The opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics was a complete disaster

In theory, it was a good idea. Paris held the first Olympic opening ceremony outside a stadium, in one of the most beautiful settings in the world: the Seine. Athletes paraded not on foot but by boat, waving flags on elegant pontoons, while festivities took place on bridges and riverbanks. The aquatic format promised to do more than simply showcase Paris’s architectural beauty or convey the magic of strolling across the Pont Neuf with fresh bread in hand. It promised to give the world—our increasingly jaded, complacent world—something new to look at.

Unfortunately, the novelty was a disaster. Some will blame the rain, which soaked the festivities for hours, adding an air of tragedy to the flag-waving athletes under their ponchos. But even on a sunnier day, the ceremony would have served as an example of what not to do when staging a live television show. The energy was low, the pacing was awkward and the execution uneven. Paris tried to present itself as a modern, inclusive center of excitement, but it mostly seemed exhausted.

Olympic opening ceremonies are inevitably ridiculous events, usually in a funny way. The host country must welcome the international community while also bringing together all the trappings of its own identity in a kind of crazy mix that, ideally, also develops that country’s image in a useful way. London offered the Queen and James Bond, as well as a tribute to the National Health Service. Rio hosted a wild dance party and a press conference on Brazil’s indigenous history. Most importantly, both cities gave us good television.

Upstream, the artistic director of the Parisian event, Thomas Jolly, had announced his intention to play with Gallic clichés. Keywords—freedom, synchronicityand so on — thematic chapters announced, but a barely coherent narrative. Congratulations if you had the following on your bingo card: mimes, Louis Vuitton, parkour, The setepaintingsthe cancan, the lasers shooting out of the Eiffel Tower, the allusions to ménage à trois. But let’s give Caesar what belongs to Caesar: I really didn’t expect the Minions to steal the The Mona Lisa and take him aboard a Jules Verne-style submarine. Come to think of it, that was the most instructive part of the show: learning that a Frenchman was co-directing Despicable Me.

The problem with this French fever dream was that much of it was prerecorded. Every few minutes, the broadcast cut to a carefully crafted cut of a masked, hooded individual—as NBC broadcasters called him “the Individual”—smuggling the Olympic torch. She went to the Louvre, where the paintings came to life. She attended a film screening, where a Lumière brothers film…came to life. These sequences had the power of a cruise ship commercial, while distracting from the novelty of a ceremony on the water.

The live elements of the show were hardly more lively. A bridge had been transformed into a runway on which models and drag queens strutted with the enthusiasm and precision of a forced march. Platforms above the river itself displayed extreme sports performers performing tricks that the television cameras seemed oddly afraid to show in close-up. Lady Gaga gave a feather-laden cabaret performance that was perfectly fine, except that “perfectly fine” should not be anywhere near Lady Gaga’s name. (It turns out that this performance was also pre-recorded.)

One of the few notable moments made it clear that the ceremony’s eerie vibe could be largely attributed to the detail work. At one point, the camera cut to the head of a woman dressed as Marie Antoinette. The heavy metal band Gojira began singing, and flames shot out. It was spot on. But then, not much happened. The audience grew bored with the static, wide shots of the performance. Eventually, a fake boat appeared, looking a lot like a prop from a high school play.

The best moments were on dry land. Pop star Aya Nakamura danced with the French Republican Guard in a dazzling encounter between the old and new cultural regimes. Once the sun went down, the “individual” emerged into real life to ride down the Seine aboard a cool-looking mechanical horse. (It was an interminable ride, admittedly.) The Olympic cauldron was cool, too: It looked like a hot-air balloon and rose into the air when lit. Finally, Celine Dion made her seemingly unlikely return to singing, gasping with emotion from the deck of the Eiffel Tower.

Perhaps it is no coincidence that carefully composed and largely stable images were the highlights of a show that attempted to reimagine the Olympic ceremony in fluid directions. My favorite moment was when pianist Alexandre Kantorow played Maurice Ravel’s piece Water sports from a bridge, as the rain beat down on his instrument. He looked sad and wet, but also indifferent, lost in the music. It reminded me of the word I was trying to think of, for one of those ineffable French feelings: faintness.