Ah there’s just too much on television tonight. Say what you
will about how inaccurate it is for many shows/actors that deserve the awards,
but I want to watch the Emmys because it is the culmination of a year of
television which basically fuels me, and this blog, on a weekly basis. I also
want to watch the Bears vs. Steelers game over on NBC. As a Bears fan living in
Indianapolis I get to watch about 27.8% of their games every season so I hate to
squander a chance, even if it’s against the lowly Steelers that they’ll
probably lose embarrassingly to. Then of course there’s two dramas airing in
the 9:00 slot that have certainly piqued my interest. Breaking Bad has its penultimate episode airing and of course it
has to be watched in a timely manner to avoid internet spoilers. And finally
but certainly least is Dexter which
probably be pushed to the end of my night, if not tomorrow, but it is the end
of a show that lasted eight years and it did have its moments over the years.
The Emmys and the
Bears undoubtedly have the most “live” appeal since it sucks to watch a sports
game after it’s happened and the Emmys are way more fun when you’re reading
tweets about how happy/disappointed people are with the goings-on. So my thumb
will be getting a lot of work hitting the ‘recall’ button between the two until
at least 9:30. By then the anticipation of watching Breaking Bad will force me to break into the DVR and watch. At
least by then enough will be recorded so I can fly through the commercials.
So I’m going to keep this pretty concise to the big
categories and stray observations of the broadcast, plus the occasional Bears
update as the game goes along. Oh and I’m sure I’ll miss more than couple
noteworthy moments (especially after I check in on Walter White and the gang)
but it is what it is, let’s watch the 2013
Primetime Emmy Awards.
The show kicks off with our host Neil Patrick Harris walking
down a hallway talking about everything he’s sacrificing by hosting for a
second time. He’s led into a room filled with monitors (Matrix style) where he takes on the envious task of trying to
binge-watch an entire year of television. The shows characters are edited to
appear as if they’re helping to coach Neil through this and give him some
advice but the sketch falls very flat and seems very messy. The monologue isn’t
much better as NPH plays it extremely safe with his jabs, I suppose I’ve grown
accustom to more of a roast format here. Former hosts begin to come on stage, Jimmy Kimmel
and Jane Lynch help Neil by talking him through this. They, of course, are
followed by Jimmy Fallon and Conan O'Brien to complete the line of all the recent hosts. Conan
explains how different the world was when he hosted: “people had storage and
they didn’t even have to fight for it.” The camera pans out and we see Kevin
Spacey break the fourth wall and talk to directly to us, the viewers, as he
explains how this was all part of his plan. Finally, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler
chime in with some commentary about the direction they’d like to see the show
go. I’m pretty sure these two who can do no wrong at this point.
This segues into Fey and Poehler presenting the first award of the night, Outstanding supporting actress for a Comedy Series. And shockingly the award goes to Merrit Wever for Nurse Jackie, Modern Family didn’t win! Great acceptance speech: “Thank you so much. I gotta to go, bye.”
Switching over to NBC just in time to watch Carrie Underwood
sing the Sunday Night Football song, haven’t missed anything from the game yet.
Outstanding Supporting Actor in a comedy series goes to Tony
Hale! Yes the Modern Family shake-up has
begun! Wow they’re playing Tony Hale off very quickly though, you’d think there’d
be some extra time after Merrit literllay took 5 seconds for hers. I’ve never
seen Veep but I love Tony Hale in
everything he’s been in and he was very deserving of the award.
Channel change over to Bears game, they’re not losing!
Back over to the Emmys and out come Alec Baldwin and Jon
Hamm who is looking amazing with a beard. For the record, I’d love to watch a
show with these two. They present the award for best lead actress in a comedy
series and it goes to Julia Louis-Dreyfuss. Well, at least the Modern Family Empire
toppled down but the JLD monopoly keeps Poehler off the board for another year.
Tony Hale hilariously goes up there with her after being played off by the
music after he won.
Bears up 3-0 but ugh, they just gave up a 10 yard run to Felix
Jones, could be a long night.
Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series goes to Jim
Parsons. I have to say this seems like an “asterisk category” without Nick
Offerman being nominated, but whatever. I’m not a fan of Big Bang Theory but you can’t blame that on Parsons, he really does
carry that show.
Woah, Bears quickly up 10-0, Steelers must have had a
turnover.
Matt Damon and Michael Douglas introduce Elton John who will
be performing. Sorry Elton but I’m going to assume you rock it out there and
switch back over to NBC for a few minutes. Bears are at the 5 yard line!? Holy
cow they score here and it make my decisions of what to watch for the rest of
the night much easier. They do, 1 yard touchdown run by Michael Bush. Scratch
that, refs called him down at the two inch line, Tressman challenges. Bears
lose the challenge and decide to go for it on fourth down. Bush gets in for 18th
time on this series, 17-0 Bears. Although as Matt Forte owner I really could
have used him getting the score instead of Bush… okay so it’s hard to write
about sports and make it sound exciting.
Back to Emmys, looks like Damon and Douglass (coming to CBS
this fall) accepted an award from someone. Cool? Arg, both shows at commercial
at the same time and BB started 7
minutes ago. Must. Be. Patient.
The cast of HIMYM give
us a public service announcement about EHD (Excessive Hosting Disorder).
Arsenio Hall as he has also been afflicted with this disease. Hah, we find out
that NPH can get help at ‘The Ryan Seacrest Center for Excessive Hosting’, got
to admit that was pretty funny.
Henry Bormell wins for best writing posthumously. Glad he
got to win and that episode of Homeland he
wrote (“Q&A”) was really fantastic, especially in a season of Homeland which was not at the top of its
game. Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series goes to Anna Gunn, time
for the Breaking Bad annihilation to
begin.
Back over to the Bears, Pittsburgh is in the red zone which seems
to be a recurring theme every time I switch channels. Roethlisberger makes a
poor throw so the Steelers are forced to take the field goal. 17-3 Bears.
It’s about time Neil breaks into a musical number. The song takes a meta approach as the songs theme is about it being in the middle of the show as opposed to it being a typical opening musical number like always. Hey at least Nathan FIllion comes out to sing with him, but as much as I love Sarah Silverman I’m pretty disappointed that Felicia Day isn’t out there. Would have been a nice Doctor Horrible reunion. Oh and Outstanding Reality Competition goes to The Voice. Yup, don’t care.
Bears get a pick 6 from Major Wright. His Dad, Sergeant,
must be so proud. 24-3 Bears.
Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series goes to Bobby
Canavalle. Wow what an upset,I guess I need to start watching Boardwalk Empire. I would have loved to
see Jonathon Banks win though for the work he did on Breaking Bad… and apparently Canavalle’s married to Rose Byrne so
he’s just piling it on these other nominees.
Crap, Roethlisberger to Antonio Brown for a Steelers
touchdown. 24-10 Chicago and somehow I keep switching over just in time to
watch every score.
Holy cow, Jeff Daniels wins for Best Actor in a Drama
Series. Lots and lots of upsets this year but I can’t say I’m ecstatic about
this one. If it’s not going to go to Cranston then can we at least give it to
Jon Hamm? Otherwise AMC is going to keep splitting up this final season of Mad Men until he wins one. Speaking of Mad Men, Don Cheadle gives us a history
of television in the 1960’s. Save it for Mathew Weiner, Emmys.
Now Carrie
Underwood is singing ‘Yesterday’ for some reason, big night for her on both
channels I’m watching but this move doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me.
Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series goes to Clare
Danes. No surprise, move along everyone. Back to the Bears game. Al Michaels
and Chris Collinsworth are discussing how Jay Cutler was brought in to help
interview who the Bears coach would be. And now it’s halftime. There’s some
strange music set to themes of shows? Sorry I missed the introduction to
whatever this is, I was over on the Bears game for a while and I think I’m
going back. Of course during halftime of the game almost nothing happened on
the Emmys... Approximately 40 minutes until I start Breaking Bad.
Outstanding Variety Series goes to The Colbert Report! It’s been a night of upsets and I’m really glad
that Colbert finally gets his due. You have to figure that Jon Stewart taking
off the whole summer has something to do with The Daily Show not winning for 138th straight time but you
can’t say this wasn’t a long time coming.
Haven’t checked in on the Bears in a while, they’re up to 27-13 with 5 minutes left in the third quarter. One more score by them and I don’t see any way this beleaguered Steelers team can put up enough points to win. Matt Forte got his ankle rolled over on the last play and has to limp to the sideline, that doesn’t bode well.
Time for the always sad In-Memoriam, although this year we
got a few deaths covered early on in the broadcast making death a repeated theme throughout
the evening. As usual we lost some great ones, but at least we still have Miley
Cyrus.
Wow Antonio Brown just made an absolutely amazing one-handed
grab for a Steelers touchdown. 27-20 Bears but the Steelers have all the
momentum. Urgh. On the bright side it looks like Matt Forte is fine.
Michael Douglass wins for his role in Behind the Candelabra. He makes a few gay puns and has a laugh with Matt Damon about them. We’re 10:59 and still have a ways to go here. Let’s go Emmys, I want to watch my show!
Will Ferrell brings his kids up to present the last awards
for best Comedy and Drama. How does this man crack me up so easily? He comes up
completely disheveled explain he just got a call from the Emmys 45 minutes ago
that they needed him to come fill in for Maggie Smith. The award for Outstanding
Comedy Series goes to Modern Family.
There’s no justice that it won over Arrested
Development, Parks and Recreation, Louie, New Girl, etc. but the Emmy voters
love this show for some reason and that will never change.
Yes! Breaking Bad finally
wins for best drama. I just fist-pumped for the first time tonight, including
watching those Bears touchdowns. I think my favorite part of them winning was
Louis C.K. gleefully cheering for them as they all stood up. Everyone loves
this show (although the cast of Mad Men seems
pretty disgruntled by it). Much deserved win, I’m assuming they’ll be back up
there this time next year too.
So that wraps up the year in television (at least as far as
the awards are concerned). We saw plenty of changes this year as the Modern Family finally stops getting
rewarded for being uncreative (well for acting anyway). We saw plenty of new
actors take home awards, including the greatest speech of all-time by Merrit
Wever. We saw, as usual, terrible production tactics as the Emmys filled the
show with countless minutes of fluff leading to acceptance speeches getting cut
off at around the 30 second mark. And of course we saw all the actors do a
wonderful job of acting like they actually wanted to be there. At the time of
this posting the Bears are up 27-23 but the way this game is
going it doesn't look good. Okay, Breaking Bad, I’ve been
a very good and patient boy tonight and I’m very excited to view you now.
UPDATE: Bears up 40-23. So much for that worry.
What did everyone else think? Feel free to vent your qualms below.
