TV Talk: Worst Oscars ever?

It’s tough to remember Oscars ceremonies from one year to the next, but the 2021 Academy Awards telecast may stand the test of time for all the wrong reasons. It was bad. Really bad.

Producers Jesse Collins, Stacey Sher and Steven Soderbergh decided to eschew so many of the regular Oscars trappings — no host, no monologue or opening musical number, few clips from the nominated films and performances, no performances of the nominated best songs, little music to help propel the telecast’s slower-than-molasses pace — that it seemed like producers were daring viewers to tune out.

Surely this will be the lowest-rated Oscars on record.

Winners’ speeches, even when occasionally moving, went on far too long. Attempts to personalize the nominees grew tiresome. The “In Memoriam” segment slowed down for bold-faced names and then raced forward at warp speed for other, lesser names, to the point it was impossible to read them.

At least eight-time Oscar loser Glenn Close won applause for performing the “Da Butt” dance, but when that’s an awards show’s highlight …

The piece de resistance was a seemingly botched finale. Instead of ending on the best picture award as is Oscars tradition, the best picture was given third from last (to “Nomadland”) with the final award going to the year’s best actor. Presumably producers gambled that the late Chadwick Boseman of the filmed-in-Pittsburgh “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” would win, providing an emotional closing to the three-hour affair.

Instead, the best actor winner was an upset. The award went to Anthony Hopkins (“The Father”), who wasn’t even there to collect his trophy, a deflating ending to a terrible telecast.