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Do you remember that time they gave an award for running award shows to the guy who was actually running the award show that gave him the award, and so he had to order his own staff to play him off? Oh yeah, that was last night. At the Emmys, televisual vanity managed to swallow its own ass.

Freakishly beautiful people, with huge amounts of money, access to all the best drugs, and far more political clout than they deserve, have decided that they need to be awarded for their incredible good fortune and that we should watch them in their self-congratulation. Fine. But why does it have to be so utterly boring? Last night was worse than usual because there was so much ruined promise. It was an incredible year for television. The results of the show, at least, were in keeping with reality. Homeland is an unbelievably strong drama, with amazing performances. Mad Men had a kind of weak year. Modern Family is a good comedy. The British can act. But you probably already knew all of this.

The interstitial act that surrounded the awards was the show-business equivalent of a soda cracker, inoffensive in its tastelessness, proving Ricky Gervais was right that the only way to give awards to celebrities in an interesting way is to insult them while you're doing it. Jimmy Kimmel, who is a genuinely funny guy almost all the time, gave a monologue so bland it made the preprocessed intros look original. Even Louis C.K., receiving his second Emmy of the night, looked bored.

The point is this: With such great television to award and a potentially great presenter, if the Emmys last night couldn't be good, then they'll never be good. The parts that are worth watching have to be weighed constantly against the parts that are unwatchable. The format itself must be wrong.

I say we cut the whole down to its essentials:

The red carpet, so we can all gawk at the perfectly calibrated bodies and judge them for miniscule flaws.

Post the winners all at once at the front of the auditorium, on paper, just the way that the football team is announced in high school. Then sit back and watch as all television rushes up to find whether they won, passing the news back to their friends.

Drunken parties. With photographs.

This would cut the actual giving of awards down to ten minutes tops, which is the most anyone not involved in the actual production of the show could possibly want. Only giving us what we want: There could be an award for that.

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Stephen Marche Stephen Marche is a novelist who writes a monthly column for Esquire magazine about culture.

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