TV Review: 63rd Primetime Emmy Awards

Fox aired the 63rd Primetime Emmy Awards on Sunday night, hosted by Glee’s Jane Lynch. The telecast received mixed reviews — the nominees for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series rushing the stage was one of the show’s highlights, while most critics panned the ongoing Emmytones bit. The following are reviews from TV critics around the web, compiled by B&C.

“Maybe someday the Emmys will triumph themselves. But until then, we’ll settle for a good, painless broadcast, and that’s what Lynch and Burnett provided.” — Robert Bianco, USA Today

“[W]hile it was a mediocre production-the best thing about it was that it was well-paced and came in on time — it wasn’t disappointing in any especially novel way.” — James Poniewozik, TIME

“The Lonely Island and Michael Bolton: [G]iven how much of any award show is made up of boring-but-necessary awards and segments we’d rather skip (In Memoriam comes to mind), sometimes a little bit of stupid is just what’s needed.” — Daniel Fienberg, Liane Bonin Starr, Gregory Elwood, HitFix

“There weren’t many surprises, and nothing shocking or terribly offensive took place. Mostly, it was an easy friendly affair.” — Alessandra Stanley, The New York Times

“The Emmys just finished up, and if it wasn’t as good as last year’s Jimmy Fallon-hosted spectacular, it did continue a trend upheld by the recent Tonys and Grammys, of being much, much better than this past Oscars.” — Willa Paskin and Amanda Dobbins, New York Magazine