It’s difficult to make a yearly awards show feel special when it’s staged twice in a single year. This was the challenge facing the 76th annual Emmy Awards, which aired just eight months after its warmly nostalgic predecessor due to the prior show’s strike-related delay. (Both shows were helmed by the same producing team.) Consider the Television Academy’s tendency to favor repeat honorees — and more recently, to select shows that sweep all awards in their category within a given year — and it’s understandable why Sunday’s broadcast was a relatively subdued affair. But drab is drab. Whatever the justifications, the 76th Emmys were a significantly less vibrant and more stiff experience compared to the January show.

Take the signature flourish of a night that was otherwise straightforwardly staged: grouping presenters by archetype of character, from fathers to villains to doctors, and surrounding them with custom sets and backdrops. The motif recalled the January Emmys’ amped-up cast reunions, but less specific and evocative (if still endearing, which Connie Britton, Kathy Bates and Mindy Kaling could be with their hands tied behind their back). And inconsistent to boot: “The West Wing” got the classical reunion treatment to present the award for drama series to “Shōgun,” making for a confusing switch-up of MO at the eleventh hour.

The same feeling was generated by the various theme songs deployed seemingly at random: Jessica Gunning’s win for playing a disturbed stalker on “Baby Reindeer” leading directly into the music “Happy Days,” or the opening credits track of “True Blood” transitioning into a commercial break. Occasionally, the sound of “Dawson’s Creek” would precede the stars of “Dawson’s Creek”; at other times, the iconic “Jeopardy” jingle was played over a couple of briefcase-clutching accountants. The overall impression was one of enthusiasm and goodwill towards TV without a proper channel to express it.

Father-son hosting duo Eugene and Dan Levy were affable, though not particularly memorable, emcees. Only a joke about getting separated in the audience touched upon the squabbling comedic chemistry that won both of them Emmys. Their joint performance was otherwise smooth rather than lively, with a jab at the humorlessness of “comedy” heavyweight “The Bear” a rare instance of sharpness that got a rise out of the audience. To be fair, it’s challenging to win over a crowd that’s surprisingly sparse, as L.A’.s Peacock Theater appeared to be on camera — but the response to the central trio of “Only Murders in the Building” was undeniably thunderous in comparison, foreshadowing a potential Oscars hosting gig for Steve Martin, Martin Short and Selena Gomez.

Without a more energetic presentation or a mood noticeably lifted by the recent end of a labor stoppage, the night’s tone was instead set by the winners. It speaks volumes about the recent state of the Emmys that a hit show like “Hacks,” in its third season and with several previous wins under its belt, counts as an upset over “The Bear,” which still managed to secure repeat victories for creator Christopher Storer and stars Jeremy Allen White and Ebon Moss-Bachrach. (Ayo Edebiri’s move into lead actress allowed her colleague Liza Colón-Zayas another kind-of-surprise win. Voters may have had her character Tina’s recent prominent episode in mind, though she was technically being honored for the 15-month-old Season 2.) Alongside “Red, White & Royal Blue” star Taylor Zakhar Perez, Moss-Bachrach was recruited into the night’s low point: a clumsy native advertisement for Johnnie Walker Blue Label, enough to make one long for the most predictable and clichéd presenter banter.

“Shōgun” provided a more exciting injection of novelty and emotion, with Anna Sawai shedding tears before she even made it to the stage and Hiroyuki Sanada powering through the playoff music to deliver a statement in Japanese, then translated by co-creator Justin Marks — fitting for a largely subtitled show about translation. Although there were several references to the upcoming election, most pointedly from “Murphy Brown” star Candice Bergen on her own experience with a retrograde, misogynist, wannabe vice president, “Shōgun” co-creator Marks and “Baby Reindeer” auteur Richard Gadd made topical statements more specific to Hollywood. Amidst a historically great night for the network, Marks lauded FX for taking a chance on a primarily foreign-language period piece that treats poetry like a sword fight; meanwhile, Gadd highlighted the potential payoff of risk-taking and bold storytelling in the midst of industry-wide stagnation.

These points were well-taken, but the Emmys largely served as a reflection of a less-than-thriving moment in TV history, not a counterpoint. Recurring sound issues disrupted the flow; for every Cinderella story like Lamorne Morris’ unexpected win for a triumphant season of “Fargo” or “The Traitors” dethroning “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” there was a John Oliver practically isolated in his own category after an unbroken streak of wins. (Given the freedom to finally honor someone else in the spun-off talk series category, the Academy went with…Oliver’s former boss Jon Stewart, who returned to “The Daily Show” after a long hiatus.) When the Emmys aren’t looking back at nearly a century of excellence, they’re stuck in a present that looks underwhelming by comparison.