Awards offered scant satisfaction after season's interminable slog

My wife and I have a tradition: Every year, after the Oscars are over, we dance around the living room in grateful, weary celebration that yet another long awards season has finally come to an end.

Some seasons, of course, feel longer than others, and for reasons I'm still trying to make sense of, the one that concluded Sunday night felt close to interminable. We almost broke with tradition, barely managing a few beleaguered dance steps before collapsing and heading to bed.

I suspect we weren't alone in our Oscar fatigue. If you're feeling it acutely this week, it might have something to do with the sheer disjointedness of what has been both a season of celebration and a season of reckoning. That much was clear from