The biggest night in TV is here, the 2011 Emmy Awards! Will Modern Family and Mad Men win the top awards once again, or will newcomers like Boardwalk Empire and Parks and Recreation dethrone them? And how will Jane Lynch serve as host?
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I’ll be here all night with my thoughts on the ceremony, the awards and everything else Emmy-related. On with the show!
Opening: Jane Lynch sings a little song while wandering through TV land. There are some cute moments. Nick Offerman shows up for about 15 seconds as Ron Swanson from Parks and Recreation and proves why he should’ve been nominated. And a bit at Sterling-Cooper-Draper-Price from Mad Men is quite great, especially Jane flirting with Peggy. However, I’m kind of over the whole “opening song” thing that every single awards show does.
The Emmytones: A group of actors were gathered to sing little intros for the main categories. I’m already bored of them after one minute, so I’m writing it off as an awful idea.
SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A COMEDY: The winner is…Julie Bowen for Modern Family. AWESOME! She plays the straight woman but absolutely deserves this recognition. This could not have gotten off to a better start.
SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A COMEDY: The winner is…Ty Burrell for Modern Family. YAY! He deserved it last season, and I’m so happy the Emmys are spreading the love and have now given awards to half the adult cast (Eric Stonestreet won last season). Now there are only three more to go. But for now, good for Phil and Claire! Burrell also gives an awesomely sweet speech about his deceased father, talking about how his dad would be proud, but also weirded out that his son wears makeup for his job.
DIRECTING FOR A COMEDY: The winner is…Modern Family. Wow, three in a row! The show had three nominations, and the winner is Michael Alan Spiller for the Halloween episode.
WRITING FOR A COMEDY: The winner is…Modern Family. Sweet Jesus, four wins? Can we skip to the end where the show wins Outstanding Comedy Series again already? They won for the episode where Phil and Claire’s kids walked in on them having sex. Steven Levitan talks a lot about how that actually happened to him, and it’s complete with a ton of cutaway eyerolls from his wife.
LEAD ACTOR IN A COMEDY: The winner is…Jim Parsons for The Big Bang Theory. First, presenter Charlie Sheen gets serious and wishes nothing but the best for Two and a Half Men in the future. Good for him. As for Parsons, I’m a bit surprised he got a second win, especially since Carell never won, and now he never will. Still, Parsons is good and deserves it.
LEAD ACTRESS IN A COMEDY: The winner is…Melissa McCarthy for Mike and Molly. Ha, all the nominees came up on stage after their nominations were announced. That’s pretty darn funny and amazing and they all got a standing ovation before the winner was even announced.. As for the win, holy crap. No one saw that coming, and I didn’t even see her getting nominated. This is a huge shock, but kind of awesome because she’s amazingly sweet and cries and is truly amazed. It’s also strange that both winners for the top two acting categories come from Chuck Lorre shows. Fun fact: The last 11 winners in this category have been 11 different women from different shows.
The New Office: Finally we get a hilarious video of The Office with a ton of new characters, like Tom from Parks and Recreation, Roger Sterling from Mad Men, Jesse from Breaking Bad (dropping off meth for Creed), Benson from Law and Order: SVU, Richard Castle from Castle, Cee Lo from The Voice,Khal Drogo from Game of Thrones and Ashton Kutcher as the new boss, among others. Hilarious and I loved every single moment of it. Definitely one of the highlights from the awards.
OUTSTANDING REALITY COMPETITION: The winner is…The Amazing Race. I knew last year as a fluke. The show won this award for the first seven years existed, but Top Chef surprisingly won last year. But now TAR is 8 for 9.
WRITING FOR A VARIETY SERIES: The winner is…The Daily Show. It’s the seventh time the show has won in the last 11 years.
The Lonely Island: The guys from the Saturday Night Live Digital Shorts perform a medley of their Emmy-nominated songs, complete with Michael Bolton singing about Captain Jack Sparrow. Then Ed Helms, Maa Rudolph and John Stamos sing “3-Way” originally with Lady Gaga and Justin Timberlake and Akon sings “I Just Had Sex.” It’s pretty funny, except for the fact that all three of these songs lost to Timberlake’s monologue song.
DIRECTING FOR A VARIETY SERIES: Th winner is…Saturday Night Live. The show also won last year.
OUTSTANDING VARIETY SERIES: The winner is…The Daily Show. It wins for the ninth straight year. Jon Stewart is appropriately humble.
WRITING FOR A DRAMA: The winner is…Friday Night Lights. WOOHOO! FNL wins for the brilliant series finale. Surprisingly it’s only the second Emmy win for the show, after Casting for the first season.
SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A DRAMA: The winner is…Margo Martindale for Justified. YAY AGAIN! Wow, these awards are all pretty darn great so far and she’s got a great speech about the “kick-ass-est cast on television.”
DIRECTING FOR A DRAMA: The winner is…Boardwalk Empire. Martin Scorsese wins for directing the pilot. Not much of a surprise since he’s a big-time, Oscar-winning director. This brings the show up to eight wins so far for its first season.
SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A DRAMA: The winner is…Peter Dinklage for Game of Thrones. Another amazing win! Tyrion Lannister reigns supreme. This could be the best Emmys ever, given the sheer awesomeness of all the winners.
The Jersey Revolution: We get a quick “comedy” video about the Jersey explosion on TV, complete with the cast of Jersey Shore. Yawn. Anything with The Situation in it can’t be good.
LEAD ACTRESS IN A DRAMA: The winner is…Julianna Margules for The Good Wife. She absolutely deserves it, but there were a lot of talented women in this category.
LEAD ACTOR IN A DRAMA: The winner is…Kyle Chandler for Friday Night Lights. Wow, I did not see that coming and neither did he. There were a ton of great nominees (Jon Hamm, Hugh Laurie, Michael C. Hall. Steve Buscemi and Timothy Olyphant), but seeing Coach Taylor win is definitely amazing. Seriously: Best. Emmys. Ever.
WRITING FOR A MINISERIES OR TV MOVIE: The winner is…Downton Abbey. I’m not going to pretend to know what this is other than some fancy British period piece that I have no interest in ever watching.
SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A MINISERIES OR TV MOVIE: The winner is…Maggie Smith for Downton Abbey.
LEAD ACTOR A MINISERIES OR TV MOVIE: The winner is…Barry Pepper for The Kennedys. Good for him, he was actually the best part of that miniseries.
DIRECTING FOR A MINISERIES OR TV MOVIE: The winner is…Downton Abbey. I guess that miniseries was really good. I still won’t watch it. Ever.
SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A MINISERIES OR TV MOVIE: The winner is…Guy Pearce for Mildred Pierce. He’s kind of cute in his speech, talking about getting to have sex with Kate Winsle a lot.
LEAD ACTRESS IN A MINISERIES OR TV MOVIE: The winner is…Kate Winslet for Mildred Pierce. The best part was Hugh Laurie and Claire Danes’ intro about how Helen Mirren has won this award four times in the past. They don’t mention that she was also nominated five other times. She’s in the upcoming HBO Phil Spector biopic (she replaced Bette Midler), so I fully expect her to win for that in the future.
OUTSTANDING MINISERIES OR TV MOVIE: The winner is…Downton Abbey. Suck it, HBO. Mildred Pierce was supposed to dominate, but Downton Abbey won six awards while Pierce only got five (and the critically-reviled The Kennedys got four).
OUTSTANDING DRAMA SERIES: The winner is…Mad Men. Well, that makes four wins in a row, just like The West Wing when it started. However, this year Mad Men had more nominations than it ever did before (19) but only won two (the lowest number of wins its ever had). Still, 15 wins over four seasons, including all four Drama Series wins is impressive.
OUTSTANDING COMEDY SERIES: The winner is…Modern Family. So after a great series of new winners for almost all of the acting categories (Parsons was the only repeat winner), the night ends with the same drama and comedy winning as last year. Kudos to Modern Family, however, which had six wins last year and five this year.
Overall, I kind of loved these Emmys. The final winners were a bit dull and expected, but there were a ton of amazing winners. Friday Night Lights won two huge awards for its final season. All four supporting performers were absolutely amazing and deserving winners and, even though it was one-sided, Modern Family truly is a great show that deserves to win as many awards as it did. And with 11 wins in two seasons, it just might challenge Frasier‘s all-time record of 37 wins during its entire run. And most impressively, the show ended on time.
(Image courtesy of FOX)
Senior Writer, BuddyTV
John watches nearly every show on TV, but he specializes in sci-fi/fantasy like The Vampire Diaries, Supernatural and True Blood. However, he can also be found writing about everything from Survivor and Glee to One Tree Hill and Smallville.
