Critic’s Notebook: The 94th Academy Awards Were Already Bad, But Then They Got Worse
Will Smith responding to an ugly Chris Rock joke with onstage assault was only the nadir of an Oscars telecast characterized by unsuccessful innovations and upstaged emotional moments.
The 94th Academy Awards telecast was already off the rails before the only thing anybody is talking about , the only thing anybody is likely to remember.
After a fairly promising first hour, the show had begun to flag in basically the same ways Oscar telecasts always flag, proving conclusively that producer Will Packer’s attempt to fix the event was barely a band-aid.
After months of big promises about finishing the telecast by 11 p.m. ET, the Oscars were running long, and one key decision after another was yielding something between embarrassment and a fizzle instead of firework...
