Is television a thing you enjoy? Are awards shows worth watching? The 2025 Emmys ceremony and its host seemed subtextually at war over these questions. Nate Bargatze, hired by CBS in what felt like an attempt to pander to the TV agnostic, prioritized the idea that awards ceremonies are too long over the idea that television and the people who make it are worth celebrating. In lieu of a standard monologue, Bargatze set up his main bit for the evening, involving a timer for acceptance speeches that would cut down the amount of money given to charity; as deserving winners rushed through their speeches and the total sum pledged to the Boys & Girls Club of America kept ticking lower, it cast an awkward, even antagonistic, pall over the whole affair, perhaps best encapsulated by John Olive

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