Let's start with the big-ticket items: Nine's telecast rated well (an average of 1.119 million viewers across more than four hours in the five capital cities); it struck a blow or two for diversity and decency on our screens; and it was even (in patches at least) genuinely entertaining.

On the downside: Nine's telecast ran way too long (see above); it was dominated by backslaps for the usual suspects (Home and Away, The Block); and it was (in patches at least) seriously dull.

But here I'd like to focus mostly on the way the Logies this year made an unexpected claim on their right to be taken at least a little seriously.

Dave Hughes fires on all cylinders

In an opening monologue that took rapid-fire aim at everything from Shane Warne (an easy target) to 60 Minutes (less so, given the broadcast was on Nine), Hughes was consistently funny, if playing largely by the rulebook that demands you skewer everyone in the room equally. But his routine showed that an opening monologue can approach the savagery of a genuine stand-up routine.

Of course, he skewered himself, too. "The biggest TV moment of the year was Mick Fanning," he said. "Live on TV, he punched a shark – he's a hero. But I kick my dog, I'm an arsehole, apparently." The bit about his six-year-old son needing to get funny fast if he's to compensate for inheriting his old man's face was priceless.

Peter Helliar and Kitty Flanagan make a fine couple

There was comic mileage to be had from the fact two of The Panel's three regular hosts had been nominated for the night's top prize – or, to put it another way, one of the three had not been. "My name is Peter Helliar, otherwise known as the one from The Project who wasn't nominated for the Gold Logie," he said, pinching back the tears. "But you know what they say: it's an honour just to be asked to throw to a nomination package."



Helliar invited his nominated colleagues, Waleed Aly and Carrie Bickmore, to swing by his table up the back of the room some time. "I don't mean to brag, but I am sitting with some of the highest-selling newsagents in rural Australia," he said.

Flanagan had a lovely bit about the little-known alternative route to becoming a chef. "I feel dreadful. I see all these people on MasterChef, My Kitchen Rules, saying 'cooking has always been my dream'," she said. "I wish someone had told them about TAFE."

Go on: you know you've thought the same thing.

Noni Hazlehurst launches the Positivity Channel

Noni Hazlehurst became just the second woman to be inducted into the Logies Hall of Fame (or should that be Shame?), and used her speech to deliver a rousing call to lay down arms.

"With the explosion of technology and the proliferation of screens, we can't escape exposure to bad news and violent images, they're everywhere," she said, drawing a link between what is on TV and increasing rates of depression. "We're all living under a heavy and constant cloud of negativity … I think it's because we're surrounded by bad news and examples of our basest human behaviour. I fear that our hearts are growing cold."

It was stirring stuff, followed by what she called her pitch. "I'd love a channel that features nothing but stories that inspire us and reassure us, and our children, that there are good things happening and good people in the world. At the very least, a show ... that counters bad news with good, encourages optimism not pessimism, restores our empathy and love for our fellow human beings and the Earth, that redefines reality, that heals our hearts. And by the way, I'm available."

Everyone loves Noni, and her heart is clearly in the right place, but I'm not sure she wasn't a little clouded in her thinking by all the hoopla around Play School turning 50. If kids are being exposed to bad stuff on telly the answer, surely, is to change the channel, not to create a new one. Last time I looked, there wasn't an awful lot of plague and pestilence on ABC Kids.

Then again, if someone really does launch a Good News channel, you'll know where they got the idea.

Black Australia finds its voice – and almost has it cut off

The speeches were interminable. Waleed Aly's clocked in at about 12 minutes; Noni Hazlehurst equalled that, and her speech which was preceded by another 13 minutes of tributes. Tim Minchin got a mere 80 seconds for his peer-voted supporting actor speech, but that was a pre-record from LA; he used it to signal his intent to move back to Australia next year, and to make the point that telling difficult stories about our country (like The Secret River, for which he won) was essential. "Saying, 'let's get over it and move on' doesn't cut it, and never has, in any culture in the history of the world," he said to whoops from the audience.

How shoddy, then, that the producers, director and cast of Ready For This, the indigenous-focused series that won Most Outstanding Children's Program, had barely taken the stage when the get-off music began to play. "Seriously?" asked an incredulous Darren Dale, one of the show's creators.

The audience booed, the orchestra backed off, and Dale and his co-recipients – including fired-up actor Madeleine Madden – grabbed the moment. In a night that made great show of embracing diversity and acknowledging the validity of indigenous storytelling, it was a thoughtless and blundering misstep, equalled only by Shane Jacobson's uncomfortable-bordering-on-disastrous interview with Lee Lin Chin.

Julia Morris brings the house down

There were live performances from Conrad Sewell, Delta Goodrem and Jimmy Barnes but the biggest musical moment of the night belonged to Julia Morris, who revisited her television debut as a 17-year-old contestant singing Holding Out For a Hero on New Faces in 1985. "Seventy-five years in the business, you see," she joked to Jacobson, who introduced the clip he claimed to have found on the internet.

Morris said she tied for first place, but lost the tie-break to a girls marching band, "so I never got to sing the song again in the grand final." But, she quickly added, "I'll get it out for you again now".

Jacobson looked appalled. "I have never heard the word 'no' said so fast and so often in my ear," he said.

But 40 minutes or so later he was back, claiming social media had demanded she be allowed to sing the song, and promising that John Foreman, the musical director of the show, "sort of knew the music". Half an hour after that, Morris was on stage, performing a truncated version of Bonnie Tyler's 1984 song (originally recorded for the soundtrack to Footloose), with the note-perfect accompaniment of the 30 or so members of the Logies orchestra, who had apparently learnt the score, without practicing, in less than an hour. Hmmm.

Morris's twirl-and-fall routine earlier in the night had obviously been a rehearsed bit of slapstick, but the song played at first glance like a genuinely spontaneous moment, fed by audience demand and the pluck of this most avowedly ordinary of performers. But watching it again in the cold light of day, it seems far more likely that it was in fact a cleverly worked three-part sting. Nor was there much evidence of a social-media clamour.

Whatever. The fact that it was almost certainly faked doesn't make it any less fun. Truth or just a dare, it was one of the two undisputed highlights of the night.

The other being…

Waleed Aly's acceptance speech, of course. Yes, we all knew it was coming, and we all knew it would be uncommonly thoughtful for a night that has never before been treated or taken all that seriously by anyone. But it was still a moment to treasure.

Aly thanked his wife, academic Susan Carland, with eloquence, generosity, warmth and sincerity, but the main thrust of his speech was the undeniable fact that a non-white person had just been voted the most popular personality on Australian television.

"Do not adjust your sets," he said. "There is nothing wrong with this picture." Of course, you only need to read the comments posted beneath any story about Aly to know not everyone in Australia agrees with that assessment. But still...

"This is happening, it's true," he continued, pointing to the watershed moment. "Finally, a male presenter on commercial TV has won the Gold Logie!"

Of course, what was really happening was that the industry was being forced to acknowledge that the world is far more colourful than you might guess from the white-bread version it has long persisted in serving up to Australian commercial television audiences.

"If tonight means anything … it's that the Australian public, our audience, as far as they're concerned, there is absolutely no reason why that can't change," said Aly.

At times, the 2016 Logie Awards were frivolous, tiresome and predictable, like they have been pretty much every year. But they were also occasionally very funny, moving and even a little bit meaningful.

Let's hope that a year from now we will look back and see that they marked the start of something, a will to change, rather than the end after a brief dalliance.

Karl Quinn is on Facebook and on twitter @karlkwin