The joke about the Television Critics Association’s annual award ceremony is that if you’re a star and you receive an invitation, you’ve won.
You may not know what you’ve won, mind you, but what does it matter? It’s an open bar function with dim sum and pizza, followed by tiny desserts when the show’s over. Most attractive to the stars and producers who show up? No red carpet. The fun part for the critics is casually mingling with the people who make shows we like so much that we voted to have them here. In a sense, the TCA Awards are the small way we try to make up for the grave omissions made by Emmy and the Golden Globes each year.
But last night’s awards ceremony, the 26th in the organization’s history, was particularly special for a number of reasons.
It marked the first time that Dax Shepard hosted an awards ceremony, an honor he handled with aplomb and no shortage of nervousness — which is to say he went off script quite a few times and had the room in stitches.
It also marked the last time Damon Lindelof would appear for “Lost,” and he entertained the room by reading a number of the angry tweets he received following the finale. For the record, it looked like Lindelof also teared up when he accepted his award; he explained that it meant a lot because TV critics were the first supporters of “Lost” and in most cases, stuck with the series through its bittersweet end.
TCA awards night happened to coincide with “Modern Family” star Rico Rodriguez’s 12th birthday, and a room full of critics sang “Happy Birthday” to him along with the casts of “Breaking Bad,” “Glee,” and Tom Hanks, who gracefully showed up to accept an award for Outstanding Achievement in Movies, Miniseries & Specials for “The Pacific.”
In fact, Hanks even stuck around afterwards to chat with critics and take a few pictures with “Yo Gabba Gabba’s!” stars Foofa, Plex, Toodee, Muno and Brobee, who made a surprise appearance to accept their second TCA award for Outstanding Children’s programming. Say what you will about the overall cultural impact of this organization’s small slabs of Lucite — you won’t see anything that cool at the Emmys.
Here is the full list of 2010′s TCA Award recipients, taken from the press release:
• PROGRAM OF THE YEAR: “Glee” (FOX)
• OUTSTANDING NEW PROGRAM: “Glee” (FOX)
• INDIVIDUAL ACHIEVEMENT IN COMEDY: Jane Lynch, “Glee” (FOX)
• OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN COMEDY: “Modern Family” (ABC)
• OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN DRAMA: TIE – “Lost” (ABC) and “Breaking
Bad” (AMC)
• INDIVIDUAL ACHIEVEMENT IN DRAMA: Julianna Margulies, “The Good Wife”
(CBS)
• OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN NEWS & INFORMATION: “Life”
(Discovery)
• OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN YOUTH PROGRAMMING: “Yo Gabba
Gabba” (NICK JR.)
• OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN MOVIES, MINISERIES & SPECIALS: “The
Pacific” (HBO)
• HERITAGE AWARD: “M*A*S*H*” (CBS)
• CAREER ACHIEVEMENT: James Garner
TCA Awards: Where Yo Gabba Gabba! Meets Tom Hanks
You may not know what you’ve won, mind you, but what does it matter? It’s an open bar function with dim sum and pizza, followed by tiny desserts when the show’s over. Most attractive to the stars and producers who show up? No red carpet. The fun part for the critics is casually mingling with the people who make shows we like so much that we voted to have them here. In a sense, the TCA Awards are the small way we try to make up for the grave omissions made by Emmy and the Golden Globes each year.
But last night’s awards ceremony, the 26th in the organization’s history, was particularly special for a number of reasons.
It marked the first time that Dax Shepard hosted an awards ceremony, an honor he handled with aplomb and no shortage of nervousness — which is to say he went off script quite a few times and had the room in stitches.
It also marked the last time Damon Lindelof would appear for “Lost,” and he entertained the room by reading a number of the angry tweets he received following the finale. For the record, it looked like Lindelof also teared up when he accepted his award; he explained that it meant a lot because TV critics were the first supporters of “Lost” and in most cases, stuck with the series through its bittersweet end.
TCA awards night happened to coincide with “Modern Family” star Rico Rodriguez’s 12th birthday, and a room full of critics sang “Happy Birthday” to him along with the casts of “Breaking Bad,” “Glee,” and Tom Hanks, who gracefully showed up to accept an award for Outstanding Achievement in Movies, Miniseries & Specials for “The Pacific.”
In fact, Hanks even stuck around afterwards to chat with critics and take a few pictures with “Yo Gabba Gabba’s!” stars Foofa, Plex, Toodee, Muno and Brobee, who made a surprise appearance to accept their second TCA award for Outstanding Children’s programming. Say what you will about the overall cultural impact of this organization’s small slabs of Lucite — you won’t see anything that cool at the Emmys.
Here is the full list of 2010′s TCA Award recipients, taken from the press release:
• PROGRAM OF THE YEAR: “Glee” (FOX)
• OUTSTANDING NEW PROGRAM: “Glee” (FOX)
• INDIVIDUAL ACHIEVEMENT IN COMEDY: Jane Lynch, “Glee” (FOX)
• OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN COMEDY: “Modern Family” (ABC)
• OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN DRAMA: TIE – “Lost” (ABC) and “Breaking
Bad” (AMC)
• INDIVIDUAL ACHIEVEMENT IN DRAMA: Julianna Margulies, “The Good Wife”
(CBS)
• OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN NEWS & INFORMATION: “Life”
(Discovery)
• OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN YOUTH PROGRAMMING: “Yo Gabba
Gabba” (NICK JR.)
• OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN MOVIES, MINISERIES & SPECIALS: “The
Pacific” (HBO)
• HERITAGE AWARD: “M*A*S*H*” (CBS)
• CAREER ACHIEVEMENT: James Garner
This entry was posted on Sunday, August 1st, 2010, 1:21 am and is filed under Commentary, TCA Summer Press Tour 2010, TV News. You can follow any responses to this entry through RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.