Emmys 2012: What's the verdict?

The reaction to the 64th Primetime Emmy Awards has to be split into three categories: The fashion; the entertainment factor, which often rests on the shoulders of the host; and whether those who deserved to win did.

On the fashion end of things, everyone's still salivating over Sofia Vergara's dress, and as far as entertainment value, the 64th Primetime Emmys wasn't half-bad with Jimmy Kimmel as host. Sure, it wasn't the best awards show we've ever seen - Kimmel's routine, we thought, was uneven - but it did end on time (few winners were allowed to stay on the stage long before the music started up).

The awards? That's a different story.


The Atlantic's Kevin Fallon felt that Jon Stewart - the resident provider of the evening's f-bomb - summed up the awards ceremony when he noted in his acceptance speech for outstanding variety program how predictable the Emmys have become.

"Modern Family" still wins the comedy awards, Claire Danes is still a favorite, and so are "The Amazing Race" and "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart."

"As entertainment, this year's Emmy Awards telecast was quite good ... But as an awards show, this year's Emmy Awards was unforgivably boring," Fallon said. "Did you miss this year's telecast? If you watched last year's, there's no need to feel bad. You've already seen Sunday night's ceremony."

For The Los Angeles Times, "the show was flavored with a taste of deja vu."

But both Entertainment Weekly's Ken Tucker and The Washington Post's Lisa de Moraes found a few fresh things.

From Kimmel's opening segment, de Moraes said, to Jon Cryer's win in the lead comedy actor category, "Sunday's Emmyscast was, in fact, loaded with surprises."

Who saw "Homeland" sneaking up to grab the outstanding drama title from "Mad Men," de Moraes continued, or "thought Damian Lewis would prove Bryan Cranston’s Kryptonite?"

EW's Tucker found, with the biggest surprise for him being the "near shutout of 'Downton Abbey,'" that "all in all, it was a nicely lurching, damnably unpredictable Emmy Awards show, good for viewing if quite decimating for my predictions."

For the naysayers still confused over how the same names win year after year after year, USA Today's Robert Bianco counters that repetitive doesn't mean unearned.

"Yes, many of the wins were predictable - 'Modern Family,' 'Homeland,' Damian Lewis, Claire Danes, Maggie Smith, Julie Bowen, 'The Amazing Race' and Louis C.K. among them - but they were predictable precisely because they were so well-deserved," Bianco asserts. "What, should the voters pick lesser winners just so we'd be surprised?"

As for Kimmel, Bianco wasn't as satisfied, saying that while the "Jimmy Kimmel Live" host is a funny guy "in the right time and place," the 64th Primetime Emmys wasn't it.

What'd you think of the ceremony, and what's your verdict on Jimmy Kimmel as Emmys host?