Mariska Hargitay Hosts 78th Emmys as Reviewer Pans Script — SkimNews
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- Mariska Hargitay hosted the 78th Primetime Emmy Awards live from the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles, becoming the first woman to emcee the ceremony in 15 years (since Jane Lynch in 2011); the two-time Emmy winner also took home a Creative Arts Emmy the prior weekend for directing her documentary My Mom Jayne.
- The Deadline reviewer characterized the show's script as "a first-draft mess," with Hargitay herself revealing onstage she was working with the former Late Show with Stephen Colbert writing staff that CBS cut loose in May.
- Taylor Swift appeared in a pre-recorded Law & Order: SVU precinct sketch opposite the actress who plays Olivia Benson, complete with a fourth-wall-breaking reference to her husband Travis Kelce's Kansas City Chiefs beating the Denver Broncos on Monday Night Football.
- Sally Field won Lead Actress in a Limited or Anthology Series for Remarkably Bright Creatures and declared "Blessed Canada" from the stage; Noah Wyle won Best Actor in a Drama for The Pitt for a second consecutive year.
- The ceremony featured onstage tributes to Dolly Parton, James Burrows, Catherine O'Hara, and Rob Reiner, while the hyped Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Charlie's Angels reunions were dismissed as "non-events."
- John Mulaney delivered an alternative opening monologue the reviewer described as superior to Hargitay's scripted material, while Amy Poehler told Hargitay she "nailed it" — which the reviewer read as a compliment to the host's straight-face delivery of bad lines.
Why it matters: For NBC and the TV Academy, the Deadline broadside exposes a structural problem: outsourcing an awards-show script to writers cut from a cancelled late-night show produced material so weak that the host herself publicly distanced herself from it. For Hargitay — a dramatic actress drafted to host a job usually given to comedians (the last non-comedian Oscar hosts, James Franco and Anne Hathaway, hosted the 2011 "fiasco") — the takeaway is that producers who cast outside the comedy pool need writers who can write to a non-comedian's strengths, or the ceremony itself becomes the story.
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