I was predisposed to dislike this year’s Oscars telecast. I can admit it. Even since the Academy’s baffling announcement that Seth MacFarlane would be the host of their 85th awards ceremony, I’ve been on a downward trajectory of enthusiasm for a night that used to be an enormous highlight for me. It’s not simply that I don’t find MacFarlane funny (though I don’t, as I’ve been unable to watch more than a few minutes of any of his animated grotesqueries before snapping them off), but also that he lacked the requisite prestige to preside over Hollywood’s biggest night. The season may now be overstuffed with awards shows, but this is the one that actually matters, or at least matters significantly more. It’s evident in the faces of the recipients. Daniel Day-Lewis has rightly won every trophy short of the Nobel Prize for his portrayal of Abraham Lincoln (and surely someone is Oslo is trying to figure out how to justify giving him the Peace Prize), but even he seemed briefly taken aback to be holding this golden man in his hands for the third time, finding his balance just in time to deliver the night’s best joke. This should be a night awash in prestige, glamor and excellence.

Instead, the evening was turned over to a hacky showbiz buffoon who had weaker name recognition than nearly every presenter he introduced. I actually believe that MacFarlane sincerely loves being a part of this community, that he wishes he could nestle into the entertainment community vibe two or three generations back, hosting some boozy variety show with singing, dancing and happily inane sketches that get by on little more than putting a movie star in a dopey wig. Certainly his agonizingly sexist humor would have fit in better in that era. Zero Dark Thirty was “a celebration of every woman’s innate ability to never ever let anything go”? Wow. Hilarious. And don’t let those daffy dames get a hold of your charge cards, fellas! This guy know what I’m talkin’ about!

Predictability, the show producers who thought Macfarlane was a dandy choice as host made poor decisions at nearly every turn. Craig Zadan and Neil Meron have apparently been begging for the opportunity to produce the Oscars for years, and the Oscars demonstrated the danger of caving in to so ardent of suitors. From the interminable opening routine (that awkwardly indulged in MacFarlane’s specialty of assuming that tired, outdated pop culture references automatically generate laughs) onward, the show was amazingly flatfooted. The Bond movies tribute somehow managed to leech absolutely all of the charm and character out of the franchise, and various presenter segments seemed deliberately, disastrously unrehearsed. And for a ceremony that is by its very nature somewhat self-indulgent, I don’t know that I’ve ever seen anything built into the show as blatantly egotistical as the repeated treatment of former Best Picture winner Chicago, a film on which Zadan and Meron claimed executive producer credits, as a landmark film of universal acclaim, meriting all manner of tribute.

The shame of it all is that the Oscars had a fine slate of films to work with this year, many of which were significant box office successes. This didn’t prevent the producers from publicly stating their intent to downplay this year’s honorees, implying viewers would get bored if too much time was spent talking about Beasts of the Southern Wild. Never mind that one of the main purposes of this annual fête is calling attention to great films that otherwise might not get seen, it’s plainly offensive and self-defeating enough to postulate that the purpose of the night–celebrating the best achievements in film–isn’t worthy of the time afforded it. Instead they grafted a nonsensical and hardly consistently theme of celebrating musicals, MacFarlane erroneously explaining that such a thing was unprecedented. The Oscars spent much of the early nineties concocting half-realized themes (celebrating comedy or women in film) to supposedly entice viewers to tune in, and it didn’t work then either. My old radio movie reviewer cohort Steve Senski said it best at the time: the only theme the Oscars should ever need is “This is the Best in Film for the Past Year.”

As for how the awards were dispersed, it was an absolutely fascinating year, with each of what most consider to be the big six award (Picture, Director and the four acting honors) going to a different film. My version of an Acting Branch ballot posted yesterday should make it clear that I’m in satisfied agreement with at least three of the acting recipients. Then there’s the second-youngest Best Actress winner ever. I may think that on the merits of the performance she’s the least deserving of the four acting honorees, but it’s still damn nice work on her part and easily the best part of a problematic film. Besides, anything that necessitates Jennifer Lawrence making public, off-the-cuff statements is a win for all of us.