This year’s Emmy awards, the 67th annual, was different from previous telecasts for two reasons: it came a month earlier, and on a Monday, the first time since 1976, to avoid conflict with Sunday Night Football-because the two apparently share the same audience- and because this would be the last time Breaking Bad would appear on the list of nominees.
The show honoring the people behind making television shows so entertaining and binge-watching those same television shows on Netflix possible was hosted by Late Night’s Seth Meyers. The ex-SNL writer and Weekend Update host had an opening monologue that touched on the genre-swapping submissions made by some shows such as “Orange is The New Black” being submitted as a comedy along with Showtime’s “Shameless” and HBO’s “True Detective” being submitted as a Drama instead of a mini-series.
The show that held the most nominations was Game of Thrones, with 19, and FX’s Fargo coming in second with 18. The network with the most nominations went to HBO with 99, which lead Meyers to comment on how the premium channel was like the kid in school who ended up doing way better than expected.
In the comedy category, Modern Family’s Ty Burrell came through for the already award heavy show by pulling the honor of Outstanding Supporting Actor in a comedy, beating out Ricky Gervais who later went on stage to present the award for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Special- which went to Sarah Silverman for her special Sarah Silverman: We Are Miracles- and took the opportunity to jokingly complain about being nominated 21 times and losing 19 times and “Modern Family” already having enough awards.
Louie C.K. took home the award for Outstanding Comedy Writing, his sixth Emmy win, for the episode “So did the fat lady” on his self-titled show Louie. Jimmy Kimmel then took the stage to present the award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy series but spent his time on stage making fun of Matthew McConaughey for just winning an Oscar five months ago and now coming to collect an Emmy, being sick of hearing his acceptance speeches, and the fact that he’s a movie star and shouldn’t even be at the television awards- then claiming that McConaughey doesn’t even have a television and traded his for a conch shell full of marijuana. Kimmel then gave the award he was presenting to Allison Janney from CBS’s Mom.
Walter White himself, Bryan Cranston, and Seinfeld queen, Julie Louis-Dreyfus, joined forces to present the award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy and talked about Cranston reminding the actress about someone she dated on Sienfeld- who was actually played by Cranston. They gave their award to Big Bang Theory’s Jim Parsons, who just recently closed a deal to make a million dollars per episode.
Bryan Cranston and Julia Louis-Dreyfus continued with their bit when she went to collect her award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy, her third consecutive win and fifth overall, and kissed Cranston on her way to the stage. When starting her speech, she said “yeah, he was on Seinfeld.”
FX’s “American Horror Story” picked up Supporting Actress and Lead Actress in a Miniseries, Movie or Drama Special honors for Kathy Bates and Jessica Lange, whose next season on the show will be her last.
Matthew McConaughey was further poked fun at, this time by host Seth Meyers and Amy Poehler, but with True Detective co-star Woody Harrelson joining in in the line of fire. The two comedians read sample introductions that could be used for the two movie stars including making fun of their names, their association with marijuana, and finally deciding on introducing them as the only actors in Hollywood not rumored to be starring in Season 2 of True Detective. Once onstage, Harrelson took the opportunity to use McConaughey’s line of “Alright, alright, alright” before presenting the award for Outstanding Lead Actor to Sherlock’s Benedict Cumberbatch, who wasn’t in attendance.
Cumberbatch’s co-star Martin Freeman also got an award for Supporting Actor in a Miniseries, Movie or Drame Special but wasn’t there to accept either. Fortunately, Sherlock’s co-creator and writer Steven Moffat was in attendance to accept his award for Outstanding Writing For A Miniseries, Movie, or Dramatic Special. Outstanding Miniseries, however, went to FX’s Fargo, a revamping of the 1996 movie that also picked up the Outstanding Directing honor.
The Variety special category featured a lesson on the difference between “your” and “you’re” courtesy of presenter Chris Hardwicke, who after the grammar lesson presented Outstanding Variety Special Directing to Glenn Weisz, who was directing the Emmy’s, for his work on the 67th Tony Awards. The Colbert Report won for Outstanding Variety Special, whose presenter Gwen Stefani pronounced wrong causing nominee Jimmy Fallon to come onstage. Fallon then went on to give thanks on Stephen Colbert’s behalf with Colbert whispering in his ear.
“Breaking Bad,” with this being its last year eligible to be nominated, got awards in the Drama category for Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, Lead Actor, and overall Outstanding Drama series. Bryan Cranston, who starred on the show as chemistry teacher turned meth king Walter White, added the Outstanding Lead Actor award to his other three, now tied with four-time best drama actor winner Dennis Franz from NYPD Blue. Lead Actress in the Drama category went to Good Wife’s Julianna Margulies.
Other top winning show modern family now ties “Frasier” as sitcom royalty with five awards. The comedy won for Supporting actor, Directing for Gail Mancuso- who won the same award at last years Emmy’s and is the second woman to conquer the category, and for overall Outstanding Comedy series.
As usual, the show took time to honor those who had passed in the time from the last Emmys while Sara Bareilles performed Nat King Cole’s “Smile.” Among the acknowledged lost talents were actors Paul Walker, Philip Seymour Hoffman, James Avery, Russell Johnson and Ann B. Davis. Robin Williams was honored last, by Billy Crystal, who recalled that “He made us laugh. Hard. Every time you saw him.”
Despite being held on a Monday, the most hated weekday, the Emmys managed to entertain with plenty of Matthew McConaughey roasting, Billy Eichner from Billy On The Street asking people on the street about the Emmy’s- and mentioning the snubbing of Mindy Kaling and Tatiana Maslany- and Weird Al singing theme songs for some of the nominated shows.
