New reality TV award category highlights 60th Emmy’s

By KYLE SPENCER

The 60th annual Emmy Awards Ceremony was televised Sunday night, complete with everyone’s favorite television stars.

From “The Office’s” Steve Carell to Oprah Winfrey, who began the Emmys with a rather lengthy speech about her thoughts on TV, everyone on the small screen came out for such an historic event. The reality television hosts who, for the first time, have been included in a category for “Outstanding Host of a Reality or Game Show” led the night. By the end, Jeff Probst had taken home the award for his work on “Survivor,” beating fellow nominees Ryan Seacrest, Heidi Klum, Tom Bergeron and Howie Mandel.

Naturally, it being so close to election time, there were plenty of political statements to be made by stars like Jon Stewart, who announced that he “looks forward to the next administration” saying he doesn’t care who it is, he is just ready for a new one. There was also comedic veteran Tom Smothers of the old variety show “The Smothers Brothers” who claimed, “There is nothing scarier than ignorance in action.”

Other than the normal Emmy fanfare, the night went rather smoothly with only slight timing problems, causing lame jokes made by many of the presenters to be cut and they were only given time to announce the nominees.

Highlights of the night included the famous TV show sets of the past being brought onto the Emmy stage, including the sets of “Seinfeld” and “Laugh In.” Also, a performance by singer Josh Groban got a laugh when he sang bits and pieces of over 30 different TV theme songs in around four minutes.

It seems that through the anarchy of the recent writers strike that took a toll on television shows across the nation, “30 Rock” was still able to hold it together and keep America laughing. Hopefully next year though, they scratch the idea of multiple hosts as that didn’t seem to work out as well as just one.