the ones from the actors who had just accepted trophies 24 hours before at the Critics Choice Awards felt fresh and thoughtful. There was also something that felt just…nice about the entire ceremony building up to a recreation of a classic I Love Lucy moment, with Tracee Ellis-Ross and Natasha Lyonne standing in for Lucy and Ethel. While other awards shows pander to new, modern series and ways of consuming content, the Emmys made its centerpiece a reproduction of a scene that aired in 1952.

It’s unfamiliar territory to have watched an awards telecast, a genre of entertainment that lends itself to loud, incessant whining and complaining, and feel like you watched something fabulous and fun. This is the first major surprise of 2024. Hopefully it’s the start of a trend.