The Internet has for the past few weeks been aflutter with journalists and bloggers analyzing this year's Emmy Awards race and taking turns to predict the winners. Those prognosticators learned on Sunday night whether or not their predictions were true when the 62nd Annual Primetime Emmy Awards were broadcast on NBC.
While there are always bound to be some surprise victories, the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences is notorious for overlooking new series and letting inertia take over in honoring the same series, actors and other television players year after year. This ceremony still had its share of predictable repeat winners, but the Academy did seem to find more room for first-timers in several major categories, notably in the Outstanding Comedy match-ups, where the main competition boiled down to "Modern Family" versus "Glee," both freshman comedies produced by 20th Century Fox Television.
The two series kicked off the evening by splitting the first four awards. Despite critics' speculation that the three nominated "Modern Family" supporting actors would split the vote, Eric Stonestreet deservedly won the award for his portrayal of Cameron Tucker, while a (happily) teary Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Stonestreet's on-screen partner and fellow nominee, watched from the audience.
After another "Modern Family" win for writing, Jane Lynch won the best supporting comedy actress Emmy for her breakthrough role as Sue Sylvester on "Glee" — one of the few truly funny and consistent parts of the show — and creator Ryan Murphy won for his direction of the show's pilot episode.
In the end, "Modern Family" came out on top with a total of six awards, including Outstanding Comedy Series, ending "30 Rock's" three-year reign. Inexplicably, the category's nominees did not include even better comedies like "Parks and Recreation," "Community" and "Party Down," but "Modern Family's" win showed a dedication to smart comedy over "Glee's" hype and place in the zeitgeist.
Other notable comedy awards went to Jim Parsons as the lead actor on "The Big Bang Theory" and to the titular character on not-really-a-comedy "Nurse Jackie," portrayed by Edie Falco, who noted in her acceptance speech, "I am not funny!"
While the comedy awards went largely to network series and stars, over on the drama side, cable continued to show its dominance. Archie Panjabi pulled out a surprise supporting actress win for CBS' "The Good Wife," but lead and supporting actor went to Bryan Cranston — his third consecutive win — and Aaron Paul, respectively, both coming off an incredible season of "Breaking Bad." "The Closer's" Kyra Sedgwick took home her first lead actress statuette after four previous nominations, beating out front-runner Julianna Margulies and the perennially snubbed Connie Britton.
AMC's "Mad Men" walked away with its third Outstanding Drama Series award, continuing the trend of cable network's two key series splitting the acting and writing in a drama series awards. With "Breaking Bad" out of contention next year due to eligibility rules, one hopes that "Mad Men" can add another acting award to its haul as well.
A big shock came when "Top Chef" unseated seven-time winner "The Amazing Race" to win Outstanding Reality-Competition Program, though the Academy understandably displayed its complacency in awarding Outstanding Variety, Music or Comedy Series to "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" for a record eighth year in a row, saving NBC the embarrassment of having Conan O'Brien win for his short-lived version of "The Tonight Show."
With most of the awards for comedy and drama categories taking place in the first half of the show, the second half focused on miniseries and TV movies. The Emmy producers probably made a mistake in their arrangement of the broadcast, as home viewers are much less likely to have seen pay cable original movies, but HBO was undoubtedly happy as it swept all eight categories. Their "Temple Grandin" (2010) proved to be the big winner, garnering awards for best TV movie, supporting actor and actress and for Claire Danes as lead actress. The real-life Temple Grandin also stole the show with her enthusiastic appearances on stage and in the audience.
Finally, the biggest surprise of the night was that the telecast itself was actually an entertaining three hours, led by host Jimmy Fallon. The opening bit, a Glee-inspired musical number set to Bruce Springsteen's "Born to Run" (1975) that featured stars ranging from Tina Fey and Jon Hamm to Kate Gosselin, set a fun, energetic tone for the night, which was sustained for the most part. Fallon's Twitter jokes fell flat but a taped segment with the "Modern Family" cast and Ricky Gervais's presenter's speech both killed.
It wasn't a revolutionary night of television and the Emmys continue to be constrained by its voting system (Katey Sagal should have won, but was not even nominated, for her stellar work on "Sons of Anarchy"), but overall, it was an enjoyable evening that honored some very deserving folks working in the television industry.
