The Emmys Needed to Do Something About Talk and Scripted Variety, Even If the Result Was Something Just as Clunky
First off, kudos to the Television Academy for finally doing something about the paltry talk and scripted variety categories.
The return of a combined outstanding variety series category was necessary, given the decline in submissions as networks and streamers scale back on their talk and sketch show ambitions. Last year, the talk category only fronted three nominees, while scripted variety had just two. That wasn’t sustainable.
The problem with the talk and scripted variety (and before that, sketch) categories is that these types of shows are often so different: What Jimmy Fallon does on “Tonight” is not comparable to John Oliver on “Last Week Tonight.” And “Saturday Night Live” is apples to their oranges. Hence the Academy’s decision to stick for years with the imperfect status quo until it finally made this change.
Still, the result is something just as clunky. The new combined category will consist of two separate talk and scripted variety “tracks,” with the number of nominations for each track determined by the number of respective submissions received. In announcing the rule, the Academy conceded that had the change been implemented last year, not much would have been different: The three talk shows and two scripted variety shows would still have been nominated, just in the same category. This year, if submissions continue to drop, the category may be down to just four nominees.
The other big change to the field: Starting this year, outstanding variety series is an “area” award. That means nominees will not be competing against each other. Instead, a show will need at least 90% of Emmy voters to say “Yes” when asked, “Does this nominee merit an Emmy?” Any show that reaches that threshold will win an Emmy.
I still don’t know how the Academy would handle multiple variety series winners on the live Emmys broadcast, should all of the nominees reach that 90% “yes” level. Yet they’re going to want to televise the category this year, as potential honorees like Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel could give the telecast some of the most powerful moments of the night.
That’s in part because this truly will be the last chance to honor Colbert for “The Late Show,” which signs off on May 21. No matter the reason CBS canceled “The Late Show,” it was shady how the network handled it. The decision came around the same time Paramount, which was finalizing its acquisition by Skydance, paid off the Trump administration over a bogus “60 Minutes” lawsuit. Given all that, the perception that Colbert was fired to curry favor with the White House will never go away. Colbert, to his credit, hasn’t stopped lampooning the Trump administration.
But now that there can be multiple variety show Emmy winners, both Colbert and Kimmel could be shoo ins. We could also see John Oliver, whose “Last Week Tonight” is on the scripted variety track, onstage with them.
As CBS retires “The Late Show” (and still claims it was a purely financial decision, but come on), traditional talk shows continue to disappear. Then there’s the dearth of sketch shows as the genre dries up.
I keep waiting for the video podcast revolution to swoop in and bulk up the variety race. We’ve seen a few YouTube series campaign — including “Hot Ones” and “Subway Takes.” If more shows took a shot, the variety category might regain some heft. These are talk shows, after all, so why not?
The reborn variety series category was definitely the season’s biggest rule change. But the TV Academy has made a few other notable tweaks, including a new name for the TV movie category: outstanding movie.
And then there’s the legacy award, created to recognize “a television program that has made a profound and lasting impact on audiences and sustained its relevance to society, culture and the industry.”
Ironically, I would put talk shows like Kimmel and Colbert at the top of that list. But better act fast — talk isn’t cheap, and it’s looking distressingly like none of these shows will be around much longer.
Speaking of “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” and its final broadcast on Thursday night, I wanted to address this ongoing narrative that somehow the series and some of its competitors forcefully changed the tone of late night with their political humor. Folks, politics have always been a part of late night. When Jay Leno lamented recently how political these shows have become, he somehow forgot all those years he spent making hacky Bill Clinton/womanizer jokes. No, late night didn’t change as much as politics, the government and the White House changed.
If it seemed like late night was less politics focused before 2016, guess what happened after that: A former reality star took over the government and blew up any remaining sense of decorum, decency and honesty in Washington. The grift was on, rules were broken without any consequences and a new Watergate-level scandal seemed to pop up every day, with no recourse.
So if the perception is that late night got more political, that’s because the world got more political. Late night monologues always reflected the state of the country and when it came to political jokes, poked fun at the absurities, scandals and unbelievable headlines out there. Trump and his ilk cranked all that up to 100 — and so, as a result, late night had to step up their game.
Thankfully, that’s exactly what hosts like Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers, John Oliver, and Jon Stewart and “The Daily Show” did. And with Colbert out of the picture, thank goodness the rest of them carry on, giving us some much needed laughs on top of the insightful, honest truths. That’s always what topical comedy has done best.
The return of a combined outstanding variety series category was necessary, given the decline in submissions as networks and streamers scale back on their talk and sketch show ambitions. Last year, the talk category only fronted three nominees, while scripted variety had just two. That wasn’t sustainable.
The problem with the talk and scripted variety (and before that, sketch) categories is that these types of shows are often so different: What Jimmy Fallon does on “Tonight” is not comparable to John Oliver on “Last Week Tonight.” And “Saturday Night Live” is apples to their oranges. Hence the Academy’s decision to stick for years with the imperfect status quo until it finally made this change.
Still, the result is something just as clunky. The new combined category will consist of two separate talk and scripted variety “tracks,” with the number of nominations for each track determined by the number of respective submissions received. In announcing the rule, the Academy conceded that had the change been implemented last year, not much would have been different: The three talk shows and two scripted variety shows would still have been nominated, just in the same category. This year, if submissions continue to drop, the category may be down to just four nominees.
The other big change to the field: Starting this year, outstanding variety series is an “area” award. That means nominees will not be competing against each other. Instead, a show will need at least 90% of Emmy voters to say “Yes” when asked, “Does this nominee merit an Emmy?” Any show that reaches that threshold will win an Emmy.
I still don’t know how the Academy would handle multiple variety series winners on the live Emmys broadcast, should all of the nominees reach that 90% “yes” level. Yet they’re going to want to televise the category this year, as potential honorees like Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel could give the telecast some of the most powerful moments of the night.
That’s in part because this truly will be the last chance to honor Colbert for “The Late Show,” which signs off on May 21. No matter the reason CBS canceled “The Late Show,” it was shady how the network handled it. The decision came around the same time Paramount, which was finalizing its acquisition by Skydance, paid off the Trump administration over a bogus “60 Minutes” lawsuit. Given all that, the perception that Colbert was fired to curry favor with the White House will never go away. Colbert, to his credit, hasn’t stopped lampooning the Trump administration.
But now that there can be multiple variety show Emmy winners, both Colbert and Kimmel could be shoo ins. We could also see John Oliver, whose “Last Week Tonight” is on the scripted variety track, onstage with them.
As CBS retires “The Late Show” (and still claims it was a purely financial decision, but come on), traditional talk shows continue to disappear. Then there’s the dearth of sketch shows as the genre dries up.
I keep waiting for the video podcast revolution to swoop in and bulk up the variety race. We’ve seen a few YouTube series campaign — including “Hot Ones” and “Subway Takes.” If more shows took a shot, the variety category might regain some heft. These are talk shows, after all, so why not?
The reborn variety series category was definitely the season’s biggest rule change. But the TV Academy has made a few other notable tweaks, including a new name for the TV movie category: outstanding movie.
And then there’s the legacy award, created to recognize “a television program that has made a profound and lasting impact on audiences and sustained its relevance to society, culture and the industry.”
Ironically, I would put talk shows like Kimmel and Colbert at the top of that list. But better act fast — talk isn’t cheap, and it’s looking distressingly like none of these shows will be around much longer.
Speaking of “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” and its final broadcast on Thursday night, I wanted to address this ongoing narrative that somehow the series and some of its competitors forcefully changed the tone of late night with their political humor. Folks, politics have always been a part of late night. When Jay Leno lamented recently how political these shows have become, he somehow forgot all those years he spent making hacky Bill Clinton/womanizer jokes. No, late night didn’t change as much as politics, the government and the White House changed.
If it seemed like late night was less politics focused before 2016, guess what happened after that: A former reality star took over the government and blew up any remaining sense of decorum, decency and honesty in Washington. The grift was on, rules were broken without any consequences and a new Watergate-level scandal seemed to pop up every day, with no recourse.
So if the perception is that late night got more political, that’s because the world got more political. Late night monologues always reflected the state of the country and when it came to political jokes, poked fun at the absurities, scandals and unbelievable headlines out there. Trump and his ilk cranked all that up to 100 — and so, as a result, late night had to step up their game.
Thankfully, that’s exactly what hosts like Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers, John Oliver, and Jon Stewart and “The Daily Show” did. And with Colbert out of the picture, thank goodness the rest of them carry on, giving us some much needed laughs on top of the insightful, honest truths. That’s always what topical comedy has done best.