History was made, records were broken, some shows said goodbye while others made astounding debuts. Let’s get into it!
The big winner of the night – to nobody’s surprise who actually watched it – was Apple TV’s spooky horror-comedy “Widow’s Bay”, which broke the record for most wins by a first-year comedy series in a single year that was made only last year by “The Studio”! (Seth Rogen, you got your work cut out for you with Season 2…) In fact, it would take less time to list the awards it didn’t win – which, as it happens, was only TWO among all the categories in which it had at least one nomination (Guest Actor and Picture Editing, for those keeping score).
Among “Widow’s Bay”’s triumphs included Supporting statuettes for Kate O’Flynn and Stephen Root, Writing for series creator Kate Dippold, Directing for Hiro Murai, Lead Actor for Matthew Rhys, and, of course, Best Comedy Series.
In fact, Rhys was double-fisting greatness tonight, also winning Lead Actor in a Limited Series for his work on a wildly different show (and a wildly different character than Mayor Loftis), “The Beast In Me”, making him the first performer ever to win TWO lead acting awards in the same night!
Another freshman series making its presence felt tonight was the sci-fi dramedy “Pluribus”, which earned star Rhea Seehorn her long-overdue first Emmy Award (for Lead Actress in a Drama Series) and well as Vince Gilligan his 5th career Emmy, this time for Writing. Unfortunately, though, they were not able to pull off the big Best Drama Series win. Better luck with Season 2… whenever that will be…
Alas, Best Drama Series went, once again, to “The Pitt”, which only won one other award the entire night (Noah Wyle for Lead Actor in a Drama Series) after having been upset in both Supporting acting categories, as well as the Writing and Directing categories, despite having multiple nominees in each. Yes, after having lost out on ALL those previous wins, the TV Academy still decided it was somehow the best drama series of the year...
From first-year series to ones taking their final bow – Jean Smart locked up her winning streak with her 5th Lead Actress Emmy for “Hacks” – the first performer to win for all seasons of their show – and tied for the most total Emmys by any performer with 8. She would later be joined in that acclaimed title by Allison Janney, who also won her 8th career Emmy for her Supporting Actress role in “The Diplomat”. Another show celebrating its swan song and going out with a bang was “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert”, which won Best Variety Series after having been unceremoniously canceled last year and going off the air this past May.
After having swept the Supporting acting categories during the Creative Arts Emmys, “DTF St. Louis” became the Limited Series du jour by winning, well, Best Limited Series! The legendary Sally Field rounded out the Limited Series categories with a win for Lead Actress for her role in the TV Movie "Incredibly Bright Creatures" – after all these years, we like her, we still really like her! (Ask your parents.)
Elsewhere – Tom Pelphrey (“Task”) pulled off the upset against half a dozen “The Pitt” stars in the Supporting Actor in a Drama Series category, “The Traitors” continued its winning streak in the Best Reality Competition Series category, and “Slow Horses” peeked its head in the race with an award for Best Directing in a Drama Series (Saul Metzstein).
This definitely sets the stage for what promises to be an interesting Golden Globes next year – stay tuned!
