It’s a day late, but here are my reactions to Sunday’s Emmys telecast:
The Good
-After four eligible seasons going through the Emmy process and coming home without the big one (and it definitely deserved it for its spectacular fourth season), Breaking Bad finally won Outstanding Drama Series. Even more exciting, though, is that Vince Gilligan (one of the most interesting writers on television) and Michelle MacLaren (the best director on television) are now Emmy winners.
-Anna Gunn won! Now I may not agree with the pro-Skylar contingent (I just think Skylar at many times is a character that the writers change just so she fits in with the current plot unlike with the rest of the characters who actually cause the plot to change around them), but Anna Gunn had an impressive season (at times outdueling even Bryan Cranston such as in the tape she submitted, “Fifty-One”)
-Abi Morgan’s win for Outstanding Writing for a Miniseries or TV Movie for her work on The Hour was easily the biggest surprise of the night. The Hour was easily one of the most underrated dramas when it was on the air, but it was cancelled and seemed it would go quietly off the screen. Yet it picked up one more Emmy nomination than it did for its first season and then followed that extra nomination with this win.
-I was really hoping that 30 Rock would take home Outstanding Comedy Series. That didn’t happen, but it was nice to see co-creator and star Tina Fey get a consolation prize for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series. “Last Lunch” may not have been her best work of the season (I prefer the much more meta ‘”Stride of Pride”), but it was undeniable that Fey deserved this one.
The Bad
-I was extremely happy that Breaking Bad won Outstanding Drama Series. In fact, I was rooting for it to do so. However, if I personally submitted a ballot for Outstanding Drama Series, I would have put Game of Thrones as #1. It had the best season of last year’s television season. Do you know how many major Emmy awards it came home with? Zero. That’s right one of the first seasons of television to prove that it could go toe to toe (both in scale and in quality) with any movie came home with nothing to show for it.
-Modern Family won yet again. In its first season and a half, Modern Family was a refreshing update of the mockumentary comedy genre. Then something changed. It seemed like everyone from the writing staff to the guest stars went on autopilot. Yet it still wins a ton of Emmys. It’s time for Emmy voters to stop pretending it’s still 2010 and realize that this is a show that is long past its prime.
The Ugly
-The Emmys telecast was awful. It was probably the worst Emmys telecast I have ever witnessed. It would probably be easy to blame the usually reliable Neil Patrick Harris due to his disappointing performance as host, but this telecast had problems all the way down to its core. From the very beginning this seemed like a wake with random bits (Elton John’s Liberace-inspired performance, the choreography bit) placed in to not allow it to become to bleak. This telecast completely forgot that it was honoring television to the point that there were very few clip packages at all (and somehow the drama categories got completely exempted from the few clip packages that were allowed on the air).
-Just like the Creative Arts Emmys, I had a terrible time with my predictions. I ended up going 12/26 (46.2%).
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