This year’s Golden Globes were pretty good overall, in my opinion. I thought Nikki Glaser’s monologue was strong, and for the most part things kept moving along. There were some production elements, however, that irked me to no end. Like, what was with the GPS decals pointing to where the nominees were sitting from a long shot of the ballroom where you can’t make out faces? Did Google Maps sponsor the show? I also was not a fan of the voiceover commentary. Apparently they were trying for a play-by-play like during sportsball, but I found it distracting yet paradoxically hard to hear what they were saying. It feels like the producers of award shows are always trying to reinvent the wheel in a futile attempt to bring in a wider audience. Instead, they should be embracing the audience of movie and TV lovers that they have, and trust that we will watch the whole damn show and actually want to see filmmakers accept their awards, more than we want to see a gag (or another tribute to Bond films, please!).

And speaking of not knowing your audience, probably the worst gaffe of the night was that moment the proceedings — and time — stopped so that UFC stars could strut their catwalks and then leave the stage. They were brought out with a clumsy bit about them being bodyguards for Heated Rivalry stars Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie, when it was obviously a promo for UFC’s new deal with CBS/Paramount+, the network that was airing the Globes. It was weird AF. Well, Monday morning Globes producers Ricky Kirshner and Glenn Weiss spoke with Deadline to recap the evening, and they defended that mess of a moment:

DEADLINE: A couple of awkward moments. The UFC plug going into the Heated Rivalry presenters. It was clearly a promotion, but was it your choice how it played out?

WEISS: I’ll say this. We were creating this party atmosphere. We were trying to not just present everything as traditional award shows would present them, maybe taking a few attention-grabbing moments and all, and UFC is obviously entering a new thing with CBS and Paramount+, so they’re all partners.

So we basically decided to take two elements that are kind of hot right now, the Heated Rivalry, it’s insane what kind of attention it’s getting right now, to juxtapose it with that and create this moment together, we thought it was a fun little moment.

DEADLINE: You liked it the way it played out?

WEISS [laughs]: I think we’re getting more questions about it than anything else. So it got attention, right?

DEADLINE: And the Heated Rivalry stars, did they participate in how their bit was created?

WEISS: Absolutely, we were moving back and forth with them. Ricky, you can talk more about that but the feedback to me was that this was so in line with their show, their brand and everything, so it was kind of fun for them.

KIRSHNER: A lot of times you write stuff for presenters and they are like, yeah, no, maybe, they add to it. So we worked with them a little bit on a couple of different ideas, and the one they signed off on was that. And then when they showed up for the rehearsal, they really committed to the bit. So it actually worked great.

[From Deadline]

HA, I love that the interviewer still asked after their word salad response, “You liked the way it played out?” And those guys just could not cop to it being a fail. Some see it as more than a fail, though, and actually offensive and no accident that they paired the UFC promo with the stars of Heated Rivalry. I mentioned in my other coverage of Williams and Storrie how delightful it is that neither they nor anyone from HR were engaging in “hetero-reaffirming nonsense.” But that’s exactly what the Globes just did, yes? It has that feel, which is why I’m thrilled it bombed so spectacularly. Furthermore, CB pointed out that they played off the acceptance speech for Best Non-English Language Film — The Secret Agent — in order to cut to the UFC bit, which is another kind of offensive. Another instance of the producers totally not understanding what people tuning into the Golden Globes want to see! And here’s one more: Weiss and Kirshner had a similarly weak-sauce answer to why they didn’t televise ONE category, Original Score, which went to Ludwig Göransson for Sinners. Y’all know I’m a film score nerd, so I’d like to geek out and highlight that if Göransson goes on to win the Oscar for scoring Sinners, it would be his third win (after Black Panther and Oppenheimer) at age 41. I’ll need Guinness or the Academy to confirm, but would bet that’s a record, music pun intended.

Photos credit: Avalon.red and screenshots from Golden Globes