Victoria Wood with her two Baftas, one for Best Actress and one for Best Single Drama both received for Housewife 49. Photograph: Yui Mok/PA Wire Full Length
After a couple of years when it seemed the Bafta TV Awards were successfully adding a bit of showbiz glitz to their undoubted worthy credibility, last night felt like a regression.
Too many dull acceptance speeches, too many awards that felt they had been given to the consensus choice on a split jury and others that felt plain wrong. An attempt to shorten the show also resulted in the decision to drop the current affairs category. But if that was the intention, then why include a spurious new award for best international show?
It's a fact that Life on Mars was the TV drama of the last two years that best married popular appeal with quality writing and, increasingly rare these days, the sense that everyone was talking about it.
Its ubiquity was reflected in the fact host Graham Norton roared up to the red carpet in a brown mark three Cortina like that used in the show, driven by Philip Glenister (unbelievably, not even nominated for his portayal of Gene Hunt).
That it went home empty handed, save for the audience-voted Pioneer award, seemed odd to say the least. In mitigation, juries were considering the first series of the drama rather than this year's concluding one - so perhaps it will clean up next year.
The ceremony itself wasn't helped by the number of no-shows. Unfortunately for the organisers, those that couldn't make it tend to be relied upon to say something controversial and/or funny to break the self-congratulatory monotony.
Ricky Gervais (whose award was collected by a non-plussed, and more deserving, Stephen Merchant), Jonathan Ross and Simon Cowell were all missing. It was tempting to think - if they couldn't be bothered to turn up, why should we?
The biggest victories were small ones. Those behind Granada Reports made a passionate plea for broadcasters to safeguard the future of regional news in an ever more competitive landscape, as they became the first regional news team to win the news coverage award. And Sita Williams, executive producer of The Street, called for broadcasters to take risks on new writing talent.
If nothing else, the Baftas provided a useful barometer of the respective health of our biggest broadcasters. Channel 4's winning run came to an abrupt halt and it went home with just two prizes - chief executive Andy Duncan will worry that will give further ballast to those who claim it is straying ever further from its remit.
Its tally was matched by Sky One - although how Ross Kemp on Gangs triumphed over rivals including Stephen Fry's moving manic depression documentary, Tribe and Who Do You Think You Are? is a mystery.
ITV1 meanwhile won more than any other channel, including a surprise double for Victoria Wood. Fresh from being credited by our own Alexis Petridis as an unlikely inspiration for the Arctic Monkeys, she deserved her awards for the kind of classic ITV fare that is normally overlooked. Michael Grade will hope the haul will deliver a confidence-building fillip to his plans to reinvigorate the broadcaster.
Overall though, perhaps the most apt winner was Casualty's triumph over Corrie and EastEnders in the best continuing drama category. For the majority of a long night, the Bafta TV Awards felt like they needed to be shocked back into life.
