The awards ceremony, my imaginary friend

One of the things about being friendless as a child, and having only imaginary playmates (this is pure conjecture, of course it never happened to me), is that when you’re playing imaginary sports (see? I told you it wasn’t me. I never did sports) you have to pick teammates out of an imaginary group of, oh, say, two. You end up picking the same people for both teams, and having them play all sports, on all sides. On the one hand, if you’re an eternal optimist, it’s win win situation, but on the other, it’s a complete waste of time, especially for those watching from the sidelines (even when you don’t have friends, the critics abound).

I don’t know about the childhood woes of Assi Cohen, Muli Segev, or Assaf Harel (though I have suspicions re the latter), but their performance at the TV “Academy Awards” (typing this with a straight face is a challenge) reminded me of those small imaginary teams. They were virtually on stage all evening, and even when they weren’t, well, they were. Although the award cemerony was produced by D’s cousin (which is why I even deigned to peek), and I rather like this second cousin, it sucked big time. Like its older siblings the American Emmy awards, the Oscars, and the like, it was incredibly drawn out and too lengthy. Sadly, all similarity ends there. When you have three decent shows on TV, and three hours of air time to fill, you find yourself investing all your creative efforts in jumbling them all together (since when are morning talk shows considered entertainment magazines?) and voila! You have the team of three on stage virtually all night.

Bored kids can play “6 degrees”: the guy on stage, who stood in the back when Eretz Nehederet got their award (what a shocker, couldn’t see that one coming), is also the guy who plays the nerd in another of Keshet’s shows, written by the bald guy who also used to host a late night show for another channel, whose news shows comprised four out of five candidates for a certain category, and let’s not forget that all of these also gave out awards. Nothing’s better than giving your imaginary friend an award, and then trading places and letting him give you one. It’s like playing doctor. You know your turn will come eventually.  Our TV industry is too small and too lacking in variety for these shows. We don’t have enough “original drama series” to nominate actors for the “Best actor in original drama series”, so we mix it up with miniseries and movies. The whole deal was another way for Keshet to pat itself on the back, and get all the stars on TV to generate ratings without paying a shekel.

I watched the same people climb up and down, bleary eyed, and swore to myself, as I do now to anyone reading: if the little TV series I am trying to write now ever makes it to one of these award ceremonies (and it will, not for lack of modesty but for lack of other content on TV), I will never, ever, play with my imaginary friends again.  

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