Cleveland — If Fox News was trying to kick ’em while they’re down, they succeeded.

The network’s 5 p.m. debate, to which the seven Republican presidential candidates who did not qualify for the evening’s primetime debate were relegated, was joyless, sparkless, and, well, a little depressing. There was no audience, and the anchors, Bill Hemmer and Martha MacCallum, looked odd with rows of empty seats over their shoulders. If Fox was trying make the debate any more difficult for these candidates, that certainly did it.

A friend who’s a longtime television producer e-mailed me, “Too much George Pataki!”

Out of the gate, the candidates were hit with unremittingly hostile questions. Pataki (governor of New York from 1995 to 2006) and former Virginia governor Jim Gilmore were asked whether “it’s time for new blood.” Former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, who was the runner-up in 2012, was asked, “Has your moment passed, Senator?”

So it was hard to blame the candidates for looking less than thrilled to be on stage.

Carly Fiorina, who has proven to be one of the best communicators in the race, was perhaps the only one to land a punch. “I didn’t get a phone call from Bill Clinton before I jumped in the race,” she said, referring to a recent Washington Post report that Donald Trump spoke with the former president before he launched his campaign. “Did any of you? Maybe it’s because I hadn’t given money to his foundation or donated to his wife’s Senate campaign,” she said.

Had there been a crowd, it would’ve gone wild.