One World: Together at Home

“Together at Home,” by design or happenstance, settled on a pretty solid [tone]. It was positive but not overeager to perk us up, and earnest without ladling on schmaltz. ... There are those of us who dread hearing certain inspirational chestnuts revived in these settings. But when Stevie Wonder is the one reviving Bill Withers’ “Lean on Me,” well, there’s nothing to dread. ... [Taylor Swift] emerged as sober truth-teller at nearly the last minute, appearing alone, mirrored by her piano top, to perform a song she may be unlikely to sing under any other circumstance outside the studio, “Soon You’ll Get Better.”

The main show lost a little in being more polished and produced, but made up for it in the delicious voyeurism on offer of peeking into megastar mansions.

An eight-hour rag bag of brilliance, boredom and buffoonery it may have been musically, but its triumph was in the connections and creativity still possible in the most dislocated of times, of technology and humanity combining to overcome.