Robert Bianco: What the Emmys Awards got right and wrong
You expect mean from Jimmy Kimmel. You just hope you'll also get funny.
When he hosted the Emmys in 2012, the balance was off. Sunday, making his return as ABC's host, he hit the mark right all night.
The first sign that things would go better came with his opening taped bit, which included a Carpool Karaoke stint with James Corden and climaxed with a shockingly funny cameo by Jeb Bush as a limo driver. "Were you nominated?," he asked Kimmel. "Wow, what's that like?"
The monologue that followed was short and, for Kimmel, almost sweet. Oh yes, there were jabs at Marcia Clark, Donald Trump (who was mentioned, perhaps, a bit more often Sunday than was wise) and Maggie Smith — a bit that paid off later when she won an Emmy — but they were more good-natured than nasty. He even let himself be made the butt of a joke, as Matt Damon came out to mock him for losing to John Oliver in the talk show category.
It was a pattern that held out through the show, from an amusingly silly bit involving peanut-butter sandwiches to a more pointed yet still funny joke built around using Bill Cosby as a presenter. That alone was an excellent example of why this Kimmel hosting stint went so much better than the last one: He had a better sense of where the “too much” line lies, and other than an ill-advised in memoriam joke, he avoided crossing it.
'People v. O.J. Simpson' leads Emmy Awards with five wins
As for the awards themselves, the drama categories gave us two of the Emmys' best choices: wins for Mr. Robot's breakout young star, Rami Malek, and Orphan Black's Tatiana Maslany (joined in the supporting categories by Downton Abbey's Maggie Smith and Bloodline's Ben Mendelsohn). It's a shame the Emmy voters didn't keep that streak going by picking either Robot or The Americans over HBO’s repeat winner Game of Thrones — but still, those other wins were almost enough to make you think they've finally actually started to watch television.
There were also a few surprises on the comic front, with Louie Anderson’s win for playing a mother in FX's Baskets followed by Kate McKinnon's even more surprising award for NBC's Saturday Night Live. I’m not sure how anyone is supposed to compare work in a sketch show to a sitcom or, in Transparent's case, a show that is closer to a drama than a comedy. But those are the kind of comparisons the often illogical Emmy categories force voters to make.
The comic surprises stopped with the Best Actress and Actor categories: Julia Louis-Dreyfus won for the fifth time in a row for Veep — a repeat, sure, but a well-deserved one. (And who could be cruel enough to object, after she revealed that her father died Friday?) That was followed by another repeat winner, Jeffrey Tambor for Transparent, but in his case any other result would have been a miscarriage of justice. Oh, and there was a second-straight win for Veep — a good show, but not so good that it needed to repeat.
The movie and miniseries awards went pretty much as expected — but then, shocks here would have been truly shocking. FX’s superb The People vs. OJ Simpson: American Crime Story won for Best Limited Series while also taking acting Emmys for Sarah Paulson (the night's one true lock), Courtney B. Vance and Sterling K. Brown, along with the Emmy for writing. The only downside? Seeing FX's also superb Fargo get shut out — and seeing PBS's shamefully weak Sherlock: The Abominable Bride win a shamefully weak movie category.
The Emmy broadcast is never going to be the world's most exciting: It's long, it lacks glamour, and it drags in the variety-show middle. Still, overall, you got some surprises, some coronations, some well-earned repeats, and some funny moments from a strong host.
Pretty much all you could hope.
