The Emmys kept up their tradition of few surprises last night as NBC's 30 Rock was named best comedy for the third consecutive year at the 61st Annual Primetime Emmy Awards and AMC's stylish Mad Men took down its second straight best-drama Emmy.
Including Emmys presented at last weekend's so-called creative arts awards ceremony, PBS's Little Dorrit and HBO's Grey Gardens tied for most Emmys: seven. And, as usual, HBO led the Emmy parade with 21. NBC was second with 16; ABC had 11; Fox, 10; CBS, 9.
Not a lot of suspense with the best-comedy award, as a confused Bob Newhart gave away the winner at the beginning of his rambling comments, confirming it as he looked at an already-opened envelope at the end.
Referring to NBC's new five-night-a-week Jay Leno Show, 30 Rock star and executive producer Tina Fey thanked the folks at NBC for "keeping us on the air even though we are so much more expensive than a talk show."
For the second consecutive year, Glenn Close got the Emmy for best actress in a drama for FX's riveting Damages, where she plays cutthroat lawyer Patty Hewes. Bryan Cranston, the desperate, dying drug dealer in AMC's Breaking Bad kept up, grabbing his second best-dramatic-actor award.
Even though she won a creative-arts award for her Sarah Palin impressions on Saturday Night Live, Fey did not win as best comedy actress for 30 Rock. The audience was shocked - "Whoa!" said presenter Justin Timberlake - when Toni Collette, spectacular as the star of Showtime's United States of Tara, took the Emmy for her role as a woman with multiple personalities.
Alec Baldwin, Fey's 30 Rock costar, made up for Fey's failure, winning as best actor in a comedy for the second straight year.
Michael Emerson took home his second Emmy as best supporting actor in a drama as the enigmatic Ben Linus, arguably the center of ABC's Lost despite his category designation. "One day I flew to Hawaii to do a guest spot," he said, "and it has become the role of a lifetime."
Cherry Jones, who played the latest U.S. president on Fox's 24, was named best supporting actress in a drama.
Little Kristin Chenoweth seemed to break down in tears as she took the traditional first Emmy, for best supporting actress in a comedy, as the lovelorn waitress in ABC's dear, departed Pushing Daisies.
Jon Cryer won the supporting actor prize in the category, after four nominations for CBS's Two and a Half Men.
The Daily Show continued its string, nabbing its seventh straight best music, variety or comedy show Emmy. And The Amazing Race kept pace, winning its seventh consecutive Emmy as best competition reality show. Do you still wonder why so many people don't bother to tune in?
Named best reality show host, Jeff Probst, so much more to Survivor than just a host, said he was living his dream. "The adventure you're ready for is the one you get," he said, quoting Joseph Campbell. "Life is short. Go for it."
PBS's delectable Little Dorrit was named best mini-series and earned two more awards, best director (Irishwoman Dearbhla Walsh) and writer (Andrew Davies, master Dickens adapter).
HBO cleaned up, as usual, in the realm of TV movies, grabbing five Emmys. Grey Gardens, about recluse mother and daughter Big and Little Edie Beale, was named best one. Jessica Lange, rightfully, beat out her co-star, Drew Barrymore, as best actress. Brendan Gleeson was named best actor for Into the Storm. He only played Winston Churchill.
Iranian-born Shohreh Aghdashloo was named best supporting actress in a movie or mini-series for HBO's House of Sadam. Best supporting actor in the category: Grey Gardens' Ken Howard. "I'll make my speech as brief as possible in the hopes that it won't be interrupted by a congressman or a rapper," he quipped.
Emmy made things a little more fun this year by shaking up the order of the awards, handing out all the prizes in one genre before moving to the next: Comedy, reality (weren't those clips inspiring?), movies and mini-series, variety, drama. Best drama and comedy series were held till the end, and who could stand the suspense?
Neil Patrick Harris, from CBS's How I Met Your Mother, a Broadway star who brought panache and fun to this year's Tony Awards, emceed in a white dinner jacket, just two days under the traditional end-of-summer deadline.
The usual remembrance of stars passed in the previous year dripped with class as executive producer Don Mischer got Sarah McLaughlin to sing "I Will Remember You," and clips of the departed flashed, including: Walter Cronklite, Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson, Patrick McGoohan, Eartha Kitt, Van Johnson, Ron Silver, Bea Arthur, Karl Malden, Dom DeLuise, David Carradine, Ricardo Montalban, Ed McMahon.
It was Emmy's second year at downtown L.A.'s 2,200-seat Nokia Theater, in a neighborhood where the city is trying to establish an attractive entertainment complex, after a long run at the cavernous Shrine Auditorium, about a mile away.
Blake Lively Leighton Meester of Gossip Girl gave out the award for best director of a comedy to Jeff Blitz of NBC's The Office. It was as close as the CW got to an Emmy.
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