Yes after a gigantic hiatus I’m back to rip TV a new one, and what a better comeback than the Logies? Oh, well I guess there is about a thousand better things I could have done, but I’m doing the Logies so deal with it.
This year is the first time I’ve ever sat down and watched the Logie Awards in full, start to finish. And I will assure you it was no easy task, as you can see from my notes about three quarters of the way through the program:
I had pretty much given up the will to live by the time they finally finished the damn thing.
If there was one thing that didn’t end up horrible about the whole experience it was the graphics, the diamonds and (excuse my language) shiny-ness were all pulled off beautifully. So now that the niceties are out of the way, let’s get down to business:
The Red Carpet
Now the first hour of the program was the Red Carpet part, which was separated from the main section of the Logies. They had a few hosts including Shelley Craft from Australia’s Funniest Home Videos and James Matheson from Australian Idol and some other chick who I can’t even remember.
The interviews were so awkward, especially James Matheson’s. Seriously, he was absolutely dreadful, he just kept trying to make some sort of joke about whatever celebrity he was interviewing but it was always some round about stupid joke that he had to explain, and he came across like he was sucking up to everyone like “Oh wow, Australia loves you, why do you think that is? Everyone in Australia loves you” No, James, that is stupid sucking up, that is not a useful interview question.
In terms of the actual show, it was very very choppy editing, in my opinion. I know they wouldn’t have had much time to put it all together on the night, so it may have been hard to get any sort of logical order, especially on a red carpet show where it’s a little bit unpredictable. But honestly, even just putting a transition graphic in between ‘bits’ would have helped a hell of a lot. I can’t quite put my finger on exactly what it was, but something made the end of most of the interviews seem cut off a bit too soon.
I know this is getting a little picky, but it actually had a whole section of the show have the audio out of sync. It was probably only like a second off, but that’s annoying enough.
The Actual Logies Part of the Logies.
It all started off with a performance by Katy Perry, which was good. I’m kind of happy they put a bit of effort into getting acts that people actually want to see, like Katy Perry and Maroon 5 (Jessie J is a bit iffy, I only vaguely knew who she was). The performance by Katy Perry was good, but it just didn’t seem big or loud enough. Certainly still impressive, though.
The set was disgusting. And as if to rub it in my face a bit, not to long after I thought “Wow, this set is disgusting” a presenter said “Wow, isn’t the set beautiful?”
No, it’s the opposite. Seriously, what they need is some giant logie replica’s up there, the oscars do it! Sure it’s tacky, but it sure beats those poles in random annoying positions that are inexplicably wider in the middle. Halfway through I thought that maybe it was a feature of the venue that they couldn’t help, but if your venue has gross poles and you can’t help it you should just get a better venue.
My main problem with the Logies is that they can’t decide who they’re for: The TV viewer, or the TV professional. They’re trying to be both and it’s just not working, it was almost as if it really was an important industry event, and was only being put on television because someone wanted to make some money off it. If you’re going to put it out on TV you have to make it at least a little bit theatrical. The last time I came close to watching all of the logies was a few years ago when they were being hosted by Gretel Killeen, and as lame as it was, and as much as I probably would have ripped it up if invalidchannel was around back then, it was better than Shane Bourne and his humor that too often felt like it was an in-joke that I’m not even supposed to get. The thing is that at the end of the day (And I do mean ‘end of the day’, the show didn’t end until bloody midnight) they want to steal some ratings so they need to make it something that real TV viewers actually want – which, surprise surprise, is not 10 hours of Australian celebrities and their in-jokes.
How would I fix this mess? Honestly, I would like to see the whole thing shortened, and I want more cutscenes, I want to see different shows coming together and crossing over with hilarious consequences, I want less awkward impromptu interviews – even the most set up of ‘conversations’ ended up dry and weird, but most of all I want to see those Road to Gold video packages back – Shane Borne going out and interviewing the gold nominees in the audience at random parts of the evening seemed wrong and really didn’t do them justice, like the rest of the interviews they were just awkward to watch.
In Conclusion
Karl Stephanovic? Really? Out of all the amazing personalities they chose that guy? Yeah, fuck this, the logies were shit.
