Watch This Space

Author: SHEILA SELES

The Oscars were pretty boring this year. They were pretty boring on all fronts. There were no real upsets in the awards. No one was dressed really terribly. Even Joan Rivers seemed on her best, albeit senile, behavior. Or maybe my Oscar malaise stems from the fact that I seem to be the only person on the planet who didn't love "Million Dollar Baby."

The pre-shows seem a logical place to start. Joan and Melissa Rivers were booted off the E! Network this season. They've found a new home on the TV Guide Channel. Star Jones-Renoylds and Kathy Griffin have taken over as E's new awards pre-show hosts. E's coverage is nothing without Joan Rivers. It's funny to laugh at Jones-Reynolds and her celebrity excesses (her wedding), but she doesn't have a funny bone in her body. Her red carpet interviews at the Oscars were dull and sycophantic. Joan Rivers, on the other hand, was a pioneering American comedienne who was smart, brassy and brave. I talk about Rivers in the past tense because the Rivers we see today on the red carpet is only a shadow of her former self. It seems as if all those face-lifts have pulled the irony out of her personality. Rivers still makes a great show of the red carpet, though. No one, not even Joan, knows what's going to come out of Joan's mouth. She makes celebrities nervous. It's fun to watch nervous celebrities navigate Rivers's interviews. I think the differences between Jones-Reynolds and Joan Rivers can be explained in the way they handled Beyonce Knowles. Jones-Reynolds gushed over Beyonce, comparing her to Diana Ross. Joan Rivers asked her when she was going to get married.

Chris Rock, as host, was the best and least-boring thing about the Oscars. Early in the show he joked about the Oscars being the "Def Oscar Jam" because of the number of black nominees. Rock made good on that promise. In one of the show's funniest segments, Rock went to a movie theatre with an all black clientele. He asked person after person if they'd seen any of the best picture nominees. No one had seen any of them. Rock then asked if they'd seen "White Chicks." All of the interviewees had seen "White Chicks," and they all thought it was a fine film. Chris Rock's racially charged humor translated well to the Oscar stage. He managed to keep his language clean without losing his edge. Sadly, Rock's talent wasn't enough to save a very boring broadcast.

I suppose it's not surprising that the Oscars were boring. They're always boring. They're always too long. It seemed that someone at the Academy was trying to make the award show less boring, but these changes were laughably ineffective. Some of the award presenters presented awards from the aisles or balconies instead of from the stage. All this really accomplished was to show empty seats on camera. That made me think of the brilliant "Seinfeld" where Kramer went on the Tony Awards as a seat filler. When someone got up to go to the bathroom, Kramer would sit in the vacated seat so that the house looked full on camera. Obviously, there were no seat fillers at the Oscars. I would like to suggest a small army of Kramer impersonators to fill the seats. Then in dull moments, Oscar watchers could look for the Kramers in the audience à la "Where's Waldo?" Sounds like a cure for the common awards show.