... and were too long, and had a lousy host, and were predictable, and blah blah blah.
Okay, did we get all that out of our collective system? Good. Because here's the deal: the broadcast was just fine. Seth MacFarlane was as good a host as any other over the last ten years, and better than a few of them. For the most part, the event was predictable. The exceptions:
The supporting actor split
Hope you didn't have Tommy Lee Jones or Robert DeNiro in your office Oscar pool. Fortunately for Christoph Waltz, those two gentlemen were kind enough to split the vote. I hope Waltz sends flowers.
"No BS" -- it's a tie
How often do we see a tie, as we did with sound editing? Turns out it's happened five times. It's such a rare event that presenter Mark Wahlberg had to declare that it was "no B.S."
Oops
I've seen flubs before, but never a falling actress. Good for her, though: Jennifer Lawrence handled herself with aplomb after tripping on the stairs en route to accepting her statue.
Ben Affleck was not nominated for Best Director
This one becomes more surprising every time I think about it.
Every year, I tell myself I am going to DVR the first hour so I can move through the program faster. Still haven't done it yet. Rest assured, if a new episode of The Walking Dead is running opposite it again, I'll have no choice but to put just such a plan in action.