The major categories are this coming Sunday, but the Creative Emmys (all the various crafts & technical branches) were awarded over the weekend.
Game of Thrones took 8: Makeup, Production Design, Editing, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, Casting, Visual Effects, Stunt Coordination. This puts its total Emmy tally at 22, though only one is in a major category (Peter Dinklage’s Supporting Actor in 2011).
The next biggest hauls were by American Horror Story: Freak Show with 5 and Best TV Movie winner Bessie with 4.
Other highlights:
Drunk History wins Best Costumes, Variety Program or Special
“Girl You Don’t Need Makeup” from Inside Amy Schumer wins Best Song Brooklyn Nine-Nine wins Stunt Coordination (Comedy)
Hank Azaria wins his 4th Voice-Over Performance for The Simpsons
The Oscar-winner Citizenfour wins “Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking”
The Scientology expose Going Clear wins 3 awards: For Non-Fiction Special as well as Directing and Writing Deadliest Catch and Shark Tank win Best Reality Programs (unstructured and structured, respectively)
Jane Lynch wins Outstanding Reality Show Host (for Hollywood Game Night)
Also, the Guest Acting winners:
Actor, Drama: Reg E. Cathey, House of Cards
Actress, Drama: Margo Martindale, The Americans
Actor, Comedy: Bradley Whitford, Transparent
Actress, Comedy: Joan Cusack, Shameless
I am so thrilled about Going Clear’s 3 important wins! It’s been fun to share the excitement on Twitter with a lot of the people who were featured in the film and many who were filmed but had to be left out for time. Going Clear is in an unusual position in that it’s also eligible for an Oscar nomination for Best Feature Documentary, but those nominations won’t be announced until January. Going Clear will be (re)released in theaters in the US in a couple of weeks, and will soon be on DVD and VOD. It’s also going to be on Sky in the UK. All just in time for awards season!
Bumping after last night’s results. Quite a few notable records.
Game of Thrones seals its 8 creative Emmys with 4 majors last night, the most ever won in a single year for any series.
GoT also ties The West Wing & Hill Street Blues with most Emmys ever for a Drama series, with 26.
Allison Janney ties Mary Tyler Moore and Ed Asner with 7 acting Emmys. Only Cloris Leachman has more, with 8.
Julia-Louis Dreyfus wins her 6th, putting her close behind. Her 5 for lead actress in a Comedy ties her with Mary Tyler Moore and Candice Bergen for the most ever.
Viola Davis is the first African-American to ever win Best Actress is a Drama series.
Uzo Aduba is the first actress to win both a comedy and drama Emmy for playing the same role (Orange is the New Black shifted categories from last year to this).
Jeffrey Tambor, at 71, is the oldest winner for Best Actor in a Comedy series.
The Daily Show wins 3 last night, putting its total under Jon Stewart at 23.
108 awards in all. For just one of seven separate award competitions each year under the name “Emmy.”
I realize “television” is broad and diverse and can’t be fairly crammed into a dozen awards, but the Emmys have always reminded me of advertising awards: submit your own work, with fees, and leave room in your suitcase for the awards. Some categories are so narrowly drawn that there’s hardly any real competition.
We are truly living in a golden age of television. A fair number of the years that Jon Hamm lost, he lost to Bryan Cranston. (We’ll just ignore the year he lost to Jeff Daniels in “The Smug Show”.)
Does anyone actually watch How to Get Away With Murder? I’ve heard nothing but mediocre things about it. Is Viola Davis really exceptionally good in it? Good enough to beat the truly stunning performance by Tatiana Maslany in Orphan Black?
RE Olive Kitteridge, that’s exactly what I kept saying as I watched them receive win after win. I assumed (correctly it seems) that it’s an HBO thing. I’m sure it deserves everything it won, but having never heard of it much less seen it, I felt a bit left out. Also, Frances McDormand is such a great actress but seems like a very eccentric and not entirely pleasant person.
Mom is *okayyyyy.*Ana Faris kind of bugs me (dear lord how I hate her hair) and Janney’s character is kind of funny but I don’t see anything about the show that merits an award. Janney’s dress was outstanding though.
Taraji Henson and Terence Howard were just freakin’ awkward. It was here that I read about his alleged bat shit insanity - I’d always equated him with the mild mannered character he plays in *Crash *- anyone know if the cray was showing or if they were just riffing on their characters on the show? Either way, I got this weird, scary vibe.
My Sweet Baby Jon Hamm finally getting his award was worth staying up late for. Holy cow is that an attractive man. Not necessarily in today’s muscled or pretty boy way, but an old school “man’s man”.
My wife watches it–which means I watch it occasionally whether I want to or not. Plotwise, it’s utterly ridiculous. But Viola Davis really is remarkably good.
I dunno, I think that The Wire is a reference point of a show that just wasn’t appreciated in its day and gained more relevance as time passed. The difference with Mad Men is that it was appreciated in its day and racked up tons and tons of Emmy nominations (and won Best Drama a few times) - for it to have only won 1 acting award is a bit crazy.
To echo, WOOKINPANUB, it really did seem like it was an HBO thing. It just swept things because they liked the network’s shows and decided to reward everyone. I’m sure Olive Kitteridge was good, but was it really that good that it deserved like all of the acting awards in its categories? And if so, why wasn’t it talked about as much as, say, Wolf Hall? And I’m a fan of Game of Thrones, but in terms of Writing - the two Mad Men episodes wiped the floor with the Game of Thrones’ ep.
Anyone thing maybe the Emmy people bent a little too far in response to “not enough women represented in awards”? Olive Kittridge seems to have been made mostly by women. Older women, even. And from what I could tell the first woman who won (in the red dress) is a lesbian. The Emmys can now be all “LOOK AT ALL THE WOMEN! YAY!”
I definitely got much more of a “cause” vibe than usual. I’m not taking a swipe at anybody, just saying there seemed to be a bit more vocalization on behalf of our friends in the black female and transgender demographic.
The only two people I remember mentioning transgender rights were the two winners from the series Transparent, which is about a family where the father is transgender. As for black women, you have to remember that the Emmys are over 60 years old, and up until now, no black woman had ever won for Lead Actress in a Drama Series, in part because, as was pointed out, there were very black women in leading roles in drama series until relatively recently.
I just saw on the news that the Emmy had the worst rating in history , people aren’t really interested in this that much anymore . I forget was on Sunday , I think a lot people can’t afford to have cable TV and have no idea who is winning the Emmy. I got rid of cable b/c I was wasting money paying for crap I never watch.
I’m sure you’re right; I guess it just seemed more so than in recent years. No big whoop; I stand behind both of those issues. I guess I’d prefer the winner to stick to expressing their brief thanks and moving on. But, it is there moment so I can’t be mad at anyone.
I thought the broadcast was very good. I wasn’t expecting much from Samburg (Sanburg? Sandburg? I should know. I adore Brooklyn 99), but he was pleasant and funny. I wasn’t happy with several of the winners and had a few caps lock rants here and there. But I don’t think Olive Kitteridge was A Statement. It was a very good series, tremendously acted. Plus it was a true, traditional mini series, not this American Horror Story category picking thing.
It wasn’t the best mini series I’ve ever seen and I probably won’t ever watch it a second time, but I did think it deserved all its awards. Same with Going Clear. I can’t stand Veep and I love Modern Family, but I am glad something else won.
I’m torn about Viola. On the one hand, she was the only thing good about that mess of a show. She was mesmerizing. Tatiana, however, was so much MORE. She’s in nearly every scene of every episode, whereas Viola could be in the supporting category very easily. What Tatiana does is stunning and I hate that she didn’t win, however I am glad I didn’t have to do another caps lock rant about her getting snubbed. I’m not upset Viola won. I’m just not sure she was better than Tatiana. In some ways, in some ways not.
I think the In Memoriam was done very well. I loved seeing Mel Brooks. And while my feelings for Tracy Morgan (and I always want to say Jordan…) are complicated, I did tear up at his appearance. I might not like all the things he says and does, but he doesn’t need to die for offending me. Seeing his 30 Rock castmates nearly sobbing just got me even harder.
Jon Hamm was way overdue and that was nice. I think MM should have won best drama. Well, I won’t go into that… caps lock rage building…
Plotwise, it’s utterly ridiculous. But Viola Davis really is remarkably good.