This year’s Oscars telecast was pretty lame. “The Oscars are losing their status as a big national party and turning instead into de facto political conventions — and if there’s anything TV and the nation don’t need, it’s more of those. Chances are the ratings for this year’s Oscar show will not be especially high and might be especially low, unless Rock turns out to have been enough of a name to bring viewers back to their sets. More likely, the whole horrible mess will have to be rethought once again, and next year’s Oscarcast will be preceded by a fresh wave of hype about how new and improved it all is.”