Instead, the network plans to air an hour-long episode starring Val Kilmer. "It will make a nice change from working on 'The Muppet Movie' opposite weird little things with squeaky voices," joked Gervais.

Gervais has two other comedies under his control, however: "Derek," which is currently on-air, and a new stand-up show he's working on as well.

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Eric Stonestreet's pitch-perfect acceptance

Acknowledging his sitcom husband, Stonestreet said, "I wouldn't be standing here without Jesse Tyler Ferguson. There is no Cam without Mitch." Then he continued, beautifully, "We get the awesome opportunity to play these two characters on TV and show America and the world what a loving couple we can be, just like everybody else, and it's an honor to do that," and added, "I never knew I'd be on TV as a gay man, but I love the pictures of hairy chests you guys are sending me." Sweet and touching and very funny.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus' win … for Amy Poehler

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"Life's Too Short," which begins next Sunday on HBO, is a mockumentary that follows Warwick Davis, a real-life showbiz dwarf with a very real small-man syndrome. Like David Brent on "The Office" and Andy Millman on "Extras," Davis suffers a mean case of self-delusion, even as his career tanks, his wife leaves him and a massive unpaid tax bill comes due. He compares himself to Martin Luther King Jr., while also talking about the importance of his dignity, all while falling out of his SUV or asking strangers to press doorbells he can't reach.

It's painfully and excruciatingly funny, yet in early episodes, at least, Davis is an extraordinarily likable Napoleon. In an interview last week, Gervais insisted that the show is not making fun of Davis or little people. And in a wide-ranging discussion that might surprise some after his controversial and sometimes mean turns hosting the Golden Globes, Gervais says that comedy and humanity can't be separated. "Comedy is about empathy," he says. "Comedy is about the blind spot, comedy is about rooting for them, comedy is about flawed characters."

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Gervais is in the New York Times Magazine, where David Itzkoff explains his comedic swings from kind impulses to mean-spirited rawness. In Vulture, Willa Paskin worries that all the focus on Gervais’ edge is leading him to buy his own hype, obscuring the fact that he’s very much a part of the club he got credit for lampooning. NBC’s own ad campaign features Gervais talking about how controversial it is for him to be back. In as much as the 2012 Globes are must-see television, it’s supposed to be because of the man riffing at the podium, rather than the artists who will deliver grateful speeches from it.

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While season one of the American "Office" tried to mimic the storylines from its BBC namesake program, the ratings had tumbled by the time of its season finale. Turns out, our audiences only like painfully awkward confrontations during prime time news or on shows about hoarding. Scripted comedies? Not so much. (Though Larry David and "Curb Your Enthusiasm" may beg to differ.)

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Expect more of that next year. The Hollywood Foreign Press wants Ricky Gervais and his headline-grabbing one-liners back on stage next year. The British comedian drew some criticism for being a meanie with a performance during which "decades' worth of skepticism and resentment bubbled to the surface." Gervais stood by his borderline offensive, somewhat derogatory and sometimes just plain hilarious jokes.

We stand by the hope that maybe, just maybe, next year's Golden Globes, Ricky will reunite with his early 80s glampop band Seona Dancing.

And in case you haven't seen it, here's this year's terrific opening monologue.

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Though the Internet has known about this for a while, interest over Ricky Gervais' polarizing performance at the Golden Globes has stirred the skeletons in the closet. Nearly 30 years ago, a slimmer, prettier Gervais stole the hearts of millions as lead singer of Seona Dancing, a British New Wave group. (That's pronounced "shawna dahn-cing.") Along with Bill Macrae, Gervais started the band in his last year at the University College, London, and enjoyed a moderate amount of success. Seona Dancing topped the charts -- or rather showed up on the charts at No. 79 -- with their hit "Bitter Heart." The video pretty much sums up a lot about the '80s:

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The British comedian was brash, profane and cruelly funny at Sunday's Golden Globes, delivering his trademark humor as promised for the Hollywood Foreign Press Association in his second go-round as host of the ceremony that has "butt-talking" appearances by Jim Carrey and Jack Nicholson in its history.

At its heart, pairing the right host with the right awards show is a delicate form of matchmaking. The relationship should be unpredictable but not self-destructive, capturing TV viewers and Nielsen ratings without alienating the stars who come to be celebrated.

More than a few brave hosts have discovered how daunting the brief affair can be. That includes David Letterman, who has yet to shed memories of his bumpy 1995 Oscar gig that included an oddball phonetics bit mocking the names of Uma Thurman and Oprah Winfrey.

"Ricky Gervais was the host of the (Globes) show -- very funny guy," Letterman said on his late-night CBS show Monday. "But there's already talk that he'll never be invited back, and I say, 'Hey, welcome to the club.'"

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First, gleeful needling has been that comic’s stock-in-trade for about two decades, and the awards show’s governing body, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, hired Gervais to host the broadcast in 2010 as well. Unless you're a complete dunderhead, you don’t invite a scorpion into your tent without expecting him to sting you, especially after inviting him in exactly one year earlier and getting stung 23 times in the face.

Second, it’s not as though the Golden Globes ceremony had much dignity to lose. Stars attend  and viewers watch not in spite of the event's junior-prom after-party atmosphere, but because of it. On the Oscars and Emmy broadcasts, it’s a big deal when people go off-script, act like fools, or bite the hands that feed them. On the Globes telecast, we expect such behavior and feel disappointed if we don’t get oodles of it.

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First of all, I have a serious problem with Shaun White. He flies through the air like a superhero on my TV screen, then when he's done, he's all funny and charming and sweet in interviews. As if that weren't enough, the announcers go on to tell us all about how he has tons of money and his very own halfpipe in Colorado plus he's friends with Tony Hawk and his life is totally awesome. Does NBC really want to send the message that likable athletes who are pioneers in their sport are better than those of us who haven't done shit with our lives? I doubt it.

I also have a major beef with Lindsey Vonn, who insisted on making a huge spectacle of how fast she was going down that steep hill on her skis without falling once. How ridiculously insensitive was that to the woman who had a terrible wipeout on that exact same hill just minutes later?

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In "The Invention of Lying," people say the harshest, or just the most direct, things in the politest way possible. When Mark and Anna arrive at the modest restaurant he's chosen, she holds up the menu and mutters, as if her date were unable to hear, "Plastic." The waiter who comes to their table (played by the fine comic actor Martin Starr) greets them with the words "I'm embarrassed I still work here," uttered in the same mechanically cheerful voice he might use to say, "Hi, I'm Jared, and I'll be your server this evening." This is the world Mark is used to, and so while we see his spirit crumple a bit every time Anna reaffirms her lack of interest in him, Mark has no compunction about describing himself as a "loser." He accepts his lowly place in society's food chain.

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But Lady Emmy shouldn't be so down on TV! After all, millions of people at home were watching TV on Sunday night -- namely, they were watching the no-time-remaining, game-winning field goal at the end of the Cowboys-Giants game. (The Giants won.) Oh yeah, and millions tuned in to watch AMC's "Mad Men," too.

I would've been watching "Mad Men," in fact, had I not been asked to cover the Emmys. Apparently something really shocking happened on "Mad Men," and I missed it.

But if you were watching the Cowboys-Giants game or "Mad Men" instead of the Emmys? Don't worry, you didn't miss anything -- nothing that you can't catch up with on Twitter or YouTube, that is. (Oh no! Now I'm doing it, too!)

The sad truth is that this year's Emmys felt about as relevant and as unpredictable as … well, as last year's Emmys. In fact, everyone is tweeting about how this year's Emmys were way, way better than last year's, but let's see: "30 Rock" and "Mad Men" took home the Outstanding Comedy and Outstanding Drama awards, "The Amazing Race" won for Outstanding Reality Competition, "The Daily Show" won it's seventh Emmy in a row for Outstanding Variety, Musical or Comedy Series. Oh wait, here's something new: Bryan Cranston won Outstanding Lead Actor for "Breaking Bad"!

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Or hell -- but Koepp allows for that contingency, too. "Ghost Town" is a rarity, a contemporary romantic comedy that honors the traditions of the genre without checking them off some plasticized list. The picture is breathing, and alive, every minute. The fact that it stars three superb comic actors -- Ricky Gervais, Tèa Leoni and Greg Kinnear -- doesn't hurt. If you need a big star to open a movie, Ricky Gervais, of the British TV series "The Office" and "Extras," sure isn't it. But his sense of timing is a marvel -- its delicate, off-center quality may work even better on the big screen than on the small one -- and even his vague unsuitability as a leading man (that squarish, scrubbed-clean face, that barrel-shaped chest) ultimately works in his favor. By the end of the movie, you can't imagine anyone else in the part.

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Leonard is being played by a pampered performer named Jazz, a Great Dane supposedly trained to deliver on cue. But the hound with the Hollywood gravy train is gazing right back at Gervais without so much as a sniff. After a moment, he lets loose a floppy tongue, pants a couple of times. He is going way off script. Everyone on the set is holding their breath. The stone-faced Gervais normally loves to improvise, but this time he's baffled. It's hard to decide if the impasse between the two is hilarious or weird or a fair bit of both.

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