THE GOOD: In his second (and most likely final) outing as Golden Globes master of ceremonies, Ricky Gervais deflated Hollywood’s all-too-often air of self-importance with some truly fearless one-liners. No star was safe. Particularly if your name was Charlie Sheen (“Welcome to a night of partying and heavy drinking. Or as Charlie Sheen calls it: breakfast.”), were one of ladies of SEX AND THE CITY (“I was sure the award for best special effects would go to the team that airbrushed that poster.”) or two of Hollywood’s biggest names who, for fear of legal reprisal, shall remain nameless (“Also not nominated, I Love You Phillip Morris, with Ewan McGregor and Jim Carrey, two heterosexual actors pretending to be gay — the complete opposite of some famous Scientologists then.”).
Also falling under the category of “good,” aside that is from much deserving wins for THE BIG BANG THEORY’s Jim Parsons and SONS OF ANARCHY star Katey Sagal were a handful of the speeches. Most notably, GLEE star Chris Colfer’s poignant shout out to all the kids that his hit series celebrates (“Who are constantly told “NO” by the people in their environments, by bullies at school that they can’t be who they are or have what they want because of who they are. Well, screw that, kids!”), Jane Lynch’s acknowledgment of the more-often-than-not overlooked reason she is on stage (“Every insane, heinous line that comes out of my mouth was written by him [GLEE writer Ian Brennan] He’s a deranged young man. This is yours, too, although I will be holding onto it.”), a bit of fatherly advice from The Social Network scribe Aaron Sorkin (“And I want to thank all the female nominees tonight for helping demonstrate to my young daughter that elite is not a bad word, it’s an aspirational one. Honey, look around, smart girls have more fun, and you’re one of them.”), and a usually demure Natalie Portman who applauded her fiancé (choreographer Benjamin Millepied) appearance in Black Swan (“It’s not true! He totally wants to sleep with me!”)
THE BAD: Bruce Willis and Robert Downey Jr. weren’t the only ones who thought Gervais’ unique brand of humor fell flat. In fact, based on the reaction from numerous members of our own family (one in particular who thought Gervias knocking the HFPA President was “mean” and “not funny”), it’s safe to say that your average run-of-the-mill viewer may not been as “in” on several of Gervais’ jokes, particularly those targeted at the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. Also not cool, the giant chasm the producers of last night’s ceremony seemed to create when it came to the time allocated for movie versus TV stars. Where as the likes of Al Pacino (YOU DON’T KNOW JACK) and Christian Bale (The Fighter) were allowed to spew endlessly about whatever floated to the tops of their very talented heads, equally deserving television stars such as Katey Sagal (SONS OF ANARCHY) and Steve Buscemi (BOARDWALK EMPRIE) were played off relatively fast. That, and don’t even get us started on GLEE’s win for Best Comedy over MODERN FAMILY. Which brings us to…
THE UGLY: Putting aside Ricky Gervias’ career prospects for a moment, the most unfortunate thing about last night’s kudos fest is that, unlike the Oscars or the Super Bowl, competing networks really don’t see Golden Globes as competition in the ratings department. Which means rather than repeats, we’ve got to clear off THE SIMPSONS, BOB’S BURGERS, FAMILY GUY, CLEVELAND SHOW, DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES and BROTHERS & SISTERS of our PVR/DVR if we have any hopes of making room for tonight’s jam-packed schedule which include HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER, RULES OF ENGAGEMENT, SHAMELESS, EPISODES, BEING HUMAN, SKINS among others. 
