Posts Tagged Modern Family

Winners, losers, predictions and bets aside, one thing you can count on when it comes to the Emmys is disappointment. It’s simple math – losers always outnumber the winners.  Indeed, the 63rd Primetime Emmy Awards telecast yielded a few worthy winners – some of them wonderfully surprising – and one that had us scratching our heads.  (That would be the Emmy for Barry Pepper, who was not there to accept his Lead Actor in a Miniseries or Movie statuette for his work in the lukewarmly-received miniseries “The Kennedys“.  Maybe he didn’t see that one coming, either.)

For every emotional peak one may have experienced with each award announcement, one also had to slog through dry gulches of flat skits and strange production choices.  Some of the Emmy voters’ ultimate choices were inspired, but the alleged entertainment served up between each envelope’s opening was often brutal to endure.

The Highs

The biggest winners were the usual suspects. “Mad Men” took home the Outstanding Drama Emmy for the fourth year in a row – its only win of the evening – and “Modern Family” reeled in its second Outstanding Comedy statuette. It was a good night for the ABC comedy, which won a total of five Emmys including awards for directing and writing, and Best Supporting Actor and Actress Emmys for onscreen husband and wife team Ty Burrell and Julie Bowen.

More shocking were the actors, actresses and shows most people believed were locked-in for the prize, but went home empty handed. Steve Carell was widely expected to finally walk away with the Lead Actor in a Comedy Emmy that had eluded him for so many seasons. His character Michael Scott was widely liked, and this represented his last shot at the prize for this work on “The Office“.  But the award went to “The Big Bang Theory’s” Jim Parsons for the second time in a row, giving CBS one of four Emmys the network’s shows would go on to win Sunday night.

Julianna Margulies handled her entirely expected Best Actress in a Drama win for “The Good Wife” with grace. But if Margulies had a wonderful evening,  Melissa McCarthy must have been over the moon at winning a Best Comedy Actress Emmy for her work in Bridesmaids “Mike & Molly.”  Anyone ticked off that McCarthy won instead of Amy Poehler should probably to consider this: at least this year, the award went to an actress who is actually funny. And who didn’t love it when all of the Comedy Actress nominees, led by Poehler, took the stage and held hands like pageant queens, taking the bit to its natural denouement by crowning McCarthy with a tiara?

McCarthy’s was one of several pleasantly surprising wins, including one for “Game of Thrones‘” amazing Peter Dinklage for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama and, much to the relief of everyone who cherishes great television, Margo Martindale’s Best Supporting Actress clinch for her tour-de-force performance during the second season of “Justified.” (Had she not won, we suspect Academy of Television Arts and Sciences voters would have received gift baskets from anonymous senders containing at least one bottle of Apple Pie.)

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