The most remarkable thing we can say about the 68th Emmy Awards is that it ended on time. That being said host Jimmy Kimmel was mostly serviceable even if the overall show didn’t touch on the upcoming election as much as many thought it might and his opening monologue was a bit bland. The surprise of the night actually turned out to be the winners themselves. For categories that can be as niche and hard to predict as individual Emmy awards that was sort of amazing. And they probably owe it to one simple rule change.
Before this year the Emmy voters ranked their winners in each category. This was to provide consensus, but it also led to a number of repeat winners and potentially awarded someone who was a majority of the voters’ second or even third choice instead of their first. This year it was one vote and done. And, we’re pretty damn sure it led to a number of “upsets” that rocked this year telecast.
Now, when reviewing any award show it can sometimes be easier to find more “best” moments than the “worst.” That is frankly the case here, but some of these “worsts” carry lot more weight to the overall show itself which you’d probably grade no better than a C+ (for comparison’s sake, outside of Beyonce last month’s MTV Music Awards were an F). So, keeping that in mind…
WORST: Night of 100 ABC stars
One of the benefits of airing the Emmys is that it’s an opportunity for a network to showcase a slew of its own stars and promote whatever shows they want even if they haven’t been nominated. ABC took that to a frustrating level on Sunday night. Stars from “Blackish,” “Modern Family” (the show was in Kimmel’s opening montage with Julie Bowen presenting minutes later) and “Fresh Off the Boat” dominated the first 45 minutes of the show. It was just simply too much.
BEST: Diversity rules
Pay attention Oscar voters as your television brothers and sisters once again put you to shame. Diversity dominated a ton of the Emmy categories as “Key & Peele,” Jill Soloway, Courtney B. Vance, Sterling K. Brown, Regina King, Kate McKinnon, Sarah Paulson, Rami Malek and “Master Of None” team Alan Yang and Aziz Ansari all took home major awards. McKinnon and Paulson may have made major awards show history. Has there ever been an Emmys, Tony, Grammy or Oscar ceremony where two bi or lesbian actresses both took home awards? The best, however was when “Master of None”’s Yang used his moment to call out the lack of great Asian American films or characters and asked Asian parents to “Get your kids cameras instead of violins and we’ll be all good.” It was an important reminder that even with progress all people of color need to be represented and even the Television Academy can still make big strides with Asian and Hispanic nominees.
BEST: Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ incredible acceptance speech
In a night of emotional speeches, the most memorable may have come from “Veep” star and Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series winner Julia Louis-Dreyfus. That’s pretty incredible considering this was her fifth win in this category (and still deserved!). She’s always delivered funny acceptance speeches (co-star Tony Hale reprising his “Veep” character by telling her what to say in her ear is an all-time Emmy moment) and this win was particularly moving for Dreyfus who, unbeknownst to most in attendance, had just lost her father on Friday. She started off hilariously ripping into the current media circus by noting, “Our show started out as a political satire but it now feels like a sobering documentary.” But when she was barely about to get out “I’m so glad he liked ‘Veep’ because his opinion was the one that mattered the most” it was hard for anyone in the audience or at home not to feel the feels.
WORST: Mark Burnett doesn’t get it
Mark Burnett is a reality show god as the creator and/or producer behind shows such as “The Voice” (tonight’s Reality Competition winner), “Survivor,” “The Amazing Race” and “Shark Tank.” He’s also the man behind “The Apprentice” which means he gave Donald Trump the broadcast pulpit that brought him to national prominence. Kimmel turned slightly serious during his monologue giving Burnett crap for it, saying that if Trump was elected he’d be the first one thrown over the promised wall between Mexico and the U.S. The British import just beamed a fake smile trying to laugh it off. When he eventually hit the stage to accept the Emmy on behalf of “The Voice” Burnett tried to make a joke about giving Hillary Clinton equal time that didn’t make sense and simply didn’t fly in the room. On a night when Trump was clearly in almost every winner and presenter’s sights Burnett couldn’t even pretend to play along.
WORST AND JUST A LITTLE BEST: Jimmy Kimmel
It was really a mixed bag for Kimmel who last hosted the show in 2012. The “I need a ride to the Emmys” opening with Malcolm-Jamal Warner driving a white bronco was a bit too obvious even with the unexpected appearance of Jeb Bush and James Cordon kicking him out of his car for sucking at carpool karaoke. Having the “Stranger Things” kids hand out peanut butter and jelly sandwiches is the second time we’ve seen someone try to duplicate Ellen DeGeneres’ pizza bit from the Oscars (you’re smarter than that Jimmy). And as the night went on his one liners lost more and more of their zing (the dated “I wouldn’t want to be those guys when Kanye finds out they beat Beyonce” for example). He does get credit for going after Burnett, setting up a Maggie Smith bit having no idea she’d actually win, and for ripping his peers with that “What we love more than diversity is congratulating ourselves for celebrating diversity” line. We’d still suggest that the next time ABC gets the Emmys maybe they should go a little more out of the box with someone not necessarily tied to their own network. Just a thought guys.
BEST: Sarah Pauslon
Paulson’s performance as Marcia Clark in “The People v O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story” was the biggest lock of the night as there was no finer actress on the big or small screen over the past year. She was that good. Thankfully, Paulson’s acceptance speech lived up to the hype. She took a humble step and apologized to Marcia Clark, who was in attendance, for superficially judging her as so many Americans did and then gave a big shout out to her girlfriend, Holland Taylor, with an “I love you!” at the end. We couldn’t have scripted it any better ourselves.
BEST: Matt Damon crashing
A number of Kimmel’s bits didn’t work or were repetitive, but having longtime “adversary” Matt Damon walk on stage after the host had just lost the Outstanding Variety Talk Series to “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” was comedy gold. Damon — who never gets to be this funny onscreen anymore — zinged Kimmel with, “You lost and now you have to stand out here in front of everybody. When you just want to go home and cry.” And “You’re a pretty big loser.” Before giving him a big hug. It worked because both Damon and Kimmel sold it and the audience in the room loved that the show’s host was getting a taste of his own medicine. Maybe they should host the Oscars together?
BEST: Surprising and Upset (but deserved) Winners
As we mentioned earlier, the change to a first place vote system created the opportunity for way more upsets and boy were there some. Patton Oswalt in the Writing for a Variety Special category, “Key & Peele” for Variety Sketch Series over “Inside Amy Schumer” and “Saturday Night Live,” Kate McKinnon upsetting Emmy favorite Allison Janney in the Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series category, “Bloodline” star Ben Mendelsohn triumphing over a tough Supporting Actor in a Drama Series field and last, but certainly not least, “Orphan Black” star Tatiana Maslany shocking over the likes of Viola Davis, Claire Danes, Taraji P. Henson, Keri Russell and Robin Wright. The best thing is that about all the upset winners is that they all deserved to win. Except one in particular…
WORST: The TV Academy picks Maggie Smith
Listen, Smith is a legendary actress, but the idea that she needed another award for playing the Dowager Countess is ridiculous (she’s already won in 2011 and 2012). Chances are Smith was the beneficiary of the new first place rule and the three “Game of Thrones” nominees — Lena Headley, Emilia Clarke and Maisie Williams — split a good chunk of the vote. It’s still awfully disappointing for any of the other more deserving nominees and while Jimmy Kimmel turned it into a gag that she’d have to come and accept it in person it was still a major let down.
BEST: Rami Malek’s speech
“Mr. Robot” star Rami Malek was one of those upset winners, but his speech might have been even more entertaining than his deserved win. He started off with an exasperated and shocked “Please tell me you’re seeing this too” (if you re-watch his category he’s literally gobsmacked he won). And eventually acknowledged the incredible group of nominees he was part of noting, “I am honored to be recognized with such a distinguished group of actors.” And finished it off with a somewhat corny, but heartfelt note, “I wanna honor the Elliots because there is a little bit of Elliot in all of us.” And he’s right, there probably is.
BEST: Keeping it simple
The fact this was one of the few Emmy programs to end on time (actually a minute or two early) is sort of remarkable. The show’s producers benefited from the fact neither Ben Mendelsohn or Maggie Smith were on hand to accept their awards during the last hour of the show. But, outside of a pretty short taped opening, a shorter than expected opening monologue and just four real Kimmel comedy bits, the show itself was pretty lean. There was a solo salute to Garry Shandling and an In Memoriam that featured an introduction by Henry Winkler, but it was mostly the awards themselves were the narrative. The show also didn’t use any silly backstage interviewers or push any “thematic” edited pieces that no one really wants to see anyway. Unfortunately…
WORST: It wasn’t necessarily fun
The comedy presenters either bombed (Aziz Ansari), didn’t seem that into it (Tina Fey and Amy Poehler) or just weren’t that memorable (Kit Harington and Andy Samberg). We’ll give props to Larry David for a lively moment at the end of the show, but overall the ceremony needed a lot more funny people to liven things up. Not only that it needed more presenters we haven’t seen on every single awards show for the past five years. Where was this year’s Emmy winner RuPaul coming out in drag to announce the Reality Competition Series winner? Why were there zero Marvel superheroes in attendance? (Hey, the good stuff might be on Netflix, but Marvel and ABC are Disney sister companies.) How about an Olympian or two from the summer games? (Is that news cycle really that over?) How about throwing John Travolta on stage just to see if he’ll mispronounce someone’s name? Crap, we’d even pretend it’s 2012 all over again just to get a YouTube star or two just so viewers could rag on them at home.
WORST: “The Americans” still came up short
Is this a baby steps year for arguably the most critically acclaimed series on television? “The Americans” earned five nominations this year including major nods in the Outstanding Drama Series, Writing, Lead Actress and Lead Actor categories. Sadly, the TCA Award winner for Drama took home just one honor: Margo Martindale’s Guest Actress in a Drama Series win which was given out last week. Clearly, the TV Academy loves Martingale because she barely appeared even as a guest star this past season on the FX drama. Considering “The Americans” earned the most nominations to date in 2016 we’ll hold out hope it finally cracks the ceiling in 2017.
BEST: “Game of Thrones” and “People v OJ” won the big ones
Yes, we’re disappointed “The Americans” went home basically empty handed and “Fargo”’s incredible second season basically wasn’t recognized, but we can’t quibble over “Game of Thrones” and “The People v O.J. Simpson” dominating most of the major prizes. We can’t even argue that “Veep” didn’t deserve to win over “Transparent.” The fact “Game of Thrones,” which arguably delivers more compelling action adventure than most movies, can win Emmy voters hearts is remarkable. And the best performances instead of the bigger names from “People v O.J.” taking home gold? That’s even better.
What did you think of this year’s Emmys? Share your thoughts below.
For more industry insight follow me at @thegregorye
