Golden Globes’ Strong Winners and Charming Host Were Nearly Derailed by Polymarket Predictions, Podcast Awards and Other Distracting Stunts: TV Review

Over the last few years, the Golden Globes has made a concerted effort to improve its reputation. Once somewhat infamous for a small voting body easily influenced by star power, a setup that culminated in a controversy over its membership in 2021 that led to a temporary suspension of the telecast. Five years later, the Globes are under new ownership — now sharing a parent company with Variety — that’s implemented structural changes like overhauling the roster and, as of this year, no longer paying a salary to legacy voters. There have been both stumbles, like a disastrous hosting performance by standup comedian Jo Koy in 2024, and successful course corrections, like hiring Nikki Glaser as MC last year and rightfully asking her back.

But even as the Globes has worked to clean up its act, the awards show also tried to expand its reach and profitability in often clumsy and confusing ways. At the ceremony’s 83rd iteration on Sunday night, the tension between those two goals was on full display.

First, the positives. Glaser continued to confidently strut the thin and delicate line between landing punches while seeming infectiously excited to be in the Beverly Hilton ballroom. While the repeated professions of love for various celebrities were a little much, they succeeded in getting the in-person audience to laugh along as she called Sean Penn a “sexy leather handbag” who does cocaine around the globe and labeled Jon M. Chu’s blockbuster sequel “Wicked: For Money.” Frequent self-deprecation — “just like Frankenstein, I’ve been pieced together by an unlicensed European surgeon” — created the sense Glaser was happy to take as well as dish. Callbacks to popular bits from last year, like an Adam Sandler impression and the musical spoof “Pope-ular” (now reborn as “KPong,” a mashup of “KPop Demon Hunters” and “Marty Supreme”) felt earned rather than self-indulgent.

The actual winners, too, offered plenty to feel good about. Teyana Taylor’s joyful tears started the night on a strong note; Wagner Moura’s victory for “The Secret Agent” bookended the show by demonstrating the benefits of the Globes’ international roots. If anything, the selections were rather staid, with incumbent Emmy winners “The Pitt” and “The Studio” taking home the TV series trophies and Oscar frontrunner “One Battle After Another” leading the film categories. The Globes would like no longer to be known as the type of organization that nominates “Emily in Paris” alongside “Schitt’s Creek,” seemingly leading to a new conservative streak. But the show can still anoint breakout talents like Rhea Seehorn in “Pluribus,” reaping the reward of a giddy, delightful speech that spanned beta blockers and the former chicken chain Koo Koo Roo.

Yet viewers experienced these demonstrations of seriousness amid a slew of distracting stunts. Announcers Kevin Frazier and Marc Malkin didn’t just banter about nominees’ biographies and past nomination histories; they peppered in statistics about projected winners from the online betting platform Polymarket, complete with screen-swallowing graphics. (Disclosure: Malkin is a Variety colleague.) Actual awards like best original score, which went to Ludwig Goransson of “Sinners,” were shunted to commercial break to make room for awkward non-jokes like having UFC fighters strut across the stage as “extra security” for the stars of “Heated Rivalry.” At least have them accompany the guys onstage for pretense’s sake! A soundtrack of bland Top 40 hits led to dissonant juxtapositions like Stellan Skarsgard taking the stage to Usher’s “Yeah!”, or the team behind “The Secret Agent” walking up to Rihanna’s “Pon de Replay.” While a banger, the 2005 hit didn’t really set the tone for discussing a political thriller about life under fascism.

This clunkily commercial-minded tendency applied not just to the production, but to the honors themselves. The best podcast category, a nonsensical and new inclusion that pitted celebrity chat show “Smartless” against the NPR news digest “Up First,” was presented with lengthy clips for each nominee, while the more established acting ones had to go without. (For some reason, best screenplay also came with clips, a decision that was less cynically promotional and more bafflingly inconsistent.) Winner Amy Poehler, herself a four-time Globes host, was almost bashful in her acceptance, acknowledging her recent arrival to the medium. With no disrespect to the delightful “Good Hang,” the show makes for a more intuitive bridge between a Hollywood-centric event and a new source of attention and advertising than the likes of “Up First,” which could contextualize its triumph. 

The idea of honoring “box office achievement” got practically laughed out of the Oscars when it was briefly floated a few years ago. Its inclusion in the Globes thus reinforces the very reputation as the Academy Awards’ less serious little cousin that the show is trying to move away from. Ryan Coogler’s “Sinners,” which exceeded all financial expectations, is about as worthy a winner as the Globes could find, but the film was nonetheless nominated alongside releases that had no box office (“KPop Demon Hunters”) or weren’t even released at the time of nomination (“Avatar: Fire and Ash”). As with podcasting, the fuzziness of criteria only hurt the end product, putting the inclusion of popular work above any consistent rationale for doing so.

Growth can mean a couple of things: maturation, or just the simple act of getting bigger. The Globes is trying to do both at the same time, but the latter threatens to come at the expense of the former. Tame yet respectable choices are at odds with sponsored content for legalized gambling, or an unending ramble by Judd Apatow. Chasing too many contradictory aims at once ends up frustrating all of them. 

Variety parent company PMC owns Golden Globes producer Dick Clark Prods. in a joint venture with Eldridge.