It's always unfortunate when someone takes a color risk, and then shows up and learns that another actress took the exact same risk -- a bit like, say, if you showed up at a Halloween party dressed as the magic mailbox from
The Lake House, and ten minutes later someone else with the exact same idea arrived, but they'd decided to add a plastic house and a driveway to the costume, and suddenly, you were just the sad person with a large metal compartment sticking out of your stomach. (I am sure that has happened to many of you out there.)
In the case of the Emmys, it's tough to decide which is which, but I think Mariska Hargitay here might be Mailbox: Original Flavor, because her interpretation of canary yellow lacked any bells and whistles.
I mean, it's FINE, and everything -- it fits, her junk is covered, and her skin tone is right for the bright hue. But it's definitely toga-adjacent, and frankly, kind of a snore. Although perhaps it's hard to judge, because when you are standing in front of Kynt and Vyxsin (the neon goths from
The Amazing Race) and one of them appears to be wearing shoes with springs on the soles, you are always going to look totally boring. Parentheticaly, I sort of feel like Vyksin is staring at Mariska and wondering if it's worth challenging her to a duel, with the fate of the Earth's solar system at stake. In fact, I have it on good authority that as soon as Mariska hit the red carpet, nine round things spontaneously appeared and began orbiting her at different speeds.
This all makes Teri Hatcher version 2.0 -- the more elaborate version of the same basic thought:
