Tonight, the Daytime Emmy Awards finally aired, months after the nominees were announced and way past their usual air date. This year, none of the networks wanted to air the show, which hasn't exactly been a ratings winner in recent times.
In the end, The CW decided to take a chance on the show, even though they don't actually have a daytime lineup of their own. I'm sure there's some irony in there somewhere.
I loved Vanessa William's opening number (and I love Vanessa Williams, period!), a daytime version of Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You, sung while she was inserted into scenes with those she was singing about. I did feel sorry for her, though, given the particular guys they had her singing about. I mean, with all the hunks of daytime, she gets Ron Moss and Pat Sajack? Yikes!
The best part was that amidst singing about all these men and how they should leave their women for her, she threw in Guiding Light's lesbian couple, Otalia, singing to the Natalia half of the pair. They even showed the clip of the first Otalia kiss during this portion of the song, with Vanessa superimposed over Olivia for part of it as she sang "Take me, I've got more moves, I know that Ellen approves."
The very first award was Outstanding Supporting Actor, the one in which Van Hansis was nominated. I was already holding my breath, and then they made it even more intense by announcing that there had been a tie! Van wasn't the first winner, so I held out hope during Vincent Irizarry's acceptance speech. Then, the second winner was announced: Jeff Branson.
Damn it! For the third year in a row, Van is denied an Emmy which should have been his. Now, granted, the very first year he was nominated was the year he most deserved it (he had better writing then, during the coming out story), but overall, it is a travesty that this incredibly talented actor keeps getting nominated and going home empty handed. Even when they give it to two people in one night, they overlook him!
I know the fact that the writing on As the World Turns is pure crap right now doesn't help his cause any, of course. Still, I've always thought that it truly highlights how talented he is that he's able to be so good with such lousy material.
Anyway, the next highlight of the show was Van and Jake Silbermann presenting an award together. When Vanessa Williams introduced them, she noted that their portrayal of daytime's first gay couple had made them one of the most popular duos in the history of soaps. Very nice to hear that acknowledged on air!
Van and Jake looked fantastic, not surprisingly. Van seemed to be going for a bit of a 70's look and his hair is a bit longer once again. Jake's look never seems to change, but then why mess with what's already working so well?
They ended up presenting the award for Supporting Actress to the first winner for Days of Our Lives in the acting category in quite a long time: the very talented Tamara Braun, who was briefly on Days last year before going on to play Bianca's lover Reese on All My Children, was the winner. Days was pretty stupid to let her go, I have to say.
The show won a second acting award a few minutes later, though, and again for a former cast member: Darin Brooks, who played Max for the past four years before departing a few months ago. He had the most memorable speech, too, dropping a few inadvertent swear words that had to be bleeped out before turning and walking away. He was clearly nervous, so it was pretty endearing. Days never seemed to know what they were doing with Max, but I always liked Darin well enough. I'm still sort of surprised by his win, though.
One Life to Live won the Emmy for Best Directing, which was something at least. Honestly, OLTL should have been cleaning up the awards in every category tonight. It has been the best show on the air for the better part of the past two years.
Vanessa Williams got to do another hot song and dance number mid show, which was nice. Not being on a major network this year, the show seemed more fun somehow. Maybe it's just me? Or just the fact that I fast forwarded through a lot of the non soap stuff?
It was not fun, however, to see General Hospital win Best Writing over One Life to Live. What they hell were they smoking?! Absolutely ridiculous. Even die hard GH fans have been complaining how bad the show is at the moment! These awards really seem like a joke when things like this happen. You realize how much it's about industry politics and how little it's about real talent.
Betty White, whom I completely adore, showed up (she's had a recurring role on The Bold and the Beautiful these past few years if you didn't know) to pay tribute to Guiding Light, which is going off the air after 72 years. It's always great to see Betty, she's so funny. The tribute to GL was nice, too. I was never a big fan, but it's so incredibly sad to see a legend leaving the air after so long.
A final enjoyable moment came when Susan Haskell won Best Lead Actress for playing Marty Saybrooke on One Life to Live. Truly, truly deserved. There are so many talented people in daytime, more than most non-fans would believe, and she's definitely one of them.
The award for Outstanding Show wasn't even one I cared about tonight, simply because the best of all the current shows- One Life to Live- wasn't even nominated! Makes a lot of sense, huh? So, the fact that The Bold and the Beautiful won didn't have the sting it would have had it if had been up against the better show.
Well, overall, it was another bad year at the Daytime Emmys for most of those who truly deserve recognition. When and if As the World Turns is driven into the ground by Passanante and Goutman, I hope Van considers taking a role on One Life to Live. With All My Children moving to L.A. and Guiding Light off the air, it will be the only other soap still filming on the East Coast, so he could still work in theater and I know they'd create a character he could really sink his teeth into.
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