Hosting the Emmy Awards is quite an honour, but in this day and age, it’s tough to please everybody.

You can bet the winners will be going home happy, but viewers? Maybe not so much.

This year it was the task of Michael Che and Colin Jost to keep the crowd entertained, and you’ll only recognise those names if you’re somebody who watches Saturday Night Live.

Before Che and Jost got down to their business, though, there was the small matter of the Emmys’ opening musical number. Continuing the SNL theme, Kate McKinnon and Kenan Thompson led the song and dance:

Make of that what you will.

So, about that opening monologue. You can watch it before we go to the critics to pull things apart:

There were some decent moments in there, but some of the crowd reactions summed things up:

@chrissyteigen is all of us. #Emmys pic.twitter.com/emRTR8tOaG

— Entertainment Tonight (@etnow) September 18, 2018

Then there’s Brian Tyree Henry, one of the stars of Atlanta:

Brian Tyree Henry isn’t here for that @AtlantaFX remake that Michael Che cooked up during his #Emmys opening dialogue! pic.twitter.com/zbrhlwpeYj

— Entertainment Tonight (@etnow) September 18, 2018

Not that into it.

Thank goodness that smooth operator’s on-stage marriage proposal went much, much better, because people weren’t so kind about the monologue.

Vox headline – “Michael Che and Colin Jost open the 2018 Emmys to lukewarm laughs”:

Michael Che and Colin Jost open the 2018 Emmys to lukewarm laughs…the monologue seemed to lose more air as it continued.

Cosmo compiled some of the harshest Twitter reactions. These two about sum things up:

The Atlantic went with the headline “Colin Jost and Michael Che’s Lackluster [sic] Emmys Monologue”:

Jost and Che stood in front of the audience listlessly, holding their hands before them like guilty schoolchildren.

…it’s hard not to draw such comparisons whenever anyone comes on stage in high spirits, which is the bare minimum one should be able to expect from a master of ceremonies; unfortunately on Monday, both Jost and Che looked like they’d rather be anywhere else.

Sheesh, tough crowd.

To finish, the Daily Beast with “The Emmys Telecast Was a Cringe-Worthy, Tone-Deaf Embarrassment”:

From lackluster [there’s that word again] hosts Colin Jost and Michael Che to an unearned demand to be applauded for meager steps toward diversity and inclusion, this was the worst award show in years…

But this year’s telecast seemed more designed to claim credit than it was to rally the work, led by hosts who couldn’t even energize the room enough to do that. We keep hearing how TV is better than it’s ever been. So shouldn’t a ceremony rewarding it be equally as good?

Maybe they should just ask Ricky Gervais to host next year and burn the thing to the ground.

[sources:vox&cosmo&atlantic&dailybeast]