Here we have the 2023 edition of the National Television Awards, a small-screen even that also honored the finest from the small screen and this is of course from Great Britain, so to some extent you can say it is the British equivalent to the Emmys. The show ran for slightly over two hours and took place in early September 2023, so it is a bit over a month old now. To be fair, it can be said that if you are not British, you will not recognize too many familiar faces here. I don't know about the US, but here in Germany none of these are really known. The exception is (or are) maybe Ant & Dec, who I always found really unfunny though, so this does not make things any better. And of course, probably the biggest star of the night, was Ian Kellen who handed out something like a lifetime achievement award to the female who also won for best actress, was nominated against Oscar nominee Brenda Blethyn in her category, so it meant quite something. Still I am also not really familiar with Sarah Lancashire. Maybe my loss, maybe not, but McKellen's words were really quite something, so if he sees her like that, she cannot be all bad I would guess. The host also did not seem familiar, so again only known to Brits. Admittedly, he was fairly handsome, I give him that. However, the show itself has some glaring weaknesses. This also applies to the nominees. Like if you still consider the jungle insect-eating show among the best your country has to offer in terms of television entertainment, then you are doing it wrong. And I am also not sure if a comeback of Big Brother is something that deserves a big announcement, some big advertising. Admittedly, the voice of Big Brother telling the host to stop dancing was not entirely unfunny.
The rest of the show was fairly mediocre all along. Not really many big changes towards convincing quality or a horrible watch, so eventually I would call it all fairly forgettable, but not a disaster. The one thing they did get right admittedly is that they did not include all the musical numbers they could in terms of stage performances, which is always a big issue of course with American awards shows, but thinking about it the Emmys are also kinda getting it right. I think there was only one singing performance on stage here or two max. Not sure about it, but for over two hours that is totally okay, especially because the show ran for maybe 2.5 hours at least with commercials. One thing that did stay a bit in the mind was maybe that everybody was cheered on, received applause, with one exception: Piers Morgan. He is apparently seen as really controversial in his own country, even if the boos got a little less the longer the show continues. Maybe also had to do with the fact that those who disliked him most were probably satisfied that he lost his category. To a man interviewing Bono, Taylor Swift and Eddie Redmayne. These are some big names, but they weren't at the O2 Arena of course where the show took place. Or at the O2 we could also say and everybody know what location is meant by that. Anyway, a big-name winner here was Lewis Capaldi who I am not too happy about winning and I think the documentaries about people like you and me would have been equally deserving, more deserving probably. Maybe they hoped he would come, but nope he did not. Left a video message though for the possibility that he would win the category. Or maybe they even told him already.
Good news is that Ant & Dec surprisingly lost the category where they were nominated twice and the winners were equally surprised. Good decision there, especially if the winner includes a tribute to the great Tom Jones. Bad news it did no go on like this for the rest of the show and they (whoever made the decision) apparently did feel obliged to give the duo another award then, one that was worth at least as much you could probably say, which is another reason why I cannot give the show more than two stars out of five and it needs to stay with a negative recommendation. In general, you can say that this show as well as other British awards shows have a decent chance now to close or at least reduce the gap to the BAFTAs a little bit with Stephen Fry no longer hosting as he has really been a force of nature for a long time there and these other awards shows also do not really need guests from the Royals to make an impact, but this show here did come a bit short and did not succeed in making bigger waves. This is also why most people, probably also many people in England, are not familiar with this show at all and abroad almost nobody knows them I am sure despite this being one of the biggest awards shows of the United Kingdom. One thing I have to mention from a really positive delightful perspective is that the show reminded me of Lenny Henry again and I think he looked really good for his age now after all these decades he has been in the industry. Really wanna rewatch some of his older stuff now that I came across I think it was still at the end of the last millennium, but yeah nice to see he is still a factor in England and people appreciate him, even if I guess the younger folks are not too familiar with him maybe anymore. But oh well, that is okay. I know I will remember him.
Another show featured here was "The Masked Singer" with a bit of a wild pigeon there, but yeah I am not surprised there. This show has also been successful for quite a while here in Germany. What I find more baffling maybe is that "Britain's Got Talent" is not only still running, but still appreciated. At least I think so. It was part of the awards broadcast at least with this show from a month ago. Oh yeah and speaking of originally British (or American?) shows having a breakthrough in Germany too, we can also mention this traitor-themed show. I think it is even called "The Traitor". Quite the coincidence I guess that I saw an ad, a commercial today that featured our version of the British program here. On a completely different note, there was by the way also a lot of daytime stuff here if you look at some of the nominees that scored most nominations. To be fair, except with a few obvious picks, I am also not sure what was daytime and what is shown during the evening hours. The fella in the wheelchair, who reminded us of Stephen Hawking and Christopher Reeve and was shown briefly at the beginning at least and maybe also nominated for the documentary category that lost to Capaldi's I guess in terms of the winners, I also cannot say I am familiar with.
Away from that now, "Happy Valley" was extremely triumphant that night. Good for them and I remember the comment that it was the unhappiest valley the host had ever seen. Oh yeah and "Wednesday" as well as "Young Sheldon" also too home awards. Maybe something you would not have expected right away or at least not before the nominations were announced. Or shortlists at least. So also some stuff here that is pretty famous in America and many other countries. Also non-English speaking ones. As for most other winning shows here I really cannot say too much, so I will not go into detail with the quiz category for example and some others, but I still must say that I believe all categories should be included in an awards show broadcast because otherwise it is simply not fair to those that got excluded. This is a crucial factor when it comes to me deciding between a positive and negative verdict overall. Here, taking everything into account, I have to go with the latter. You can skip this one. To still end the review on a positive note, I wanna say that I loved the win for "Paul O'Grady: For the Love of Dogs", so big thumbs up for O'Grady and everybody who worked on the program. Still works on it. Maybe they should have kept the dog away from the stage though. That one was clearly irritated. Okay, that is all. Oh and I am of course curious if we will see some of the people, nominees, winners featured here in the future. Bobby Brazier may be a solid bet. But this is really it now. No more speculation and I suggest you go watch something other than the National Television Awards 2023.
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