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Monday, September 19, 2011

I Cheered and I Laughed (sort of) - The 63rd Emmys

Last night's Emmy awards. I missed the beginning, but I watched most of the rest of telecast (mostly On My DVR, so I skipped the boring bits, which were numerous). I know alot of people find Modern Family very funny, and I've seen a few episodes, but I don't watch it, so while I'm happy for them, I'm not going to say much about the show. For a complete summary of the nominees and winners, check out TWOP's list here http://www.televisionwithoutpity.com/telefile/2011/09/emmy-awards-2011-the-winners.php

So, here's my take on last night's awards.
First, the presenters were awful. The writers tried to be funny, but the jokes were so forced and wooden that it was almost painful to listen to. I thought Gwenyth Paltrow was the funniest when she presented the award for best comedy. She came out and said "the prompters are down, so I'm going to wing it, here are the nominees for Outstanding Comedy series". Excellent. While gorgeous to look at, Rob Lowe and Sophia Vergara sounded lame. Jane Lynch had a few funny lines, but most of what she said sounded forced too. Oh well.

The singing intros to the overall categories - the "Emmytones" - was bizarre and totally pointless and I felt bad for Colbie Smulders, Joel McHale, Wilmer Valderrama, Zachery Levi and other people for having to sing those stupid songs. Anyway, onto the awards.

First of all, congrats to Friday Night Lights for two extremely well-deserved awards. The award for best writing couldn't have gone to anyone else. What a show! And a win for Kyle Chandler - we all cheered in my house when he won. Poor guy was totally not expecting it and didn't prepare a speech. He was so thrown that he didn't thank either of his wives. Oops.

While I am sad that Connie Britton didn't win for Best Actress, I am a big Good Wife fan, so a Julianna Marguilies win was good for me too. Same goes for Best Drama. I love Mad Men and by just being nominated in the category, FNL was proclaimed to be one of the best dramas on TV, and deservedly so.

Melissa McCarthy won for the most heart-felt acceptance speech. The bit with the nominees standing together, ala Miss America, was cute. But Melissa was so happy to have won and was so gracious that I really felt like the academy got it right.

Charlie Sheen continued his mea culpa tour with a very boring "tribute" to his old show. I'm guess they only let him do this because the Emmys aired on Fox, and not CBS.

TV Watcher was happy with Peter Dinklage's [He's the bestest Imp in all the land - TV Watcher] best supporting actor win and I was happy with Jim Parson's best actor in a comedy win. Kudos to him for his shout-out to cast-mate Johnny Galecki.

I'm a big Jon Stewart fan and I'm always happy to see him win (for the 9th year in a row), but I was even more impressed by his raving about Colbert. It'll be a long time before someone else wins this category, so it was nice that Stephen got some love too (he is very funny!).

I was thoroughly bored by the mini-series categories and wished that I had been able to fast-forward through them (but couldn't since I caught up), but since they led up to one of Jane Lynch's funnier comments of the night after Kate Winslet won, at least something good came out of them.

With some surprises, but mostly on target wins, the Emmys were spot-on this year from an awards perspective, which was great, but I could have done without the awkward presenters. Obviously letting them wing it is dangerous, but I would have preferred if they hadn't tried to make them funny. And now that the Emmys are over, it's time to turn our attention to the new season, enjoy the ride!

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