'Lazy and clueless' Golden Globes 2021 show gets panned

Variety probably put it best in its summation of this year's Golden Globes show, with two particularly well-chosen words; zoom fatigue.

What is usually a convivial, boozy romp through the year's best TV and movie performances was – even before the technical glitches – always going to have the whiff of work about it.

But even roundly adored hosts Tina Fey and Amy Poehler couldn't reign in a 'a lazy, clueless ceremony that likely convinced many viewers to change the channel' (Variety again).

Read more: All of the winners from the Golden Globes 2021

“It was an evening defined by sourness and a sense of obligation on all sides: A thing that was being done because everyone knew it was what was done every year, even as the news insisted on the show’s irrelevance and the production seemed to resist being put on,” it went on.

“But what viewers who walked away after three hours feeling as if they just got out of a contentious work meeting with some very unpleasant coworkers may think to themselves is: Maybe it doesn’t need to.”

Deadline called the whole enterprise 'tone deaf'.

“Unless disaster was the intention, the show absolutely missed it with a bloated and glitchy ceremony that was pure Hindenburg almost from the beginning,” it writes.

“Sunday night’s bicoastal ceremony hosted by Tina Fey and Amy Poehler certainly was a Globes to remember, in the worst way.

Read more: Technical glitch hits Daniel Kaluuya acceptance speech

“And it’s not like last year’s Ricky Gervais-fronted event was any great shakes to begin with, but it looks positively artful in comparison now.”

IndieWire mused: “Weak acknowledgements during the ceremony, mostly light jabs from a few presenters, and innumerable technical errors made for a chaotic Golden Globes — in a bad way; in a 'It doesn’t seem like they care' way; in a 'Did they even rehearse this?' kind of way.”

However (as The New York Times noted) 'there were some benefits to the virtual gallery of stars'.

“No one had to spend awkwardly long navigating to the podium from the back of a ballroom. It was charming to Jason Sudeikis rocking a tie-dye hoodie, and winners sharing the moment with their kids instead of telling good night from the stage,” it writes.

But such marks in the plus column have been hard to come by.

Vanity Fair simply summed up 'it was bad'.

“From the jump, the show was stilted and pained, a lame attempt at happy, glitzy fanfare that failed stylistically and substantively,” it writes.

“It was all just so awkward. The horrifyingly cringe-y cuts to people Fey and Poehler had just made fun of, or who had just lost in their category (fine in the room, excruciating on Zoom or whatever). The stuttering 'should I talk now?' confusion of various winners. The speeches that meandered without the guiding pressure of being up on a stage in front of peers.”

Well, at least it's over now.

The Oscars, meanwhile, directed by Steven Soderbergh, happens on 25 April.

Watch: Sacha Baron Cohen Golden Globes backstage interview