60th Emmy Awards reviews

The reports are in, and the consensus clear: floptacular.

>> USA Today: "It was hideously awful from start to harried finish, dragged down by five amateurish reality anchors who would have been unwelcome as guests, let alone hosts."

>> THR: "Presenters and winners alike were virtually short of breath as they raced frantically not to run past the show's allotted three hours. Presentations were curtailed, speeches were cut off, and the shots of the nominees flew by with such rapidity that there was a danger of inducing seizures."

>> Tim Goodman: "... if you can't fix it after all these years, somebody ought to start a recall. The opening flopped, the middle sagged and the end was rushed"

>> AP: "Are the TV writers still on strike?"

>> Fresno Bee: "You could take all the elephants in the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus, feed them rancid chili and rotten boiled eggs for a month, and they could not create a bigger stinker ... The night was supposed to be a tribute to 60 years of television. It ended up being a reminder that people grow old."

>> Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: "Less than 15 minutes into the Emmy Awards last night the first negative review came in from one of Emmy's own winners."

>> Ray Richmond: "No one could have predicted that it would grow so sublimely terrible so immediately ... what remains the biggest Emmy crime of all, one that continues on year to year, is the galling inconsistency of the acceptance speech stopwatch. Some can ramble on for two minutes. Others get 15 seconds."

>> Roger Catlin: "Worst Emmys hosts ever."

>> LA Times: "Somebody at ABC should just cut Ricky Gervais a check. For 35 minutes the 2008 Emmys seemed well on the way to being the Worst Awards Show in the History of Television, including this year's Golden Globes, which happened in the middle of the writers strike and wasn't really a show at all ... But no single man or presenter could completely save a show that showcased a medley of famous TV theme songs performed by Josh Groban."

>> MSNBC: "The Emmy telecast offers quality that's dismally lower than nearly anything else on television. "American Idol" and "Dancing with the Stars" deserve plenty of criticism, but even their worst episodes — typically their results shows, as they lack content and waste time — are more engaging and entertaining than the Emmys ... The Emmys need to dump their producers and directors, hiring a team who knows how to produce popular television."

>> Zap2It: "The entire gambit of letting the Emmy nominated hosts handle the show proved a dud on nearly every level. None of them were funny and because there were so many of them and each of their egos had to be stroked, the bloat kicked in almost instantly."

Emmy live blogging: Defamer ... TV Decoder ... Time's Tuned In ... Reality Blurred...