Five-ring circus: The Thread of the XXXIII Olympiad

Yeah, it was about a 30-second set piece to open a fashion segment.

 

Your feed is melting down because a significant and vocal subset of Americans crave grievances.

 

If this were SNL, Lorne would have had them replace this part with the version from the dress rehearsal.

 

Paris, a pale rider on a horse is triggering in 2024.

 

I found the ceremony entertaining, although it was definitely way better from my couch than just about anywhere in Paris. It was classically French -- meant in a good way -- but spreading it out to so many locations made it drag badly at a time when there should have been this glorious climax. You finally get all the athletes there, bring the torch on a mechanical horse and then decide the torch lighting needs to be done five miles away in an empty park?

While it was a grand spectacle, even television had a hard time keeping any continuity (and obviously, NBC with its complete fixation on Team USA and hyping upcoming events, was of no use) between the narrative of French history, the parade of nations and where the hell the torch was at any given time. Some of it was live, plausibly live, taped and lip-snyched.

Even the athletes were commenting about having to watch it again later because they had no vantage point to see anything but the river and some fans. I'd have been irritated to have paid big money only to miss the payoff at the end.

The Macy's Parade was a very good analogy, especially if you're not where all the bands and musicals are performing to the TV audience. And if at the end of all that, Santa Claus appeared instead at LaGuardia.

Tirico failed miserably to keep the viewers informed as to what to expect next, most obviously when the torch was being handed off and he was about two or three French legends behind. With almost 200 countries, you'd think the host's staff would do some research to give him some unusual or entertaining fact about each. Not today. Ireland has golfers! Foreign countries have NBA stars! Australians are good at swimming! And the mentions of 1968 and 1972 when Mexico and Israel appeared.

And he said "here in Paris" enough to where even my wife was murmuring, "Where the hell else would you be?"

Manning talked more about New Orleans and his NFL career than the Olympics. And did you know it rained? It seemed like everyone was fixated on making that comment at least every minute or two, like we should all get out our umbrellas.

 

Honestly ... this was all you had to say.

 

People being outraged reminded me of Patton Oswalt’s classic bit on Cirque du Soleil.

 

You can tell they desperately wanted Daft Punk to play this thing. We’re getting the Kidz Bop version.

 

That balloon is tethered, right?

 

I just ten minutes ago did an impression to my wife of David Brinkley announcing the Olympic torch floating over Europe as if it were the balloon boy saga.

 

I legimately thought it might be some sort of drone thing that they were going to fly to Stade de France and park there.

I've been in the office and want to leave soon, but I'll try and not overlap maumann's takes too much here.

1. This ceremony was outrageously French. One sneaky way you might not have even thought about? I get that English and French are co-equal languages of the Olympic movement, but I've never heard so little English in an Opening Ceremony. All the music was in French, as were the videos, the narrations, etc. (I couldn't tell on the Olympic hymn. Could've been Greek but I wouldn't bet on it). I don't think they really give a merde if American audiences liked that, and that's OK, because it'll be our turn in four years.

2. The riverboat thing was an interesting idea but the bad weather really shot it all to hell. I didn't hear this the first time, but good on the research department for noting that this is the first time the Opening Ceremony has had bad weather since 1952 (Helsinki). Between the ponchos, the wet lenses and the boats bobbing up and down, it just didn't work for me. I'd like to think if there had been better conditions, it would have played better. That said, where the real triumph was came in the cross-cutting. Normally you get 60-90 minutes of cultural blah and then the parade. The way they started with the boats immediately and then cut in the scenes was the best part of this concept by a mile. I don't think I could have gotten through some of those bits if they were stacked on top of each other.

3. The last 45 minutes of that show were totally messed up because that's what happens when your show and your cauldron aren't in the same place. I honestly thought Nadal et al were going all the way back to St. Denis., and the light show, though spectacular, either felt like stalling or some sort of setup to put the cauldron on top of the Eiffel Tower, which honestly would have been pretty badass. There were also way too many people between the boat and the end, though we certainly did a good job naming many of the big ones.

4. I still don't know how the balloon works (daylight will probably help here). Is it tethered? Is this where it's staying? I'm not even 100% sure that they haven't faked the fire with LEDs and a smoke machine setup. It is a nice historical callback.

5. I realize, as a straight American dude I am opening myself up to criticism here, but for Celine Dion to spend multiple years out of action and come back belting on worldwide TV from the Eiffel Tower is incredibly badass for a performer. Just a legend. That and the rain is probably what people are going to remember from this one.