Well, the People’s Choice Awards recreated that piece of bait and switch Wednesday night. They pulled out all the stops to announce the winners, from Batman: The Dark Knight for five awards to any CBS show that won its category. In an attempt to prove that it’s cutting-edge, they had two web categories: internet sensation and most popular user-generated video. They could range from home video to Paris Hilton actually talking more intelligently than Chris Matthews…with some help. In this case, the winners were a clip from Ellen DeGeneres’s talk show where she dances with Barack Obama, and…

Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog!! At last, Joss Whedon and his siblings have created something loved by the people! By an honest-to-goodness mainstream! Certified by a scientific poll!

Then…a cruel twist right out of the Evil League of Evil TV Network: the awards show never mentioned the results of the two web awards–at all. Maybe they forgot in all the excitement of giving Dark Knight five awards at once. Still, if you have two web awards, you should mention them, even if it’s before a commercial. Otherwise, why have them?

I was worried they’d never give the results but they added the results a couple of minutes after the show ended. Again, they must have forgot.

After all, this is internet programming. Such webisodes will never take over real television, so why make them as important? That must have been the attitude of the PCA organizers. They’ll recognize that video podcasts, web comedies or homemade videos exist, but they wouldn’t go as far as give them an award and national airtime for a salute.

So, somewhere, Dr. Horrible enjoys his victory, but has a difficult time proving that it exists…or matters.

At least, not yet.