Just as the Emmys looked to be on the verge of catching up with TV snob viewing tastes… they went and made an arse of it all over again. Thanks for building up our hopes, guys. But you basically just told us that some carbon-copy nerd stereotype is funnier than Louis CK.
It's just like the '90s all over again when the Emmys continually ignored Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Well, actually, it's nothing like that but allow us some dramatic licence… unlike the Emmys. But let this sink in for a moment: Modern Family just won Best Comedy Series ahead of Louie, 30 Rock and Veep. Holy. Freakin. Shit.
THE MEH MOMENTS
Predictable but deserving wins. The Colbert Report wins Best Variety Series and it scored a comedy writing gong as well. The show is consistently good and Colbert loves to collect trophies. But how does Craig Ferguson's The Late Late Show not even get nominated for these awards - he has a dancing horse and gay robot for crissakes.
South Park won Best Animated Series. Yeah, that's okay but it beat Bob's Burgers.
Camp Vs Campion. Camp won, with Steven Soderbergh's Liberace romp Beyond The Candelabra winning him a Mini-Series/Movie directing award and he beat out Jane Campion's jaw-droppingly beautiful Top Of The Lake for Best Mini-Series/Movie. But for those of us still trying to figure out what accent Elisabeth Moss (Peggy from Mad Men) was rocking in Lake, it's no surprise that she lost the Best Actress In A Mini-Series/Movie award to TV's Merryl Streep, Laura Linney (The Big C: Hereafter).
The Meth Moment. Breaking Bad won Best Drama Series and Anna Gun won a Best Supporting Actress award for her role as Skyler White (this should up the value of Skyler's Jeep in the Breaking Bad auction). The Emmys deserve a medal for at least not getting this wrong. Almost makes up for losing the Best Directing gong to David Fincher for House Of Cards.
THE BAD MOMENTS
The Emmys themselves. About as fun to watch as The Logies. Too much song and dance. Save it for the Tonys, Neil Patrick Harris.
Homeland insecurity. Did Emmy voters actually watch Homeland season two? Let's face it, even the hardest-core fans found it difficult not to hate-watch the terrorist drama go all 24. Best Actress winner Claire Danes may have been the best crazy in a drama last year but in 2013 she was out-crazied by Vera Farmiga in Bates Motel – she's put the 'over' into 'over-protective mother' in that role.
Bored walk. Bobby Cannavale is not bad in the tedious Boardwalk Empire but he's much better as the arsehole doctor in the less-tedious Nurse Jackie. He certainly shouldn't have won this Best Supporting Actor award over the likes of Game Of Thrones' Peter Dinklage and Breaking Bad's Aaron Paul and Jonathan Banks.
Mad guests. This season's Mad Men paraded the best guest roles of any season of any television ever this year. But somehow Harry Hamlin and Linda Cardellini were beaten in their respective categories by actors guesting in shows The Good Wife and Scandal - both so full of bad acting that any guest was going to look good in comparison.
THE UGLY MOMENTS
Newsroom, really? Jeff Daniels won Best Actor for The Newsroom. This is a win almost worthy of the Golden Globes. The guy sleeptalks through endless Aaron Sorkin clichés in a show that's only survived thanks to the rising trend of 'hate-watching'. You watch Newsroom purely to make nasty jokes about how bad it is on Twitter. Daniels won ahead of Breaking Bad's Bryan Cranston and Mad Men's Jon Hamm.
Unenlightened. Without doubt the best show on TV in the past 12 months was season two of Enlightened. Light years ahead of everything else (even Girls which it aired back-to-back with on HBO). Created by its star Laura Dern, the show was barely acknowledged bar a nomination for Dern as Best Comedy Actress. It's the toughest category in the Emmys – she was beaten by Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Veep), who gave the night's best acceptance speech using co-star Tony Hale as a prop, and was also up against Tina Fey (30 Rock) and Amy Poehler (Parks & Recreation). Like her show, Dern never had a chance.
Big Sizzle Theory. Who do you have to fuck for a comedy Emmy? Jim Parsons of The Big Bang Theory won the comedy actor award AGAIN. Maybe it's a sympathy vote – the voters may feel sorry for anyone having to work in a Chuck Lorre sit-com. It's certainly not judged on the quality of the work, as the losers include Louis CK, Don Cheadle (House Of Lies) and Alec Baldwin (30 Rock).
Family viewing. It's hard enough to understand why people think Modern Family is funny let alone figure out why so-called critics continue to dampen their pants over it. The Brady Bunch is more relevant than this stodgy attempt at comedy. Yet here it is winning a Best Comedy and scoring a directing award. Ahead of: Louie, 30 Rock, Girls and Veep. Obviously one of the conditions of being an Emmy voter is that you need to lop off your ears and gouge out your eyes.
