Shrapnel flies over bombed Emmy bit

September 22, 2008 With Sunday night's 60th annual Primetime Emmy Awards considered critical and ratings disappointment, industry insiders pointed fingers Monday over the show's much-discussed opening segment. Ryan Seacrest, Heidi Klum, Tom Bergeron, Jeff Probst and Howie Mandel, all nominees for the newly created outstanding reality host category -- bantering onstage without any planned material. What made the episode surprising -- and seemingly bear weight beyond being a merely unfunny comedy attempt -- was that it seemed as if the hosts were choosing to embrace and validate the very put-downs their genre has had to endure, the sort of slights that this year's Emmy Awards were supposed to help rectify: that reality TV is empty and silly, the product of noncreative effort.

Subscribe to the Hollywood Reporter and see the entertainment industry from its best angle: the inside looking out. Complete access to real-time news and exclusive analysis that goes behind the scenes from film to television, home video to digital media.

   Subscribe now.