It was sometimes uncomfortable, but not especially daring. None of Gervais’s jokes were as cutting as, say, when Sacha Baron-Cohen likened Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg to the protagonist of “Jojo Rabbit” (“a naïve, misguided child who spreads Nazi propaganda and only has imaginary friends”).

Gervais was also, he made clear, the guy who doesn’t care what anyone else cares about, pre-scolding any winners who made political statements by reminding them that they worked for rapacious companies like Apple and Amazon. “You’re in no position to lecture the public about anything,” he said, urging them to accept their statuettes, “thank your agent and your god” and move along.

For their part, the winners seemed not to care much about his not-caring. The comedian Ramy Youssef, picking up the night’s first award for “Ramy,” his Hulu series about a young Muslim man, said, “I’d like to thank my god: Allahu akbar.” Russell Crowe, the best actor in a limited series for Showtime’s “The Loudest Voice,” sent a statement (via the presenter Jennifer Aniston) from bush-fire-stricken Australia urging action against climate change.