Oscars 2013 Show Highlights: MacFarlane, Musicals and Missteps

With regard to the Oscar awards ceremony, I am SO glad SNL was running a special simultaneously.
That allowed me to enjoy watching television despite being thoroughly disappointed with the worst Academy Awards ceremony to date.
I am astonished that the James Franco and Ann Hathaway train wreck from two years ago was much better than what the obscure, porcine and homophobic persona known as Seth MacFarlane provided the perpetually cringing audiences with. (At least with Franco and Hathaway we could attribute that particular failure to youth, inexperience, recreational pharmaceuticals or alcohol and bad planning.)
I never thought I could feel such overwhelming sympathy for the rich and powerful movie-making population that had to physically sit there and endure Seth MacFarlane.
Shirley Bassey hit a terrible note right at the start of her song that had me clicking back to SNL so that I wouldn't have to feel sorrier for her. Even Barbara Streisand's performance had me thinking, Barbara, Dahling, today is not your day. If a performance by Streisand can't save the show, it must be universally acknowledged as the worst Oscars ever.
(Will someone PLEASE be honest with older singers and this will spare everyone, and allow singers to retire with some dignity?)
MacFarlane's hosting duties included his being an announcer for the broadcast and this added another awkward aspect to the dismal proceedings. You could hear his applauding throughout the telecast and I wondered about the people in charge of the sound for the show. (MacFarlane is wealthy, powerful, successful and he can sing and dance a little but this was obviously not enough to carry what is arguably the most important awards show. I also wonder if he didn't make the sound people angry in rehearsal so they had their ways to reward him.)
With the 85th Oscars slow and very painful death, viewers can only hope that next years telecast will be hosted by someone with the gravitas to make it watchable.