Joan Rivers said it best. “Who are you people? … What the fuck am I doing here?”.

And that is it exactly. After 50 years of Australian Television, TV Week and the powers-that-be still feel the need to bring American TV “stars” and musical acts to Australia each year to attend the TV Week Logie Awards.

So last night we were greeted with at least 3 American celebrities, and a few overseas acts. Sure, they had a passing relevance to Australian TV, given we have so much American TV on our networks. But you have to wonder, at what point in Australian television will we be able to actually stand on our own two feet and celebrate Australian TV with only our own Australian celebrities and musical acts.

Here’s a quick run down on the what we saw last night.

Joan Rivers

I doubt most of the audience even knew who Joan Rivers was – many of them are starlets from Home and Away and Neighbours, so under 25 years old. So when Joan asked “Who are you people?”, I think the audience were asking the same question. But at least Joan was funny.

Pink

I’ll admit, I like Pink. Shes quite a talented musician. And clearly she can mime as well as anyone else on Australian TV. Surely we could have had any number of Australian musical acts on this show? Why an American act with no relevance to Australian TV?

We did get to see a reformed Sherbet (which the audience seemed to love). And at least they didn’t mime their song.

George Eads

George is one of the actors on CSI. He clearly knew nothing about Australian TV, and seemed intent on staring at the breasts of the girl from the “Where the bloody hell are you” commercial during his spot.

Chris Noth

Chris is the guy currently on Law and Order Criminal Intent, and was Mr Big in Sex in the City. Another person who seemed to know nothing about Australian TV. Cringe worthy moment – at one point Rebecca Gibney made the comment “You’re the famous one”.

Troy

Some guy from Maybelline (sponsors of the show). An American I assume. Makeup expert maybe. I’m not sure. See more about Maybelline later.

Cirque Du Soleil

Weird circus act. I know people love these guys, but am I the only one who is freaked out everytime I see one of their shows? Too many weird looking people doing too many things at the same time to weird music, all in an unsymmetrical manner. I always feel so uncomfortable. And what did they have to do with Australian TV?

Maybelline

Sponsors of the show, in case you didn’t notice. Which brings me to spelling. TV Week is so obsessed with American TV they seem to have decided we should spell like Americans. The awards are for “programs” not “programmes”. And they are in “color” not “colour”. There should be a law – if you are going to peddle your wares on Australian TV, you must use Australian spelling. Maybelline, in Australia we spell “colour” with a “u”.

I actually wrote to TV week once about this issue, as their magazine uses American spelling throughout. That was 20 years ago. They replied (in the magazine) and said that was accepted spelling for Australian publications, or something along those lines. I haven’t bought the magazine for quite some time, but I assume they still believe that is accepted spelling. I blame the Australian government – they should have stamped this out years ago.

5 hosts + 1

Wow! 5 hosts, plus Adam Hills. We only had 3 last year. What really was the point in that many hosts? Everyone clearly wanted Bert to host the entire night. Do they believe having 5 hosts will increase ratings? Maybe it does, I don’t know. I looked out the window to see if other people were watching the Logies in their apartments, and they seemed to be. I wonder if they enjoyed 5 hosts…

Bert Newton

Talking of Bert, his duet with the late Graham Kennedy was brilliant. Highlight of the show, along with Joan River’s comments.

Gold Logie

John Wood finally won after 10 years of nominations (I can’t believe Wiki updated the link so fast). Bitter-sweet I would think – as he surely got a lot of sympathy votes.

The Chaser

The Chaser’s War on Everything should be funny this week. Chas Licciardello got his head in just about every shot of the nominations and award winners.

That’s it for another year. Australia’s Night of Nights! :-)