Show about nothing

 

Jeremy Piven called it out early, but the prattling of the unscripted hosts during tonight's live telecast was not lost on Kirk Ellis, the writer of "John Adams."

It sucked up time from his acceptance speech for outstanding writing for a miniseries, he said backstage after the show, and from other scripted programs that won during the Emmys and deserved their freedom of expression.

How exactly did that happen?

Moments later one of the Offending Five, Jeff Probst, hit the press room, with the ranks of rabid/eager reporters quizzing him to try to clear this up. Apparently the quintuplets couldn't agree on what they should do. They'd come up with an idea and three would take a shine to it, and two wouldn't. Confusion ensued.

"That's why we ended up in nothing," he said.

That's it?

"We knew it was going to be tough," a sheepish and fairly apologetic Probst said.

Isn't that what a producer is for? Make decisions, give direction, cut and pare, slice and dice, if need be. Ellis articulately pointed out the disparity of this telecast, with the lopsided allotment of air time to TV's current go-to genre.

Not sure how this played at home, but from here it looked like a ginormous misfire.