The Paris Games have begun! Here is my review of the NBC broadcast of the opening ceremonies and the ceremonies themselves.

First, bravo to the Paris organizers for trying something new. The athletes floating down the Seine was fun and gave the cameras lots of opportunities to show of Paris from the air and the water.¹Boston was one of the competitors for the 2024 Games until we wisely dropped out. But if we had hosted the games, I think we are one of the few cities that could have done something similar, only with Duck Boats. In fact, I can plan out the entire opening ceremony in my mind. We would have done the ride of Paul Revere in reverse, with the torch being brought on horseback to Boston from Lexington and the cauldron being atop Old North Church. Old Ironsides would have sailed from Charlestown and fired a salute. Candlepin bowling would have been an Olympic event. Even in the rain it’s a beautiful city. On the other hand, I have always loved the parade, and I worry that this procession was made for television more than it was made for the athletes, who may have spent their whole lives dreaming of marching with their flags into the Olympic stadium. A young mezzo named Axelle Saint-Cirel sang a really beautiful arrangement of La Marseillaise on the roof of the Grand Palais, holding the French flag and looking like a modern-day Marianne. Someone playing Ravel in the rain, check. The mashup of a French metal band and Bizet, complete with a beheaded noblewoman, check. Celine Dion on the Eifel Tower singing L’Hymne à l’amour while the hot air balloon that will serve as the cauldron rose above the city, check plus. I personally would have liked more of the Orchestra of the Republican Guard and less Les Miserables. Even the missteps, like the three young people in the library who ran off to a ménage à trois or the odd “fashion show” on the bridge, were probably just extremely French. My fear is that future host cities will think they have to do something as creative but won’t have the same results. I’m looking at you, LA.

Now let me tell you about the American broadcast. NBC, you done wrong. You simply cannot start the American broadcast of the Olympics without playing the NBC Olympic theme music, Bugler’s Dream. Everyone has some music from their childhood deep in the lizard part of their brains that evokes memories and emotions, just like the smell of home cooking or a beautiful flower can do. The music doesn’t even have to be great music. I have a few. The Great Gate of Kiev, from Pictures at an Exhibition, which I heard the very first time I heard an orchestra play, at a concert for kindergarteners at Cleveland’s Severance Hall. A ditty from the end of Bach’s first orchestral suite, which has been running through my head for decades but which I didn’t hear again or remember where it came from until a Handel and Haydn concert a couple of years ago; when the orchestra got to it, instant chills down my spine. The theme music from Star Wars, which I first heard in 1977 though I had to leave the theater almost immediately after the music started playing because Darth Vader’s first appearance on screen, following his stormtroopers as they took control of Princess Leia’s spaceship, was too scary. A few Eighties hits I won’t mention out of embarrassment. And the Olympic music. It calls to my mind the 1984 LA Games, Mary Lou Retton, and Carl Lewis. It calls to my mind great Olympic performances since. Once every four years, I need to hear the timpani. I need to hear the trumpets. I am even okay with the John Williams made-for-TV Olympic theme that goes with it. To make things worse, NBC played some crappy music that nodded to the real thing. No, no, no. NBC, you must do better.

NBC, the Olympics are not “Access Hollywood.” I do not appreciate hearing from Ariana Grande or watching John Legend take selfies on what you called the “red carpet.” The Olympics are about the athletes and the sports, or since this is official international competition, “sport.” You also need to rethink your commentators. With the retirement of the irreplaceable Bob Costas from Olympic coverage, Mike Tirico is doing a fine job. I do not think Peyton Manning or Kelly Clarkson were right for primetime Olympic coverage.

One thing NBC did right was its interview with LeBron James, who was chosen by the athletes to be one of the flag bearers for Team USA, and who talked about his pride and patriotism, the honor that had be done to him and the responsibility he felt.

Now that the show business is over, we can look forward to two weeks of the best in the world giving it their all. I wish good luck to all Olympians, and especially to the Americans competing in Paris. Go Team USA!

Image Credit: Ank Kumar (CC BY-SA)

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  Boston was one of the competitors for the 2024 Games until we wisely dropped out. But if we had hosted the games, I think we are one of the few cities that could have done something similar, only with Duck Boats. In fact, I can plan out the entire opening ceremony in my mind. We would have done the ride of Paul Revere in reverse, with the torch being brought on horseback to Boston from Lexington and the cauldron being atop Old North Church. Old Ironsides would have sailed from Charlestown and fired a salute. Candlepin bowling would have been an Olympic event.