SAG Awards – Hooray for The Office!

I got to watch (some of) the Screen Actors Guild Awards last night and was so glad they were on since there was no Golden Globes.

I'm so sad I missed the announcement of Television Ensemble Comedy Performance won by The Office (my parents stopped by for a visit)! I LOVE this show. Although I must admit that I haven't always. I remember when it was first coming out I wanted to watch it but didn't enjoy the Pilot episode so we didn't watch it anymore. We gave it another chance last season and loved it. We bought the first and second seasons to catch up (and I still don't like the Pilot episode). A couple of weeks ago Jason gave me a "just because" present, which I opened to reveal another present which I got to open a few days later, to reveal another wrapped gift and so on and so on. Well, when I finally got down to the gift – it was the third season of The Office which was so sweet of him to get me since I've been having withdrawal from no new episodes of The Office (a little information, they actually have episodes that were written but never taped – most other shows finished taping their written episodes before shutting down production – but not The Office because as soon as the strike was announced, I heard Steve Carrell called in sick with "enlarged balls"). Back to the gift…unfortunately, I had already bought the third season on my own somewhere between opening the first gift and finally getting to the gift gift, but still it was very sweet of him and it was fun to keep unwrapping .

Back to the SAG Awards…since I missed when The Office won, I went to YouTube and found where a fan had taped and posted the show. She pretty much just used a camcorder and recorded her television – so you could see the television and dresser it was setting on – and she did not use a tripod or even a stack of books so it was pretty shaky (think The Blair Witch Project which I've never seen but know it's has a shaky camera), but I can't complain too much because at least I got to see it.

I've heard several people wonder why they were able to have the SAG awards but not the Golden Globes – here is an explanation from the New York Times:

Remarks by individual winners aside, the telecast tried to tread delicately around the fact that, in a season of labor strife, this was an awards ceremony sponsored by a labor union.

Some actors who also serve as writers wore silver and black lapel buttons with the initials W.G.A., signifying the Writers Guild of America, the union that has been on strike since Nov. 5.

The Screen Actors Guild Awards received a waiver from the Writers Guild and a promise that writers would not picket the show. It was the threat of pickets at the Golden Globes that essentially shut down that production, turning it into little more than a press conference.

It was not as if Sunday's awards show put a lot of writers back to work, however. Unlike most awards shows, the Screen Actors Guild Awards presentation does not use a master of ceremonies and therefore employed only one writer.