Today, in tiny silver linings to incredibly massive, horrible, life-destroying cloud news: The COVID-19 pandemic may finally have begun to normalize the idea of a 60-minute awards show. Specifically, Variety reports that the Screen Actor’s Guild has announced its intention to radically revamp its program for this year’s SAG Awards in order to minimize the chance that it might, you know, kill someone, with a ceremony that will forego hosts, feature only pre-recorded material, and run a smooth and scant single hour to get through the entire thing.
Airing on Sunday, April 4, the segments for the award show will be shot…Well, whenever, which is kind of the point. Skipping hosts, red carpets, and sets, the ceremony will instead consist of pre-taped segments edited into a single svelte package, including a series of Zoom calls where you’ll be able to see various actors react to being told they’ve won in their category. (Or not, in the case of the vast majority of them! Those’ll be some fun freeze frames.) And while this will possibly damage the grand secrecy of the event—because those in the calls will already have known whether they’d won or lost when the event actually airs on TNT and TBS—it also won’t run the risk of anyone getting horrifically sick for an awards show, which seems like a pretty decent trade-off. Meanwhile, regular features like SAG’s “I Am An Actor” mini-speeches and the regular In Memoriam feature will also be handled via pre-recorded stuff, cutting down on a whole bunch of down-time, walking-to-stage bustle, and the chances of anyone going full “Soy Bomb” on the proceedings.
Also, again: An hour. 13 categories in an hour, plus bits from Sterling K. Brown, Ted Danson, Daveed Diggs, Mary Steenburgen, Lily Collins, and more! Will grim and compromise-laden wonders never cease? Meanwhile, you can see the full nominations for these beautiful and revolutionary and quick awards right here.