Emmy Live Blog III: Grace Note

As long as Mandel roams the stage, nothing can really redeem this broadcast, but a clip from The West Wing and an appearance from Martin Sheen comes awfully close. Watching Thomas Schlamme's textured visuals shape Aaron Sorkin's pitch-perfect dialogue reminds me how much I miss that show (and really makes me want to bust out the DVD boxes again). Sheen's speech was funny ("The West Wing won Emmys for virtually everyone involved...except me.") and on-point-- there's no one better than Mr. Sheen to remind us of voting and civic duty, and I give the Academy a smidgen of credit for breaking away from their self-congratulation for literally two minutes, to talk about this unrelated but utterly relevant topic.

Oh, and good for the Recount producers for mentioning the late Sydney Pollack.