Rants, Raves, and Fun Facts from the 70th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards
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10 min readSep 18, 2018
On Monday, September 17th, the Television Academy announced their picks for the best television (and streaming) has to offer in a ceremony airing on NBC. Here, I recap the winners and review the show.
Reflections on the Winners
- Unprecedented Fresh Blood in the Comedy Categories. All 7 awards presented to comedy series at tonight’s ceremony went to shows in their first seasons. In fact the 7 awards were split among just 2 shows. The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Amazon’s critical darling about a New York housewife who makes it big as a stand-up comic, won 5 Emmys including Outstanding Comedy Series, Outstanding Lead Actress (Rachel Brosnahan), Outstanding Supporting Actress (Alex Bronstein), Outstanding Writing, and Outstanding Directing (the latter two for Gilmore Girls creator Amy Sherman-Palladino, in a rare double win). The other two awards went to HBO’s breakout hitman-becomes-an-actor comedy Barry, which won the Outstanding Lead Actor Emmy for Bill Hader (the previous winner for South Park had 4 other nominations tonight between Barry and Saturday Night Live) and the Outstanding Supporting Actor Emmy for Henry Winkler. The latter was particularly sweet, as the television legend won for the first time on his sixth nomination — 42 years after his first nomination for playing the iconic greaseball Arthur “Fonzie” Fonzarelli on Happy Days.
- Spreading the Love in the Drama Categories. No series had a Mrs. Maisel-size domination in the Drama categories with the 7 awards split among 4 series. The biggest surprise here was definitely that The Handmaid’s Tale went home empty-handed after sweeping last year and going into tonight with 8 nominations. (Note: It did, however, win 3 Emmys last week at the Creative Arts ceremony.) Rather the Television Academy gave HBO’s Game of Thrones its third trophy for Outstanding Drama Series and star Peter Dinklage his third trophy for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series. Both Dinklage and the show overall are superb, but I don’t think the 7 episodes that aired in the summer of 2017 were quite deserving of this level of praise. In contrast, I was delighted by the two surprise wins for Netflix’s The Crown. Claire Foy won Outstanding Lead Actress for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II. It was the subtlest and most nuanced performance in a category crowded and I didn’t think the Academy would notice. (The series also won Outstanding Directing for Stephen Daldry who has directed such Oscar films as The Hours, Billy Elliot, and The Reader). The Americans, Fx’s critically worshipped Cold War drama also earned two Emmys for its final season. Matthew Rhys picked up Outstanding Lead Actor and the series finale was honored for Outstanding Writing. The final show to be feted was HBO’s Westworld, with the gifted Thandie Newton winning for her role as an android madame in the dense sci-fi series.
- Predictable Winners — and Predictable Upsets — in the Limited Series Race. The second installment of Fx’s American Crime Story wasn’t quite the juggernaut that the first was (The People v. OJ Simpson won 5 of the 7 Limited Series categories 2 years ago) but it nevertheless impressed voters, as evidenced by its three trophies. It won Outstanding Writing for industry titan Ryan Murphy (whose credits also include Glee, American Horror Story, 911, Nip/Tuck, and Feud), Outstanding Lead Actor for Darren Criss (who got his start on Glee), and Outstanding Limited Series. As expected, Jeff Daniels picked up Outstanding Supporting Actor for his work on Netflix’s Godless. The other two categories were major upsets with Merritt Wever winning Outstanding Supporting Actress for Netflix’s Godless over presumed frontrunners Penelope Cruz and Judith Light and Regina King winning Outstanding Lead Actress for Netflix’s Seven Seconds over presumed frontrunners Laura Dern and Michelle Dockery. Although, for me they were predictable upsets considering that Wever and King have a history of pulling off shocking upsets before (Wever for Nurse Jackie in 2013, King for American Crime in 2015 and 2016). They are clearly Academy darlings despite the fact that they are not household names and it would have been nice to see someone without previous gold to upset.
- The Variety Awards Stick with Tradition while the Reality Categories Go Queer. As expected Outstanding Variety Sketch Series and Talk Series went to NBC’s Saturday Night Live and HBO’s Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (both of which have 2 prior wins in their categories). However, the Reality Competition Series category had some fresh blood with VH1’s Rupaul’s Drag Race breaking the three year domination of NBC’s The Voice. Add that to the other Reality Series winner — Netflix’s reboot of Queer Eye, which won at last week’s Creative Arts Emmys — and you have got a celebration of sexual and gender diversity unlike anything previously seen at the Emmys.
- By the Numbers. The biggest winners of the night were The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel with 5 wins and The Assassination of Gianni Versace with 3 wins. In terms of networks/platforms, it was a close race with Netflix winning 7, HBO winning 6, and Amazon and Fx winning 5. In terms of my predictions, I went 6 for 7 in the Comedy categories, 4 for 7 in the Drama categories, 5 for 7 in the Limited Series, and predicted all of the Variety and Reality series winners. Not bad.
Click here to check out my predictions heading into the ceremony.
Seven Thoughts About the Show
- Making Diversity Awkward Again. As I predicted in my Emmy preview that I posted yesterday, the fact that this was the most diverse class of nominees in Emmy history was the main focus of the evening. This was evidence as early as the opening number — which was a great idea on paper. Having a diverse array of stars sing a self-deprecating song about the problems of diversity, inclusion, and social justice are long from solved could have worked, but most of the jokes fell flat and the sound quality was off. Also, the fact that nearly every star who took part was affiliated with NBC (which aired this year’s ceremonies) felt like shameless self-promotion. Numerous additional jokes about diversity were made throughout the night — some were sharp, but most were not. The writing faltered most when it tried to generate humor from the #MeToo movement. You wouldn’t think anyone would have had to tell the writing staff that it’s really hard to make a crowd-pleasing joke about sexual violence in 2018, but apparently that was a conversation that needed to happen. Nowhere was the celebration of diversity more cringe-inducing than when the Television Academy president literally led the audience in a round of applause for themselves for nominating so many people of color. The only bit that worked was co-host Michael Che’s “Reparation Emmys” skit in which he gave Emmys to black stars that went overlooked by the Television Academy including Marla Gibbs (The Jeffersons), Jimmy Walker (Good Times), Kadeem Hardison (A Different World), Jaleel White (Family Matters), Tichina Arnold (Martin, Everybody Hates Chris), and John Witherspoon (Amen, The Wayans Bros.) It wasn’t a home run but at least it had heart and a purpose.
- Too Much SNL. Way too much SNL. As I predicted, with Lorne Michaels at the helm the show was bursting at the seams with Saturday Night Live. But unfortunately it was not classic Saturday Night Live that showed up, but rather the wildly uneven contemporary Saturday Night Live. Colin Jost and Michael Che had some amusing moments as hosts and they wisely ceded the opening number to more energetic folks, but ultimately they were just as underwhelming as I expected them to be from the moment they were announced. The gifted Maya Rudolph and Fred Armisen were horribly wasted in a pointless recurring bit that played like that awkward SNL skit that airs late in the 90 minute program and goes on several minutes too long.
- The Right Way and the Wrong Way to Pay Tribute to Television History. The best thing that Lorne Michaels did — hands down — was invite Betty White. Although Kate McKinnon and Alec Baldwin’s introduction of her was awkward and she took a minute to gather her wits, the 96-year-old, 8-time Emmy winning legend gave the evening the class and gravitas that it was sorely missing. The star of such seminal television comedies as The Golden Girls and The Mary Tyler Moore Show, she has worked consistently in television since its inception (her first nomination came at the 3rd ceremony in 1951). There was no better way to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the awards than with an appearance by White. The annual In Memoriam segment also served as a nice tribute to television history. Poignantly set to the late Aretha Franklin’s soulful rendition of “Amazing Grace,” images and video clips were presented of the astonishing array of icons that we lost in the last year (including but not limited to Burt Reynolds, Anthony Bourdain, Della Reese, Steven Bochco, Jerry Van Dyke, Charlotte Rae, David Cassidy, Robert Guillaume, Rose Marie, Neil Simon, and Monty Hall.) I’m still not exactly sure why the Emmys included Hugh Hefner and John McCain, but why ponder questions such as this? Those were good ways to pay tribute to television history. The wrong way was a half-assed, blink-and-you-miss-it montage of historic and memorable moments in Emmy history presented during the dullest part of the show. I would so much rather have seen iconic clips of Lucille Ball, Bea Arthur, and Mary Tyler Moore than cutting to Maya and Fred for the umpteenth time.
- Changing Up the Category Announcements. It’s a procedure that dates back for the better part of a century. A pair of presenters is introduced, they make awkward banter, they list the nominees, open the envelope, and announce the winner. The Emmys messed with that formula this year to have the announcer or the co-hosts introduce the category and review the nominees first and then announce the presenters who engaged in awkward banter just long enough for you to forget what category they were presenting and who was nominated before they announced the winner. Let’s just say it was an unsuccessful experiment.
- The Good, the Bad, and the WTF of the Presenters. Oh, where to begin. First let’s start with the positive. Certain presenters were … not awful. Husband-and-wife duo John Legend and Chrissy Teigen had some witty banter about his recent EGOT, Sandra Oh was genuinely hilarious, Tiffany Haddish and Angela Basset were a vibrant duo, stand-up breakout Hannah Gadsby injected some glorious discomfort into the final stretch, and Oscar-winner Michael Douglas gave a delicious rant about losing. But the vast majority either fell flat or worse. This is Us stars Sterling K. Brown and Ron Cephas Jones awkwardly struggled through dad jokes, Larry David made awkward banter about his refusal to make awkward banter, Tracy Morgan’s shtick about only voting for black people was awkward, and the combination of Ben Stiller, Patricia Arquette, and Benicio Del Toro to present Outstanding Limited Series was utterly bizarre. And why did the show begin and end with SNL star Kenan Thompson when he is not a big star nor was he the co-host? So. Many. Questions.
- The Implicit Normalization of Something Truly Not Normal. With Tina Fey relegated to the In Memoriam section and without Julia Louis-Dreyfus to give her annual award-worthy acceptance speech excoriating our corrupt, amoral administration, anti-Trump sentiments were mostly absent. By no means do I think it is the duty of the winners to comment on politics — nor do I think it usually makes for good television — but the fact that nobody went there fuels my worry that we are accepting what’s going on in this country as the new normal when it is anything but acceptable and anything bur normal.
- That Proposal. Leave it to the least famous winner of the night to steal the show. As he accepted his Emmy for directing the 90th Annual Academy Awards, Glenn Weiss gave a touching tribute to his recently deceased mother and then did a stunning about face to propose to his girlfriend in the audience, who promptly joined him on stage. It was the kind of wild, unpredictable moment that award shows too often lack. It was the most exciting moment of the night. But not the best, because … well … Betty White.
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