Golden Globes - A HUGE Embarrassement

I'm watching the Golden Globes Awards "show" on CNN. OK, I know the writers are on strike and this format of simply having entertainment show hosts read the list of nominees and then announce the winner is a concession to the Guild. But it seems brains have gone on strike too. This has got to be the most amateurly produced television show that has ever appeared!

First of all, the show hosts keep trying to be clever and witty - without the help of a professional writer - and it's obvious that they are really nothing more than teleprompter readers. A few of them simply did what they were up there to do - Brooke Anderson for example. Classy and pretty. Mary Hart was embarrassing beyond belief. Giulianna Rancic tried to make a solidarity comment about the strike that just came off as moronic. But at least these people could pronounce the names correctly, so all in all this wasn't a bad move.

Next, following each list of nominees the host would say, "And the winner is..." and it sounded like someone was drumming on a table nearby to create that moment of anticipation and tension before the winner's name is read. The musicians aren't on strike. Sound technicians aren't on strike. Nor are the technical directors. So why they would add something so rankly amateur is beyond me. Maybe their goal was to make the presentation as bad as possible so we'd more likely believe the need for writers. No, that can't be it. Someone just had a bad idea and it was poorly executed.

Another ongoing embarrassment is the way they try to show a clip of the winner, but the host starts reading the next award before the clip is done. Again, the technical people aren't on strike. Maybe they refused to cross the picket line and the Hollywood Foreign Press had members of the local middle school's AV Club produce the program.

But the singularly most horrendous part of the show is Larry King. For some reason he had an open microphone and would chime in whenever he felt it appropriate with some enlightening comment such as, "This was a great film." Or, "I'm surprised this won." "A rough category." "You should go see this if you haven't already." And each of these comments is made while the audio from the clip is playing and the host is starting to read the next list of nominees, so you've got three pieces of competing audio going on simultaneously. Painful.

The show was a travesty and everyone involved with it should find a different profession. The Foreign Press are yet another victim of the WGA, but anyone with the least knowledge of television production could have done a better job than what they slapped together tonight.