Emmy 2020: the biggest night of the year on television goes virtual – live | Television and radio

And the Schitt’s Creek Toronto cast party could very well be the actual Emmy ceremony at this stage. Eugene Levy received second award of the night from someone in a Hazmat suit for his role in the final season of the offbeat comedy series.

He’s giving a heartfelt speech about his long-term co-stars, as well as his family, focused on his son, who came up with the show with him. Once again, more will come for this and again if only we were all in Toronto right now.

So that PJ post was a lie. Jennifer Aniston, a close friend of Kimmel’s, is present in person to present the first prize after some excruciating jokes about a deadly virus. Aaaaaand as expected, Catherine O’Hara won in the final season of the beloved critic and fan favorite, Schitt’s Creek.

She is accepting the award from a meeting in Toronto with the rest of the cast, which means we can’t see what her living room looks like. She is thanking the Levys for giving her a chance to be ridiculous, as well as her “costume whisperer” for putting her in a series of unhinged outfits. There will be so much more to the awards these guys are coming up with tonight …

And so it begins. Jimmy Kimmel has taken the stage for the “Pandemys” in front of a fake crowd recreated digitally from a previous year. He’s questioning the need for awards during a global pandemic (same thing), but he’s also relying on his grueling tactic of criticizing the ceremony he was hired for. Cold.

Using prior reactions (cuts, laughter, and applause) to your monologue is creepy since it’s not worth a reaction. It’s a weird way of pretending we’re not where we are. But hey, joking about Quibi (“the dumbest thing that ever cost a billion dollars”) is always welcome.

Wait, now the facade has fallen with Kimmel watching himself react to his own jokes. It’s a silly way to progress to reality, but hey, at least now we’re back to 2020. The cardboard cutouts are taking the place of the nominees, aside from some of the stars that are actually there (as mentioned) like Jason Bateman, sitting next to himself in the audience.

Here come all those awards / lounges / tech glitches …

Here’s a sneak peek at nominee Jennifer Aniston’s outfit tonight:

One of tonight’s big shows is Insecure, which has garnered a ton of nominations for its excellent fourth season, which explored a fractured friendship with uncomfortably well-observed detail. Here’s our interview with Issa Rae, the mastermind and nominated lead star:

Snub! Surprises! The nominees gave us a lot of predictable options, but also a lot of things to be angry about or at least be surprised about earlier this year. Here’s Stuart Heritage on all of that:

Bad news for anyone who’s waiting for an early morning tonight:

“If we’re at someone’s house with them and something extraordinary happens, we won’t stop if we get run over,” executive producer Ian Stewart said this week. “We want these natural moments to unfold. Why would you want to cut that? “

So while the nominees will be at home, Kimmel has revealed that several notable names will be with him in person at the Staples Center tonight. He joked that there will be “select celebrities available to infect [him]”But exactly who the television academy trusts enough to be in the same space as him remains unsure …

So the rumor that all celebrities will wear designer pajamas has been stirred a bit by Zendaya, deservedly nominated for her fearless performance in Euphoria, who has been showing off her glamorous look at night on her Instagram.

Here’s Jimmy Kimmel getting ready for his solo concert tonight. While it has often been a bit of a vanilla choice, your enthusiastic and experienced style of accommodation could be exactly what we need tonight …

So, given the staggering number of Emmys awarded each year (almost everyone in Los Angeles has at least two of them by now), earlier this week they saw the Creative Arts Emmys, which are awarded to some of the other categories that they are not considered important. enough for the main show.

These are some of the big winners this year:

Outstanding TV Movie: Bad Education

Featured Structured Reality Show: Queer Eye

Featured Unstructured Reality Show: Cheer

Best Documentary or Nonfiction Series: The Last Dance

Featured Animated Program: Rick and Morty

Best Guest Actor in a Comedy Series: Eddie Murphy (Saturday Night Live)

Best Guest Actress in a Comedy Series: Maya Rudolph (Saturday Night Live)

Best Guest Actress in a Drama Series: Cherry Jones (Succession)

Best Guest Actor in a Drama Series: Ron Cephas Jones (This Is Us)

As mentioned, it will be a strange night. Hazmat suits, box-activated rumors (with the Emmys maybe flying in search of winners), designer pajamas, just … strange.

Here’s a bit more to expect:

While this year’s field is the most diverse in history, with a record 34.3% of nominated actors being black, including Don Cheadle, Maya Rudolph, and Billy Porter (up from 19.8% in 2019), there are others who feel excluded.

Actor and director John Leguizamo has announced that he will boycott the ceremony after the lack of Latino representation, although he blames the industry in general.

“It’s amazing that our stories are not being told, and there is a reason for that,” he said. “Executives don’t see us, they don’t understand us, they don’t care about us.”

He’s also been upset about the lack of trans actors in the mix even though FX hit Pose received nominations elsewhere, including Billy Porter for best lead actor in a drama.

“I didn’t invent the academy or any of the award programs,” star Indya Moore tweeted. “If you think my work is unworthy of Chile, that’s just that … Imagine if we depended on cis ppl to validate something about us.”

In a field full of rookies, it’s just about everyone’s game, meaning you’ll need to check how our resident expert Adrian Horton predicts victory. Spoiler: it could be a great night for the Roy family …

For a while, it seemed like the Television Academy was going to find a way to get around the chaos of 2020 with the first few words suggesting that somehow a live Emmy ceremony would still take place at the Microsoft Theater in New York. The Angels. But as July wore on and California continued to see cases on the rise, producers wisely decided to keep things virtual, a bold but practical statement for the biggest TV night of the year, one that would help prevent Eugene Levy from getting a deadly virus. .

It’s not the first awards ceremony of the year you’ve had to grapple with a post-Covid world, but it’s the largest and will likely set a precedent as we step into the unknown of another season. Nominees will be at home in state-of-the-art equipment that will capture their disappointment or joy, while Jimmy Kimmel, now a professional working from home in front of the camera thanks to his late-night show, will take over the proceedings.

Given how stale Emmys can often feel (the lack of performances means it’s really just award after award after award), the unusual format could make for an interesting night just like the nominees, rich in diversity and representing a Cooler than usual set of shows. . The smart money is in Watchmen, Succession, and Schitt’s Creek cleaning up with Game of Thrones and Veep off the scene, though for once, we might have a few surprises.

We will be here with every awkward moment, every shocking victory, and every revealing glimpse of how celebrities live to the bitter end. Stay with us!