The following post was a live blog of the 62nd Primetime Emmy Awards held on August 29th, 2010. It was written between 6:10 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. central standard time.
6:10 p.m.- In the words of Brent Musberger, you are looking liiiive inside and outside of the Nokia Theater in Los Angeles, California where in about fifty minutes time all of the top stars in the television industry will meet in one place to watch the television industry's biggest event of the year: the 62nd Primetime Emmy Awards. So many questions to ask heading into the final hour before the big show begins. Will the award winning streaks of "30 Rock" and "Mad Men" finally come to end? Which show will have the biggest night? Which new comedy from the 2009-2010 TV season will dominate more, "Glee" or "Modern Family"? Will Jimmy Fallon be half as funny as Conan O'Brien when he hosted the last two Emmys on NBC? How many times will he laugh while performing a bit?
Speaking of O'Brien, will we see his now finished stint as host of The Tonight Show win an Emmy for Best Music, Variety or Comedy Series? Probably not, but how great will that be? Will there be any Jon Cryer winning Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series type upsets this year? We should find out in the next four hours, but in the meantime we're just gonna have to wait by watching the red carpet specials on NBC, E! and the TV Guide network.
6:15 p.m.- Before I continue on, here's the links to my three posts back in July that were dedicated to predicting the Emmys (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3). Currently I am 6-4 due to the fact that ten of the awards that I predicted were announced at last Saturday's Creative Emmys. Hopefully a lot more should come true later on.
6:20 p.m.- You know, you can say whatever you want about Ryan Seacrest, but you can't deny that he's really good interviewing celebrities on the red carpet. Not only is he a good interviewer, but he's also quite prepared before his interviews. Speaking of red carpet interviewers, did Billy Bush over at the NBC telecast have some kind of facelift? For some reason I just can't stop thinking of that everytime I see Bush on screen.
6:28 p.m.- As most of you may have realized, this year's Emmys is taking place much earlier (nearly a full month) than it has the last few years when it took place the same week most of the fall TV shows were having their season and/or series premieres. Turns out NBC, who has this year's turn to host the awards show, would rather show Sunday Night Football than to take a week off in September and they bumped it up on the final week of August. Personally, I think it was a smart move. After all, the NFL is ratings gold and NBC would be crazy to stop broadcasting it for some dumb awards show.
6:31 p.m.- Watching Tina Fey being interviewed by Bush. I don't understand why "30 Rock" continues to try to portray her as an ugly woman. She just keeps looking lovely everytime she's on screen. Anyways, she just said that Alec Baldwin is not here, meaning that he will not make a speech if he wins an award. Damn. I really wanted to see if he will start thanking somebody besides Fey and the writers of the show for once.
6:43 p.m.- That sound of sadness and despair that you just heard were groans from the mouths of thousands of women across the country now that they found out that Jon Hamm has a girlfriend.
6:48 p.m.- Just a little bit over ten minutes to go. With that being said, I just want to remind everyone reading this to not be mad if their favorites end up not winning an award, no matter how much they deserve it. Remember, this is the Emmys we're talking about, an award show voted on by people working in television who do not watch a lot of television. More mistakes are made at the Emmys than during the entire George W.Bush presidency. Just wanted to let you know just in case.
6:54 p.m.- With NBC hosting the Emmys, FOX is taking advantage of it by broadcating the Steelers/Broncos preseason game. I wonder which one will get more ratings?
/serious question
6:55 p.m.- Five minutes left!
6:59 p.m.- One minute left!
7:00 p.m.- And we're off...with a taped opening with this year's host Jimmy Fallon, of NBC's "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon."
7:06 p.m.- A good opening if I do say so myself. To recap: Jimmy Fallon, Tina Fey, four members of "Glee," Hurley from "Lost" and Jon Hamm went on stage to perform Bruce Springsteen's "Born to Run" with Randy Jackson on guitar. It had some funny moments, it was star studded and it was very enjoyable. It also featured nice cameos of Betty White, continuing her 2010 to remember while teaching Hamm some moves in the process, and Kate Gosslein. In other words, it's so far so good here in the 2010 Emmys.
7:07 p.m.- An actual Conan sighting! On an NBC telecast! In late 2010! Who would have thought of that happening?
7:08 p.m.- So now that the opening is finished, the awards part of the show has begun quickly with Fallon introducing the comedy portion of the award with a montage of the past year in comedy TV. In case you didn't know, this awards show will be just like last year where the awards are split into five parts: the comedy awards (though the Outstanding Comedy award could come at the end), the reality awards, the variety awards, the miniseries/movie awards and the drama awards
7:12 p.m.- And the first award goes to..."Modern Family"'s Eric Stonestreet for Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series! Nothing negative to say about Stonestreet. Out of all the nominees, he was the one that deserved it the most.
7:15 p.m.- Good to see Jon Hodgman back as the voiceover/color commentator guy in this year's Emmys. He's the best.
7:18 p.m.- After our first commercial break of the evening, we saw Christopher Lloyd and Steve Levitan win their awards for Best Writing in a Comedy for the "Modern Family" pilot. A month ago the two decided to split from their four year partnership while still running the show, but more as single parents than a couple (not sure how that will work, though), and you got to see an example of that broken partnership Levitan gave his acceptance speech by himself.
7:25 p.m.- Jane Lynch wins Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series in one of the biggest unshocking moments of the day. I mean, you could have pretty much seen that happen when Lynch won her Golden Globe for her role on "Glee" way back in January.
7:30 p.m.- Is "Nurse Jackie" really considered a comedy? That's pretty debatable.
7:39 p.m.- Some highlights from the past nine minutes:
- Ryan Murphy wins for Best Directing in a Comedy Series for the "Glee" pilot, the second award that "Glee" has won in a span of fifteen.
- The cast of "Modern Family" appeared in was it definitely the funniest sketch of the night in which they tried different ways to make their show better which included having Stewie Griffin and George Clooney as members of the show. I wonder if we will see the cast together again on the show later on.
7:40 p.m.- So now comes the big acting awards in the comedy category. First up,the award for Best Actor, which went to Jim Parsons for his role on the "Big Bang Theory." Not much to say here. I rarely watch "The Big Bang Theory" (and I probably can't watch it at all this season with "Community" going up against them at the Thursday 7 p.m. timeslot this season), but I know that a lot of people felt that he should have won it last year instead of the winner (Alec Baldwin), so I understand why he won it this year. By the way, I'm loving that we're forty minutes in and we have yet to see any of the previous winners from last year's Emmys win an award this year. That is something you often do not see in the Emmys, who usually give out people awards just for winning one the year before.
7:43 p.m.- Geez, I know it has only been forty five minutes, but I am really tired at this point. I wish there would be something that I could this year that would let me get a nice break, kind of like when I took thirty minutes off last year to watch "Curb Your Enthusiasm." Alas!
7:45 p.m.- Edie Falco wins Best Actress in a Comedy Series for her job in "Nurse Jackie," meaning that the Emmy voters seem to take the "acting" part of this award very seriously. I still don't think "Nurse Jackie" is a comedy. Even Falco thought so too when she said that she wasn't funny.
7:47 p.m.- All right, so it appears that the Outstanding Comedy award will be announced at the end of the program. Next up...the reality awards!
7:49 p.m.- I find it interesting that NBC has not taken the opportunity yet to have most of the speakers on the Emmys from their new shows. If it was FOX, they wouldn't have even thought of getting stars from some of their rival networks' new shows. Case in point, they just had Will Arnett and Kerri Russell for FOX's upcoming new show "Running Wilde," a show I'm hoping will be funny when it starts airing, to announce the award for Outstanding Reality Competition
7:51 p.m.- Holy S&%&! "The Amazing Race" did NOT win the award for Outstanding Reality Competition! That was the first time that has ever happened in the history of this category. Looks like the Emmy voters aren't that lazy after all. It also means that we have gone a full hour so far without a repeat winner! I don't know whether to feel good about this, or shocked.
7:57 p.m.- Okay, so it appears that the award "Top Chef" won was the only reality TV award given out as the show is set to begin announcing the remaining winners of every single drama related award except for Outstanding Drama, which I'm pretty sure will come at the very end. By the way, it always amazes me that the Emmys are the only major awards show that is so strict with keeping the telecast under three hours. I just wish the Oscars and the Grammys end up doing the same thing. That way, I don't have to wait until midnight to go to sleep.
7:59 p.m.- I never watched the show, but how could the Emmys leave out "Sons of Anarchy" in the montage yet have room for "Criminal Minds" and "NCIS." Considering how "Sons of Anarchy," which I've heard is a really good show, was not nominated for a single award, is it possible that the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences have something against this show, or was it just a mistake made by the people who worked on the montage?
8:07 p.m.- Quick recap of the last ten minutes:
- Aaron Paul finally wins Oustanding Supporting Actor in a Drama. This is Paul's first win in two tries after losing last year when he probably should have won to Michael Emerson of "Lost." It's a very deserving award, who you can make the case that he did a better job acting in this season's "Breaking Bad" than Bryan Cranston, whomight winning best leading actor in a drama any minute now. Speaking of Emerson, does the fact that he didn't win mean that there is no more hope of "Lost" winning a single award this evening? Will one of the biggest TV shows of the past decade finish their final season without a single award? If the director of the series finale doesn't win in a few minutes, it looks like that just might happen.
- Matthew Weiner and Erin Levy win for Best Writing in a Drama for the "Mad Men" season 3 finale. Congrats to both. That episode, as I have said many times in the last year, was a brilliant one.
8:10 p.m.- Archie Penjabi is already off to a great start in her TV acting career after winning the Emmy for Oustanding Supporting Actress in a Drama in her first try. 1 for 1 lifetime so far. With that award and the possibility of Julianna Marguiles winning best lead actress any minute, I'm starting to wonder if I should start watching "The Good Wife."
8:13 p.m.- All right, so now comes the Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series. So may deserving nominees. You have the two-time defending champion (Bryan Cranston), the guys who should have already won it by now (Jon Hamm and Hugh Laurie) and the Golden Globe winner (Michael C.Hall). It can go many ways in just a few seconds.
8:15 p.m.- It's now official: Bryan Cranston has completed his three peat. He's the first actor to win this award three years in a row since, wait for it...Bill Cosby! That's right, Bill Cosby! I bet you would have never known that unless you looked it up, am I right? Anyways, a big congratulations to Cranston. Anyone who can switch from the funny "Malcolm in the Middle" to the dramatic "Breaking Bad" and complete such a rare feat like that should be acknowledged. It's too bad that the 4th season of the show won't air until summer 2011. Because of this, we won't be able to find out if Cranston can complete the first ever four-peat in this category.
8:17 p.m.- I love how NBC is trying to do the best they can to promote the hell out of "Community" in this year's Emmys. From the two Infiniti commercials with the entire cast to Betty White announcing she will guest star on the season premiere, it's really great to see that as a fan of the show, especially considering how they are going up against ratings giant "The Big Bang Theory" this season at the Thursday- 7 p.m. timeslot.
8:29 p.m.- Another Emmy award for "Dexter," this time to Steve Shill for Outstanding Directing in a Drama Series for "The Getaway." After Shill's acceptance speech, Fallon just did a parody of the "In Memorian" speech in which he said goodbye to "24," "Law and Order," and "Lost." Kudos for the quick wardrobe change in that part of the show. And...that's pretty much all that happened in the past twelve minute. Commercial time.
8:30 p.m.- Halfway through the 2010 Emmy award. In about a few minutes, we will have the miniseries/movie awards and the variety awards followed by Outstanding Comedy and Outstanding Drama (in that order, I assume), with George Clooney getting an honorary award in between. You know, I gotta be honest in saying that I was a little worried with Fallon as host before the show, but he has really done a good job in proving me wrong. Then again, maybe that's just because he's been singing for most of his time on camera and not making his boring and unfunny jokes that he does on "Late Night." Did I mention that I'm not a fan of his late night show?
8:32 p.m.- Okay awards show so far, but if there's one thing I do think they should stop is the Twitter stuff. Sorry Fallon, but it's just not working out.
8:33 p.m.- And...we have our first surprise of the night! In a category where Glenn Close and Julianna Margulies are nominated, Kyra Sedgwick wins the Emmy for Oustanding Actress in a Drama Series. Then again, maybe I shouldn't be surprised. People have been talking about Sedgwick's great acting on "The Closer" for years, so the fact that it took her this long to win her first Emmy is a little bit confusing.
8:37 p.m.- Talkin' 'bout a montage! (Montage!)
8:40 p.m.- Wait, writing for an awards show wins an award on a different awards show? My brain hurts.
8:41 p.m.- Another funny Infiniti commerical with the cast of"Community"! Now, I really am pumped up for the season premiere.
8:47 p.m.- Some classic Ricky Gervais as the Emmys are back from commercial. He makes fun of Mel Gibson and gives the audience free beer in just a two minute span. He has now officially replaced Stephen Colbert as my favorite award presenter at Emmys. Now, if only he could do a better job HOSTING an awards show, that would make things even better.
8:49 p.m.- Bucky Gunts FTW!
8:52 p.m.- All right, this is it: Outstanding Variety, Music or Comedy Series. Will "The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien" actually win the award and give the folks at NBC a panic attack?
8:53 p.m.- Nope. The award goes once again to "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart." So it appears the mini-crisis at NBC has been averted now that O'Brien didn't win the award. I still think it would have been quite a site seeing O'Brien accept the award. Quite a site for a television awards show, that is. But "The Daily Show" did deserve it, though. After all, I did have them as my #1 favorite TV in most of this year's TV top tens.
9:03 p.m.- Former "ER" star and one of the world's few super famous movie stars alive, George Clooney, receives the Bob Hope Humanitarian Award, whatever that is. Clooney is the 4th person to ever receive this award and the only person so far to get a standing ovation. By the way, when was the last time Clooney has ever been on the Emmys? This has to have been his first time since the "ER" days, right?
9:06 p.m.- One more hour to go and the Emmys have finally begun with the miniseries/TV movie awards. While it has been pretty much written in ink since the halfway point of their run that "The Pacific" will win best miniseries, it should be interesting to see who wins best TV movie. I'm just gonna go ahead and stick with my prediction that "You Don't Know Jack" will win it, but that could change any minute.
9:21 p.m.- After the miniseries/movie supporting acting awards were given out, Jewel came on stage to sing while the "In Memoriam" part of the program was taking place. Dennis Hopper seemed to receive the most applause while the Executive Producer of "Roots," David L.Wolper, was the surprising closer. Overall, it was a good fifteen minutes to take a nice, relaxing breather.
9:22 p.m.- Did Jimmy Deans sausage purposely buy a commercial spot on the Emmys right after the real Jimmy Dean was honored in the "In Memoriam" part of the show? I'm guessing that's a yes.
9:31 p.m.- More miniseries/movie awards! The quick recap:
- Claire Danes wins Outstanding Actress for her role in "Temple Grandin," and took the time in her acceptance speech to thank the actual Temple Grandin, who stood up and waved back at her.
- Adam Mazer, Neal Nicol and Harry Wylie for their writing in "You Dont' Know Jack." I'm guessing that since it beat two episodes of "The Pacific" for that award, it's going to win best TV movie for sure.
9:36 p.m.- Uh oh, Mick Jackson won the award for Outstanding Directing in a Miniseries/TV Movie for "Temple Grandin," giving us Temple Grandin's second moment on camera in the past fifteen minutes and has become the show's star of the evening. Maybe "You Don't Know Jack" isn't a shoe-in to win after all.
9:38 p.m.- The best TV movie award is getting a lot more interesting now that Al Pacino has won Best Actor for his acting in "You Don't Know Jack." To recap: "You Don't Know Jack" won best writing and best actor while "Temple Grandin" won best actress and best directing. I have no idea why I have become so interested in seeing who wins this now, but I have.
9:41 p.m.- Wow, Pacino is really going down in flames in his speech! Why isn't he being played out? Does the fact that he's a movie star mean that he's too big to being played out? And why am I asking so much questions all of a sudden?
9:42 p.m.- I have no idea why, but I am more energized with twenty minutes and about five more awards to go then I was an hour and a half ago. Just thought I should let you know.
9:45 p.m.- Laurence Fishburne is presenting the award for Outstanding Miniseries. I have a strong urge to make a joke about his porn actress daughter, but I just won't. I'm sure he has suffered enough with this at this point.
9:46 p.m.- In an absolutely predictable announcement, "The Pacific" wins for Outstanding Miniseries. Now, here comes the award for Outstanding Made for TV Movie. Who's it going it be: "Temple Grandin"? or "You Don't Know Jack"? I really am at the edge of my seat at this point.
9:48 p.m.- And the winner is..."Temple Grandin"! What a close finish! And what an emotional speech! Definitely one of the best moments of the night.
9:50 p.m.- All right, so Jimmy Fallon has announced that the winners of the last two awards, Outstanding Comedy and Outstanding Drama, will be told very shortly. I still think it's going to be "Mad Men" and "Modern Family," but then again you just never know for certain with these types of awards. For all we know the Emmy voters could have voted for "30 Rock" out of pure laziness.
9:52 p.m.- Fallon announces that the first of the two awards to be given out is Outstanding Drama. Tom Selleck is the presenter for the award and he announces that the winner is..."Mad Men"! For the third year in a row! A much deserving win for them, in my opinion. But then again, you already know that by my continuous praise of the show in the last twelve months.
By the way, while we're discussing dramas, I'm a little bit surprised that "Lost" didn't come out of this year's show without a single award. Usually shows of their caliber come out of their final season with at least one Primetime Emmy award. I'm guessing that that possibility came to an end once Emerson lost to Paul for Outstanding Supporting Actor.
9:54 p.m.- Last commercial break of the evening, which will lead up to the final award: Outstanding Comedy. So, who's it going to be? Will it be one of the new shows, like "Glee" or "Modern Family", some of the veteran shows like "Curb Your Enthusiasm" and "The Office," or will "30 Rock" win yet again for the fourth year in a row? We shall soon find out. By the way, it is just me or did Jon Hodgman stop being the color commentator of the Emmys for the past fifteen minutes?
9:55 p.m.- I just found out that I am 16-12 in my Emmy predictions from July with only one more award to go. The good news: it was a much better record than I thought it would be after the Creative Emmys in which I went 6-4. The bad news: it's a big drop from last year when I went 18-5. Hopefully next year's picks will go much better.
9:56 p.m.- The final presenter of the show is Ted Danson. He tells everyone of the nominees. He opens the envelope. And the winner is...
9:58 p.m.- MODERN FAMILY! Sorry, "Glee." You may have had the hype machine going strong all year, but it just wasn't enough to take home the big prize. As for the winner...look, I'm not as big of a fan of the show as a lot of other people are and you can look back at the blog archives for reasons why. Sure their were some episodes that I thought were laugh out loud funny and I have watched all of their episodes this season, but I would still argue that the best comedies of the '09-'10 TV season were either "Parks and Recreations" or "Community." However, out of all of this year's nominees, it was the one that deserved it the most for bringing back the traditional family sitcom (minus the laughtrack), their terrific cast and for their stellar PG-rating writing. Also, "Glee" stinks, I'm tired of seeing "30 Rock" win all the time and "The Office" had one of its worst seasons in years.
By the way, how great must it feel to be an executive at ABC right now. Sure you may have placed third in the ratings this past year, all of your new dramas from last year were canceled and "Lost" wrapped up its six year run. But at least they can claim that they have an Emmy award winning comedy that's also ratings gold, which is one thing that none of the other broadcast networks can say.
9:59 p.m.- As Jimmy Fallon signs off for the 2010 Emmys and the closing credits start rolling with some of the night's highlights, it's time for me to sign off from this live blog. And I gotta say, it was a pretty darn...decent. Fallon hosted pretty well, there wasn't a lot of awkward moments (except for maybe the Pacino acceptance speech), there was suspense (especially when Outstanding Made For TV Movie and Outstanding Comedy was announced) ,"Mad Men" won Outstanding Drama for the third year in row (an possibly their last considering the fact that some supposedly good shows like "Boardwalk Empire" and "The Walking Dead" are set to premiere this year), "Breaking Bad" took the biggest acting awards, only two of winners announced were repeats of last year (Outstanding Drama for "Mad Men" and Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama for Bryan Cranston) which proved that there has been a changing of the guard in the TV universe and that the Emmy voters aren't as lazy as we thought, a show not named "Glee" won Outstanding Comedy, there was a Conan O'Brien sighting on NBC (even if it was for just five seconds) and I finished over .500 in my picks. Simply put, it was a nice end to what was a fantastic 2009-2010 TV season.
Anyways, thanks to everyone who read this entire post. It takes skills to endure such terrible writing like this (though I think I did much better than last year) and I thank you for that. Now, if you will excuse me, I'm going to end this night the right way: by watching the now three time Emmy award winning "Mad Men." Thank God this is the Emmys with their strict three hour long time limit or else I would probably have to wait a full day to watch it the next time.
Sincerely,
Your pal: mj15
(UPDATE 09/20/11: Wanna read more Emmys live blog? Click here for my 2011 live blog!)
If you have any opinions on today's post, or if you want to suggest anything to mj15 for his next blog entry (tips, perhaps?), e-mail him at: mj1599@aol.com. Your e-mails are greatly appreciated.
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