Mercado on The TV Week Logies: Sunday night’s highs and lows

• Fix the red carpet show, how the TV Week readers got it right

Worst Logies moments

Red Carpet shows should be frocks (lots and lots of them) and interviews (rather than promos for upcoming shows or competitions). This year, we got an awkward-to-handle lucky dip where celebs picked a card of … questions. And why was there was a patch of sand to stand in barefoot … on a red carpet? Please, enough with the stunts and non-stop ads.

It’s tough for any presenter having to be heard over the din of the room straight from a commercial break. And then there was the non-stop noise of knives and forks on plates. In 2019, TV’s night of nights shouldn’t have major audio issues because dinner got served.

Did there really need to be two coaches from The Voice singing during a show already crammed with Nine promos? Oh, and don’t ask a Logies audience to “get on their feet” … and then ask again when nobody does. That never ends well.

Why are international guests even invited to the Logies, when we have more than enough local talent to keep the show going till midnight? The cast of Young Sheldon seem like very nice people, but their cheesy routine was excruciating up against the laidback Aussie style of the show.

Top Logie Moments

Wentworth won Most Outstanding Drama, as voted for by industry peers, and Mystery Road won Most Popular Drama, as voted for by the public. So maybe it’s time to stop whinging about “online voters and TV Week readers” because they got it pretty right this year, across all categories too.

In Memoriam this year was absolutely perfect, with Tracy Grimshaw eulogising Mike Willesee before the roll of greats serenaded by a classic Geoff Harvey piano solo.

It was a memorable Logies speech about disability from Dylan Alcott when he won, but the evening’s highlight was the passionate speech from Hall of Fame recipient Kerry O’Brien. Amongst other things, he demanded protection of the ABC, improving the standard of journalism and then a call action on climate change and indigenous recognition.  

Tom Gleeson opened the show with a blistering routine that spared nobody, and then he ended the night with a savagely funny Gold Logie win. And it was HARD to disagree with him when he pointed out that it was a win for the ABC and Aussie comedy and a nod to the great Norman Gunston who did it first.

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