The 67th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards Highlights

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The 67^th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards took place at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles. It was hosted by Andy Samberg, who I think did the worst job of hosting ever. The show starts out with Andy sitting at the table with well-known actors and actresses asking him if he watched such and such a show. It ended with him breaking out in song about there being too many shows.

Then the jokes started, or I should say lame jokes. Here are just a few of his failures of the night. “Is it me or does Bernie Sanders always look like his flight was delayed?” “I gotta say I’m sure Donald Trump seems racist…what else?” “Racism is over. Don’t fact check that.” Really? Ugh, new host for next year please.

There were some memorable highlights of the show as well as memorable winners.

Let’s start with the winners.

• Game of Thrones pretty much owned the night. They won awards for Outstanding Drama Series, Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for Peter Dinklage and his role as Tyrion, Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series and Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series.
• Veep, Olive Kitteridge and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart were also big winners of the night. Veep took home awards for Outstanding Comedy Series, Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for Julia Louis-Dreyfus and her role as President Meyer, Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series for Tony Hale and his role as Gary Walsh and Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series.
• Olive Kitteridge won awards for Outstanding Limited Series, Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie for Richard Jenkins and his role as Henry, Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie for France McDormand and her role as Olive, Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or Movie for Bill Murray and his role as Jack Kennison, Outstanding Directing for a Limited Series, Movie or Dramatic Special and Outstanding Writing for a Limited Series, Movie or Dramatic Special.
• The Daily Show with Jon Stewart won awards for Outstanding Variety Talk Series, Outstanding Directing for a Variety Series and Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series.
• Other winners of the night: Inside Amy Schumer for Outstanding Variety Sketch Series, The Voice for Outstanding Reality-Competition Program, Jeffrey Tambor for his role as Morton in Transparent for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series, Jon Hamm for his role as Don in Mad Men for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series, Viola Davis as Professor Keating on How to Get Away with Murder for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series, Allison Janney for her role on Mom as Bonnie for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series, Uzo Aduba for her role as Crazy Eyes on Orange is the New Black for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series, Regina King for her role as Aliyah on American Crime for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or Movie and Transparent for Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series.

Here are my thoughts on the winners.

I didn’t expect Game of Thrones to win anything since this was this worst season to date. I agree with Veep winning for comedy series but think House of Cards should have won for drama series. The Voice is one of the best reality shows of all time so I was glad it won. I also don’t agree with either of the winning lead actors. For lead actor in a comedy, it should have gone to Anthony Anderson on Black-ish and lead actor in a drama definitely should have gone to Kevin Spacey for House of Cards. As for the supporting actor and actresses, definitely Uzo Aduba deserved her win as did Tony Hale for his win. However, I think the supporting comedy actress should have been Mayim Bialik on The Big Bang Theory and supporting drama actor should have gone to Jonathan Banks from Better Call Saul.

Now, let’s talk memorable moments of the night.

• Ricky Gervais presented the award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series. He says, “Hello, back again…to lose another one,” before he pretended to win an Emmy and give an acceptance speech. He was hilarious, why didn’t he host the show? Would have been a lot better than Samberg.
• When Jeffrey Tambor gave his acceptance speech, he stated, as a shout out to the transgender community, “Thank you for your patience. Thank you for your courage. Thank you for your stories.” Note: Tambor plays a transgender on the show Transparent.
• Another memorable part of the show was when Andy Samberg gave out his username and password so everyone could get free HBO Go. Funny enough, the login actually worked.
• So, the show decides to pay tribute to the shows that ended this year like Sons of Anarchy, Parks and Recreation, Mad Men, Nurse Jackie and Parenthood. The problem is that some of the shows haven’t shown their series finale yet but the montage showed clips of how every show was ending. Talk about spoiling things for television viewers.
• One of the most touching parts of the show was the tribute to those we have lost this year. There were lots of them including Wes Craven, Dick Van Patten, Christopher Lee, Anne Meara, James Best, Geoffrey Lewis, Joan Rivers, B.B. King and Leonard Nimoy.
• The best speech of the night definitely went to Viola Davis. She is the first black woman to win an Emmy for Outstanding Leading Actress in a Drama Series. She said during her speech, “The only thing that separates women of color from everyone else is opportunity. You cannot win an Emmy for roles that are simply not there.” Truly an amazing woman who is humble and genuine.

The show was not without surprises including the presenter for the last award of the night, Tracy Morgan. He received a standing ovation when he came out on stage. He was humble in thanking everyone for their love and support. He also proved he hasn’t lost a single part of his humor when he said, “When I finally regained consciousness I was ecstatic to learn that…I wasn’t the one who messed up.”

I do have some opinions of the night. First of all, does John Stamos ever age? He is 52 and doesn’t look a day over 35. Again, I was glad The Voice won their award but I was surprised to see Carson Daly on stage to accept the award. I had no idea he was even part of that show. Apparently, he is one of the executive producers. Hmmm…who knew? Fred Savage from The Wonder Years was a presenter tonight. I have to say I had a moment of feeling old when I discovered he is now 39 years old and was only 12 when he started doing The Wonder Years.