In order to fit the show into three hours (which, among other things, lets the networks air the ceremony live in the west, then repeat it at 8 PM Pacific for people who don’t want to watch the Emmys at 5 PM), three of the six variety awards are given out in the Creative Arts ceremony. I think there’s some “agreement” between the variety show producers and the Academy that they alternate the three given out on the main telecast.
Variety Series, Variety Special Writing, and Variety Special Directing were on the main telecast this year (although the captions for the two Variety Special winners said “Variety Series”); Variety Special, Variety Series Writing, and Variety Series Directing were in the Creative Arts ceremony. Last year, they were switched; next year, presumably they will be switched again, unless somebody decides to move them all to the Creative Arts ceremony and move the four Guest Actor/Actress categories to the main ceremony because “people want to see people that they know win awards”. (There is always talk of moving some of the categories - the four directing awards (comedy series, variety series, miniseries/movie, variety) usually get mentioned - to the Creative Arts ceremony in order to make room for the Guest Acting categories.)
Sorry to see Bryan Cranston not pick up another win. His best scene to date was in the season that was nominated this year…
His complete breakdown in the crawlspace
Glad to see Aaron Paul pick up an Emmy, but Giancarlo Esposito really did the superior work, and it’s not like Once Upon a Time or Revolution is going to gain him another nom any time soon. But, what a field for Best Supporting Actor this year, every one of the nominees turned in some fantastic performances.
Would’ve liked to see Sherlock pick up something. Those who have seen Game Change, is it as good as it’s near-sweep of the Miniseries/Movies categories would indicate? I wonder if Tom Hanks’ name picked up a lot of voter support that it wouldn’t have had otherwise.
One thing about Game Change is that it was a movie or miniseries. Luther, Sherlock, and American Horror Story (as good as certain ones of those are) conceptually don’t belong in the category, even if technically you can squint at the rules and kind of squeeze them into it.
I would not be surprised if there were not some backlash against the rules gaming going on there.
Funniest moment: Julia Julia Louis-Dreyfus reading Amy Poehler’s speech.
Game Change was okay (but miles better than the awfulness known as Hemingway and Gellhorn). An entertaining but not exactly revelatory look at one aspect of the 2008 election. Julianne Moore and Woody Harrelson were good, but I thought Ed Harris was kind of terrible. So glad he didn’t win. I really don’t think Hanks’s name put it over the top. It’s a reasonably well-made movie that touches on Important Topics and more or less slams Sarah Palin. That’s good enough for most voters.
It’s not nearly as good as Sherlock, and while amarinth has a point about gaming the system, I don’t think Sherlock is nearly as egregious as American Horror Story in that respect. Sherlock can’t compete in the drama category because it doesn’t have enough episodes; six episodes is the minimum. So what they do is submit a single episode as a TV movie. Is is a perfect solution? Maybe not, but the Emmys wouldn’t otherwise have a place for the show, and I’d hate to see it ruled completely ineligible just because it’s a format that’s virtually unseen in the American TV business.
American Horror Story, though, has absolutely no excuse for submitting in the miniseries category. The “anthology” reasoning is total bullshit. I hope the Academy rejects the classification next year and makes them move up to the drama category the same way that Downton Abbey had to.
I can live with Bryan Cranston losing, since he’s already gotten recognition for his stupendous acting on “Breaking Bad”. But I swear, Vince Gilligan and the show as a whole better get some best drama love next year!!!
so happy for Aaron Paul, though I would have been happy for Giancarlo Esposito too.
Hate 2 1/2 men. hate Jon Cryer’s role. sad he got rewarded for a good performance in an utterly horrid piece of crap.
I’ve never seen what was so special about Modern Family, & it’s pretty boring to see the same winners again.
I did enjoy John Stewart getting bleeped as he said basically the same thing upon winning YET AGAIN. I laughed at his comment about how they’ll get a free sandwich after ten, too.
I gotta say, I agree it was egregious but I gotta give respect for what they did with American Horror Story. They didn’t have a chance of even getting nominated as a drama, and they managed to pull quite a few noms by switching to miniseries.
I’m sure there’s evidence out there to contradict me, but I swear I never saw anything about AHS being an anthology until they were like two episodes from the end of their season. I like to imagine that it’s a last minute, hail-mary format change that just occurred to someone in the writer’s room in a flash of inspiration. Saved their show, probably, and earned them a bunch of Emmy noms, not bad.
But I agree that, excepting shows like Sherlock that just don’t qualify unless they’re shoehorned into Mini-Series/Movie, the criteria needs to be seriously reconsidered. I do wonder, though, if they purposely keep it loose to have a decent field of contenders. Not a ton of miniseries getting made anymore.
Regardless of whatever rules there are, Sherlock deserved to win something due to the fact that it is just about the best thing that has been put on TV ever. Top to bottom best thing on TV.
I’ve read that the plan was always to make each season a self-contained miniseries, but nothing was said publicly until after the last episode aired. Although what’s his name, the creator, made a ton of jokes before it premiered about how he really wanted to kill everybody and make the bloodiest show ever.
To each is own and all, but I think that season 2 of Sherlock, at least, was wildly inconsistent. It has some really brilliant moments, but I don’t think it’s nearly as good, episode-in and episode-out, as, say, Breaking Bad or Homeland.
Anyhow, I think Breaking Bad was better than Homeland this season, but they were both damn good, so I’m happy to see either get awards.
This is the first year in forever that I’ve watched the Emmys. Is the disparity between what gets the applause and what actually wins always this bad? There was a lot of love for the British series when the clips showed, but Downton Abbey only took away one award (in the main show, where there was an audience for me to watch, anyway), and Sherlock got nothing. I’m glad to hear that Homeland really is good enough to deserve the award, but I honestly have no idea about anything else.
Sherlock got snubbed especially hard. Neither of the leads wound up in any of the widely-available photostreams (some of the ladies from Downton did have dresses showcased). I expected there to be more fuss, and not even for Sherlock itself. The fellow doing interviews for ABC asked Stephen Colbert about The Hobbit, but apparently couldn’t be bothered to turn around and locate either of the people who were actually in the movie – who were probably all of twenty feet away – to ask the same thing. It’s like someone nominated them for absolutely everything they’d be qualified for, and then forgot they’d be there.
The variety show crew were fantastic, though – I loved the dogpile in the aisle. I was unsurprised at Jon Stewart’s victory speech. Every time they give that award there’s probably someone sweating bullets and sitting on the mute button up in the control room.