The Power of Spelling

I arrived late to the broadcast of the Emmy's, the first part of which is safely recorded on my DVR. There is probably much more to write about, and I just might, but the Aaron Spelling tribute is reminding me just how important his work, especially in the 70s, was to my life.

The Love Boat! Fantasy Island! TJ Hooker (yes, I watched it, though not in any exclamatory fashion), Hart to Hart! and last but never ever least, with a little lordy lordy thrown in, Charlie's Angels! And when the original cast of Jaclyn Smith, Kate Jackson, and Farah Fawcette come out, I went back just for a little bit to my childhood and my fantasy days.

There just aren't any shows like this anymore.

Now for some thoughts, in an out-of-order fashion, on the show:

• Lost gets its dig in by way of a Hurley one liner.
• Conan sings.
• Megan Mullally for president.
• Blythe forgets to grab her award on the way to the podium. She contends with her shawl/pashmina situation in a seemingly drunkenly delivered speech. And she gets her dig in at Showtime (nice!).
• The way they gvae tribute to Dick Clark, you'd think he died. But I did like American Bandstand.
• Barry Manilow?! Seriously.
• Colbert's not too happy about that.
• Helen Mirren beats Gillian Anderson. Of course. She whipped up her own shawl/pashmina situation around her shoulders on her way up just completed the fabulousness that is this woman. Damn. (But I do love Gillian.)
• Mariska Hargitay, who told us she named her son August (what a great name), wins. Perfect. But her partner Christopher Maloni, does not. Sucks.
• How much work has Ray Liotta done to his face?

And then it ended.I'd like to say that television is making a comeback, but it's not really happened yet. Conan's opening number, a commentary on the hole NBC has fallen into, is fairly accurate. He mentioned YouTube earlier, and TiVo. These are definite entities that network television has to contend with. But they're also fighting with on-demand video that people pay for and watch at their leisure. So unless they're making deals with the Apple Music Stores of the world to get their shows sold, they're being left behind.

There's also on-demand television through cable companies. Movies, television shows that don't have commercials. Network television is screwed unless they produce better shows. FOX and CBS I'd say are up there in the lure nature of their programming.

Who knows? Television might die for a bit and then resurrect itself out of nowhere one day when they find new and interesting ways to procure ad dollars.