Repeat Winners and Record Breakers:
-Modern Family wins five Comedy Series emmys in a row, tying Frasier's record for most ever. Really? What do you guys think? Is this the best comedy in the history of television? Does it deserve to win over and over and over and over again? Or is everything else just that bad? What it mostly says to me is that I was right to worry that Orange is the New Black just might not be the kind of show that appeals to the conservative voters because of its subject matter- prison, working class people, all female cast, lesbians. So I guess we can look forward to Modern Family winning this award until the end of time or until Veep can be the one to dethrone it, because with Orange's total shutout tonight, I no longer think that show can be the one to do it.
-On the other hand, Breaking Bad's total sweep delighted me, from all the acting nominees winning (yay Anna Gunn, Aaron Paul and especially Bryan Cranston!! Woo-hoo!) to the writing and series awards. What this says to me is that the people voting for drama series are actually WATCHING those tapes! They really were, that's why True Detective won for directing (the 6-minute tracking shot in the submitted episode) as well. Bryan Cranston's win was well deserved, and I wish I'd have stuck it out with my faith in that tape of his, because I knew he would win if they were really voting based on the episode itself. And with his fourth win, he ties Denniz Franz from NYPD Blue for most wins in that category, while Aaron Paul set a new record in his, winning three times for the role of Jesse Pinkman, more than anyone else. I just wish I hadn't bet on Lizzy Caplan in actress. I should have realized Julianna Margulies made the most sense as a way to honor The Good Wife after it's great run last season (at least she was my second choice though).
-Julia Louis-Dreyfus is a five time Emmy winner and Allison Janney has six. These women are beloved by the TV academy and you should never, ever bet against them. They're now chasing Cloris Leachman's record of eight wins. Same goes for Jim Parsons I guess, who also ties a record with four wins for Best Comedy Actor (tying Carroll O'Connor, Michael J. Fox and Kelsey Grammer), although, man is that category weak.
Surprises:
-Um, hello? All that crazy Sherlock love! The show had never won anything before this year and now it has 7 Emmys! Where did that come from? To me that's inexplicable. All I can think is that The Normal Heart, for all its nominations and importance, just didn't to sit very well with the TV academy. They didn't even award Julia Roberts, preferring Kathy Bates from American Horror Story, of all things, Or, maybe they had never watched Sherlock ever, before this year, for some reason. It's a mystery.
-True Detective should have clearly submitted in miniseries, and I'm betting they will whenever the show comes back next year. HBO didn't do nearly as well as they normally do, so expect some category scrambling once more as each network tries to do whatever will benefit them the best, no matter what the category fraud. And of course, the academy will do nothing about it, preferring a free for all where all shows can label themselves whatever they want. Sigh. It's a mess.
The Show:
-Ugh. I thought it was pretty bad this year. Seth Meyers was not on his game, with most of his jokes falling embarrassingly flat, but the same goes for almost every presenter's forced "banter" or skit. The exceptions were Bryan Cranston accosting Julia Louis-Dreyfus with that makeout session on the way to the stage and Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey's digs at each other at the mic. Worst was Julia Roberts' extremely annoying presenting of Best Actor in a drama (gee, can you tell who she wanted to win?) and Weird Al's god awful rendition of fake lyrics for TV theme songs. So cringeworthy I had to look away. So, that's my take on this year. What did you guys think?
