A Look At This Year's Emmy Awards

For the most part, the 62nd Annual Primetime Emmys were exactly what you'd expect from a long-running awards show: AMC and HBO's flagship series swept the event, Jimmy Fallon told some jokes. About 13.5 million Americans watched the telecast, which was telecast live on both coasts simultaneously for the first time since 1976.

Unlike other awards shows, like perhaps the Oscars, where the same people regularly win for similar roles in many films, the Emmys almost certainly suffer from the fact that year after year, so long as a show stays good, it keeps up its nominations and wins. HBO's content perhaps deviates from this formula slightly, given their tendency to produce more miniseries and made-for-TV movies than just about anyone else, but they produce the Emmy equivalent of Oscar-bait almost unavoidably, and it works. The network won Outstanding Miniseries for The Pacific (competing only with PBS's Return to Cranford, an adaptation of Elizabeth Gaskell's spinster stories), Outstanding Made for Television Movie for Temple Grandin, a category in which HBO had 3/5 of the nominees with that film, The Special Relationship and You Don't Know Jack. Though they didn't win Outstanding Variety, Music or Comedy Special, four of the six nominees were HBO specials. The same sort of dominance showed up in the Outstanding Lead Actor and Actress in a Miniseries or Movie categories, where Al Pacino and Claire Danes won for You Don't Know Jack and Temple Grandin, respectively, nominated against 5 other HBO films' actors.

For its very good third season, Mad Men received many nominations and few wins, but it kept Outstanding Drama Series and won Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series for the third year in a row, where it was competing against itself. Virtually its entire cast received nominations for their roles: Jon Hamm, January Jones, John Slattery, Christina Hendricks, Elisabeth Moss, and Robert Morse.

NBC's comedies, both rising and in decline, went widely uncelebrated compared to past performances. The Office received a nomination for Outstanding Comedy Series, as did 30 Rock, though neither won, marking 30 Rock's first loss in this category (much of both series' principal casts received nominations in their respective categories). Surprisingly, only Amy Poehler received a nomination for Parks and Recreation's vastly improved second season, and even that it didn't win. Provided that it continues to get better -- it's shaken much of the criticisms leveled against it -- perhaps this will change in the years to come. NBC's former drama -- and by this I mean Friday Night Lights -- received nominations for Outstanding Lead Actor and Actress, as well as Outstanding     Writing, but won nothing.

If anything marks a breakout, then, it's the emergence of pop culture phenomenon Glee, which received 19 nominations, three of which it won, and ABC comedy Modern Family, which received almost 10. Glee took home awards for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series and Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series and Modern Family received awards for Outstanding Comedy Series (over Glee, NBC's comedies, Nurse Jackie and Curb Your Enthusiasm), Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series (where it was nominated three times), and Outstanding Writing in a Comedy Series.

Shut out most egregiously was Party Down, which was canceled following low ratings and Adam Scott's departure for a major role in Parks and Recreation's upcoming third season. As one of the better comedies on television, it merited at least consideration for Scott and Ken Marino, if not Jane Lynch, who moved on to the much more successful Glee after the show's first season (and won Outstanding Supporting Actress for her performance).
All in all, it was another under-watched, largely uninteresting awards show with fairly predictable results. If you missed this one, there'll conveniently be another next year.


Andrew Hall is a guest blogger for My Dog Ate My Blog and a writer on online schools for Guide to Online Schools.