When all is said and done, it wasn’t an awards season that deserved a fireworks finish, so perhaps last night’s muted, largely tasteful, faintly insular ceremony was an appropriate summation. It ran smoothly enough, with a handful of novel distractions and a uniformly generous, empathetic spirit running through the night’s speeches –- but I’d be hard pressed to remember many notable ‘moments’ from last night’s proceedings a week from now, let alone years hence.

Part of that stems from the fact that, as has been discussed ad nauseum on these and other pages, we had a less-than-stellar field of contenders to work with. But I’m afraid I must slide into the apparently tiny glass-half-empty minority on the show itself –- as efficiently and enthusiastically as the show unfolded, I simply didn’t find all that much to love about it. As Danny Boyle suggested in the midst of yet another boundless, winning acceptance speech (can we find something for him to win every year, please?), it looked like a blast for those present, but I’m not sure the clubby, “we’re all in this together” vibe really translated to the distance of a TV screen.

After the cloak-and-dagger secrecy shrouding Bill Condon and Laurence Mark’s revised take on the Oscars, I must say I was expecting a slicker, more dramatic reworking of the format –- and on that front, I must say I was a little disappointed. Hugh Jackman was certainly a game, likeable emcee, but I wasn’t certain who the target audience for his big set pieces was. Equal parts Crystal-esque shtick and endearingly naff “let’s put on a show” razzle-dazzle, both elements seemed to me too dated to court the broader, younger, hipper viewership the Academy wanted. The Baz Luhrmann-staged musical number at the centre was fun in itself, but existed in a similar cultural vacuum, despite the presence of current pop phenomena like Beyonce or Zac Efron. For all the hype, this was familiar content.

More striking and unexpected were certain structural changes, like the grouping and streamlining of the technical awards and the five-person “welcome to the club” format of the acting presentations. While I appreciate the fresh thinking at play here, some of the innovations, I felt, backfired a little – having one presenter (and by the way, considering the secret-presenter tactic, they were a rather unsurprising bunch) dish out four awards needlessly cut down on the onstage star wattage, and the acting tributes, initially touching in their sincerity, rather dragged by the end. (A well-chosen clip can speak volumes about a performance, particularly for viewers less familiar with the nominated films.)

Meanwhile, the show’s much-touted intent to more completely showcase the cinema of 2008 took a decidedly uninspired direction – specifically, yet more of the superfluous montages that have plagued many an Oscar broadcast in recent years. (Speaking of which, was I the only one bothered by the complete absence of “Waltz With Bashir” in the animation montage? As if getting shunted by “Departures” wasn’t hard enough for the film, it had to lose screen time to “Space Chimps” too?)

I’m complaining too much, I know, and there were a handful of unequivocal delights in the show too. I must hand presenter/performer bouquets to the likes of Anne Hathaway and Jennifer Aniston (both of whom pulled off that tricky “unprepared” act with great warmth and élan), and a whole garden of roses to Tina Fey and Steve Martin, whose hilarious, literate banter during the screenplay presentations (Martin’s “don’t fall in love with me” line deserves classic status) was the night’s clear highlight from my point of view. Anyone else want to move the duo to the top of the “future presenters” roster?

As for the awards themselves, I’m not going to complain about predictability -– in part because my own predictions score was a shaky 17/24 (banking on too many surprises to never did, and probably never would, pan out), and in part because most of the winners were, considering the competition, deserving indeed. I may not have wanted either Kate Winslet and Sean Penn to win (and my heart still aches for the missed opportunity of a Mickey Rourke victory), but both accepted with such grace and good humour that it’s hard not to be pleased for them.

And I’m not going to comment too much on the “Departures” upset without having seen the film, but it’s hardly news that the foreign-language needs far more extensive reform than the ‘bandage on a broken arm’ measures taken last year –- which we already knew had failed when “Gomorrah” missed the cut back in January. If the Japanese winner is indeed the sweet-natured but aesthetically unremarkable work described by some pundits, it would hardly be the first such film to triumph over more challenging options. Perhaps it’s time the Academy scrapped the whole system and simply ran the category like the Best Picture race – picking (supposedly) the most notable, high-profile releases from the preceding calendar year.

I’m interested to see if the show succeeds in reversing the ceremony’s ratings slide of late, as well as how this show settles in the public memory –- and whether the innovations introduced this year will become institutions or remain one-off experiments. (For one thing, I’m not sure whether the new acting-awards format would work as well without the element of surprise it boasted here.) If so, I will gladly doff my hat to Mssrs. Condon and Mark and try to come round to their vision. As yet, I need a little persuading.

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