The 75th Primetime Emmy Awards Honored — and Made — History
On Monday, January 12th, the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences announced their picks for the best television and streaming had to offer this past year in a ceremony broadcast on Fox. The show, which had been delayed from September 2023 due to the Writers and Actors Guild strikes, took advantage of its Diamond Jubilee by filling the telecast with reunions of stars of classic television series and generating perhaps the most diverse and one of the most deserving slate of winners in its storied history. Here, I recap the wins and review the show.
Reflections on the Winners
Succession Dominates the Drama Categories — As Expected. The 4th and final season of HBO’s media mogul drama Succession almost made a clean sweep of the major drama categories. The series picked up its 3rd trophy for Outstanding Drama Series (the only season it did not win for was its 1st), won Outstanding Writing and Directing for the season’s masterful and game-changing episode 3rd episode “Connor’s Wedding,” and scored 3 out of the 4 acting trophies. Stars Sarah Snook and Kieran Culkin won Outstanding Lead Actress and Actor, respectively, wins that made them first-time Emmy winners. (Their wins were also notable the fact that both had previously been nominated in the supporting categories for tthe show but moved to lead this year due to the increased prominence of their roles.) Their co-star Matthew Macfadyen won his 2nd trophy for Outstanding Supporting Actor, making him the sole actor from the show to take home multiple Emmys and the sole actor to repeat in the same category from last year. Also repeating from last year — but in a different category — was Jennifer Coolidge. The hilarious actress, whose later-career resurgence has been one of the brightest stories of Hollywood in recent years, picked up Outstanding Supporting Actress for her role on Mike White’s HBO anthology series The White Lotus. Although this is her 2nd trophy for the role, her win last year came in the Limited Series category. Unlike Culkin and Snook, who switched categories voluntarily, Coolidge was forced to switch categories because the fact that her character returned from the 1st season to the 2nd made the show ineligible as a Limited Series per the Academy’s rules. It is hard to argue with this slate of winners even though I would have preferred more love for the extraordinary 1st season of The Last of Us (which garnered 8 Emmy wins at last weekend’s Creative Arts Emmys, but went home empty-handed tonight) and would love to have seen Aubrey Plaza’s revelatory turn in Lotus win over Coolidge’s work. However, I can’t begrudge the brilliant Succession or Coolidge their wins in the slightest.
The Bear Dominates the the Comedy Categories — As Expected. Like the 4th and final season of Succession, the 1st season of Hulu’s The Bear also picked up 6 of the 7 Comedy trophies. It picked up Outstanding Comedy Series (making it the first Hulu series to do so), Outstanding Writing and Directing for its creator Christopher Storer (who surprisingly was not in attendance at the ceremony), and 3 of the 4 acting trophies. Jeremy Allen White, Ayo Edebiri, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach took home Lead Actor, Supporting Actress, and Supporting Actor, respectively. I found the 1st season of The Bear to be jaw-droppingly excellent and I wholeheartedly support it being an Emmy powerhouse. However, I am quite frustrated that the series is competing in the comedy categories as it garnered less laughs per episode than most of the drama nominees. In fact, I would argue that Succession is far more of a comedy than The Bear, the 1st season of which expertly oscillated between profound tragedy and nerve-wracking tension, but did not tickle the funny bone. The silver lining of it competing here is that it did not have to go up against Succession, allowing both shows to win big for their sterling seasons. Thankfully, however, the best actual comedy series of last year scored a major and historic win when Quinta Brunson became only the 2nd black woman and 3rd woman of color to win Outstanding Lead Actress for the 2nd season of Abbott Elementary. Of note, The Bear’s sweep meant not a single major Emmy for Ted Lasso this year after it scored a whopping 8 major Emmys for its 1st 2 seasons. (Clearly, voters were as disappointed as I was in the show’s meandering 3rd — and perhaps final — season.)
Beef Dominates the Limited Series Categories — As Expected. Netflix’s Beef nearly swept the Limited Series categories with the same dominance that Succession and The Bear did the Drama and Comedy categories. The 10-episode dramedy, which chronicles two Asian-American people struggling with mental health issues whose road rage incident spirals into farce and tragedy, won Outstanding Limited Series, Writing and Directing for creator Lee Sung Jin, and Lead Actor and Lead Actress for Steven Yeun and Ali Wong, respectively. The wins were richly deserved, as were the winners of the supporting categories who prevented them from making a clean sweep. Supporting Actor went to Paul Walter Hauser for his turn as a serial killer on AppleTV+’s surprisingly undernominated Black Bird, while Supporting Actress went to Niecy Nash-Betts for her turn as Jeffrey Dahmer’s neighbor on Netflix’s very clunkily titled Dahmer — Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story.
John Oliver and RuPaul Dominate the Variety and Reality Categories — As Expected. It seems that the only way the Academy could inject some surprises into the Variety categories was to make a significant change to eligibility. By changing the Variety Sketch Series category to Scripted Variety Series, HBO’s Last Night Tonight with John Oliver was forced to move categories from Variety Talk Series and thus compete against NBC’s Saturday Night Live. Given Last Week Tonight and SNL’s Emmy dominance over the past decade, it was not clear who would win now that they were facing off against each other. John Oliver came out victorious, winning the award to add to his 7 for Variety Talk Series. His writing team also won for the 8th time. Oliver’s category move allowed The Daily Show with Trevor Noah to finally win Outstanding Variety Talk Series after losing to John Oliver numerous times and gave us a year without any high-profile wins for the over-awarded Saturday Night Live wins. The lone reality television award given out on the ceremony — Outstanding Reality Competition Series — went to RuPaul’s Drag Race for the 5th time in 6 years. Last week at the Creative Arts Emmys, Outstanding Reality Host went to RuPaul for the 8th time and Structured Reality Program went to Netflix’s Queer Eye for the 6th consecutive time. It might be time for the Academy to shake the Reality categories with some rule changes as well…
The Winners Included Historic Diversity. The racial and ethnic diversity of the winners was mightily impressive. Of the 12 acting awards handed out, 5 (42%) went to non-white actors — Quinta Brunson, Ali Wong, Steven Yeun, Ayo Edebiri, and Niecy Nash-Betts. Quinta Brunson became the 2nd black woman (after Isabel Sanford’s win in 1981 for The Jeffersons) and 3rd woman of color (after Sanford and America Ferrera’s win in 2007 for Ugly Betty) to take Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series. Ayo Ediberi became the 3rd woman of color and 3rd black woman to win Outstanding Suporting Actress (after Jackee Harry for 227 in 1987 and Sheryl Lee Ralph for Abbott Elementary last year). Ali Wong became the 1st Asian woman to win Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie. Steven Yeun became the 2nd Asian man to win Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie (after Riz Ahmed for The Night Of in 2017). Korean writer/director/producer Lee Sung Jin won the Outstanding Writing and Directing in a Limited Series for Beef. RuPaul Charles extended his lead as the black performer with the most Emmys. And his win for Best Variety Special (Live) made openly gay music legend Elton John the 19th person to win an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony, a rare feat that is affectionately referred to as an EGOT. (I have to check my facts on this, but I think he may be the first person to be openly queer at the time they obtained their EGOT.) Add to that Anthony Anderson’s celebration of black-led television series and the Governor’s Award going to the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) and you have a historic night of diverse honorees. GLAAD President’s acceptance speech was perhaps the night’s most rousing moment regarding dviersity and inclusion, as she made a cogent and compelling call for more and better depictions of transgender people.
Additional Records and Milestones. In addition to the diversity milestones mentioned above, there were a handful of other notable records and milestones this year.
- Quinta Brunson became the 1st woman of color and the 2nd woman overall to win for writing and acting for the same series. (The 1st was Phoebe Waller-Bridge for Fleabag.)
- Jennifer Coolidge marks the 2nd time that the following very specific has happened — an actor won Emmys in different categories for the same role due to the fact that a Limited Series proved so popular it was extended into an ongoing series (and thus was no longer deemed a Limited Series by the Academy). The 1st was Maggie Smith for Downton Abbey. A handful of other actors have won in 2 different categories for playing the same role on the same show, but these were due to actors switching from Supporting to Lead (e.g., Jon Cryer for Two and a Half Men, Allison Janney, The West Wing).
- Jesse Armstrong’s 4th win for Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series makes him the writer with the 2nd most wins in the category following only the great Rod Serling (The Twilight Zone). He is also the only person to win the Writing Emmy for every season of a series that lasted multiple seasons.
- Succession now has the 6th most Emmys for Outstanding Drama Series with 3. There is currently a 5-way tie for 1st place between Hill Street Blues, L.A. Law, The West Wing, Mad Men, and Game of Thrones.
- The Bear marked Hulu’s 1st win for Outstanding Comedy Series. It marked the streaming service’s 2nd win for a top award, following The Handmaid’s Tale in Outstanding Drama Series in 2017. It also made Hulu the 3rd streaming service to win in the top comedy category, after Prime Video scored for The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Fleabag and AppleTV+ picked up 2 consecutive trophies for Ted Lasso. Interestingly, Netflix has never won this category.
- AMC’s Breaking Bad spin-off Better Call Saul won no awards for its final season, meaning that it went 0-for-53. This makes it the all-time biggest losers at the Emmys despite its long run and immense critical acclaim. (Note: 2 shorts that spun-off from the series won the relatively new Emmy category of Outstanding Short Form Comedy or Drama Series, but I do not count them as they were not wins for episodes of the actual series.)
Broadcast and Cable vs. Streaming. The ongoing battle of streaming vs. cable television vs. network television at the Emmys played out similarly to recent years. Streaming won the majority of awards, claiming 14. Both Hulu and Netflix won 6 (Hulu’s were all for The Bear whereas Netflix won 5 for Beef and 1 for Dahmer), while AppleTV+ and Disney+ each took home 1 (the former for Black Bird, the latter for Elton John Live!). Cable networks won 11. HBO dominated with 9 (6 for Succession, 2 for Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, and 1 for The White Lotus), while Comedy Central and MTV each scored 1 (the former for The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, the latter for RuPaul’s Drag Race). Network television held on by a thread with Abbott Elementary scoring a single win for ABC.
My Prediction Accuracy. On Saturday, I posted my predictions in all 26 categories. To my shock, I correctly predicted 23 out of 26 categories. My 88% accuracy is my all-time best showing, even up a bit from my 84% accuracy at the previous ceremony. The only categories I got wrong were the supporting comedy wins (I just did not think the Emmys would give The Bear a full sweep) and Variety Talk Series (I gave Stephen Colbert the edge over Trevor Noah). Am I getting better at predicting or are the Emmys just becoming easier to predict? I am guessing a little bit of both and, frankly, I do not know what to make of the latter.
Thoughts on the Telecast
Host Anthony Anderson. Overall, I thought Anthony Anderson (an 11-time-nominee for the recent ABC sitcom Black-ish) did a strong job. He anchored the night in lovingly paying tribute to television history, which is a 180-degree turn from the recent trend of film awards picking emcees that brutally mock the artists and projects they are there to fete. To say that it was refreshing woudl be a profound understatement. His opening bit paying tribute to Good Times, The Facts of Life, and Miami Vice did not entirely land but it worked well enough and set a good tone for the evening in terms of liveliness and classiness. The stuff with his mom, who he had prominentaly seated and armed with a mic to cut people off if they got long-winded, actually worked quite well. The stuff with the American Horror Story rubber suit did not, but I digress.
Presenters. The night got off to an excellent start with respect to presenters when Christina Applegate (Married…with Children, Dead to Me) received a standing ovation as she confidently took the stage following her diagnosis with multiple sclerosis. Her zingers were razor sharp (“You’re totally shaming me by standing up”) but the love and respect in the room were palpable. Then she turned it over to the one and only Carol Burnett, who continued to score laughs and be the epitome of class at the age of 90. Other standalone presenters that did solid work were Pedro Pascal (who continued his comic rivalry with Kieran Culkin), Jon Hamm, Jason Bateman, and Jodie Foster. Then there were some just-fine pairings including Tom Hiddleston and Ke Huy Quan (co-stars on Disney+’s Loki), Brett Goldstein and Juno Temple (co-stars on AppleTV+’s Ted Lasso), Stephen Colbert and Taylor Tomlinson (who both have late night CBS shows), Sheryl Lee Ralph and Jenna Ortega (who I could find no common bond between), and Hannah Waddingham and Colman Domingo (ditto).
The rest of the presenters all were tributes to television history. These included numerous cast reunions — All in the Family (Rob Reiner and Sally Struthers); Cheers (Ted Danson, Rhea Perlman, Kelsey Grammer, John Ratzenberger, George Wendt); The Sopranos (Lorraine Bracco and Michael Imperioli); Martin (Martin Lawerence, Tisha Campbell, Tichina Arnold, and Carl Anthony Payne); Grey’s Anatomy (Ellen Pompeo, Chandra Wilson, James Pickens, Jr., Justin Chambers, and Katherine Heigl); Two and a Half Men (Jon Cryer and Holland Taylor); Community (Joel McHale and Ken Jeong); Ally McBeal (Calista Flockhart, Peter MacNichol, Greg Germann, and Gil Bellows); and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (Charlie Day, Kaitlin Olson, Glenn Howerton, Rob McElhenney, and Danny DeVito). Another wonderful reunion was that of Tina Fey and Amy Poehler who presented Outstanding Variety Special (Live) in a delightful recreation of their classic Weekend Update from Saturday Night Live. A pair of nonagenarians were thoughtfully paired with younger actors to present — 92-year-old Marla Gibbs (The Jeffersons) presented with fellow groundbreaking black actress Quinta Brunson (Abbott Elementary), while 90-year-old Dame Joan Collins (Dynasty) presented with fellow primetime soap opera actress Taraji P. Henson (Empire). Other presenters focused on classic TV were Arsenio Hall (The Arsenio Hall Show), Peter Dinklage (Game of Thrones), Dylan McDermott (American Horror Story), and Tracie Ellis Ross and Natasha Lyonne (who paid tribute to I Love Lucy).
The presentation order of the awards was a real head-scratcher to me as they seemed sequenced by a random number generator at times in stark contrast to the careful thought evident in the rest of the evening. And some presenter bits certainly worked better than others, as they ranged from awkward and stiff to charming and inspired. But almost everything related to the presenters was interesting and well thought out, which is something that cannot be said for 99% of the awards shows I have ever seen. And that is something worth celebrating.
Acceptance Speeches. The night got off to a great start, with Quinta Brunson and Ayo Edebiri delivering touching, funny, and heartfelt speeches in response to their historic wins. The ever-reliable Jennifer Coolidge then followed with her instantly meme-able quote, “I want to thank all the evil gays!” The acceptance speeches certainly peaked early, but there were a handful of other memorable ones, including Kieran Culkin’s emotional tribute to his mother and wife and Niecy Nash-Betts’s show-stopping “I wanna thank me!” There were certainly a few low points, most notably Paul Walter Hauser’s bizarrely rhyming speech, the cast of The Bear’s chaotic turn at the stage, and the section when the reunited cast of Cheers had to deal with back-to-back wins for The Bear creator Christopher Storer, who did not attend the ceremony.
In Memoriam. Charlie Puth and the War and Treaty sand “See You Again” (the elegiac tribute to Paul Walker from the film Furious 7) and “I’ll Be There For You” (the theme song to Friends, in honor of the series’s star Matthew Perry’s tragic passing). It was all elegant and tasteful and put the attention right where it should be — on the mammoth amount of television legends lost in the past year. Some of the most devastating include Norman Lear (creator of ground-breaking sitcoms like All in the Family, The Jeffersons, and Maude); Angela Lansbury (Murder, She Wrote); Kirstie Alley (Cheers); Matthew Perry (Friends); Oscar-winner Alan Arkin (The Kominsky Method); Barbara Walters (legendary journalist of 20/20 and The View); Andre Braugher (Homicide: Life on the Street, Brooklyn Nine-Nine); Cindy Williams (Laverne & Shirley); Tommy Smothers (The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour); legendary actor, singer, and activist Harry Belafonte; Bob Barker (host of The Price is Right); Paul Reubens (aka Pee-Wee Herman); Richard Roundtree (aka Shaft); Leslie Jordan (Will & Grace); Suzanne Sommers (Three’s Company); Irene Cara (Fame); Richard Belzer (Law & Order: Special Victims Unit); Ron Cephas Jones (This Is Us); Lance Reddick (The Wire); Treat Williams (Everwood); Mark Margolis (Better Call Saul); Annie Wersching (24, Bosch); and David McCallum (NCIS). It was truly staggering to see the talent lost last year appear in rapid succession.
In Conclusion. It certainly was not a perfect night. Some bits fell flat, there were a couple of technical snafus, the presentation order of awards was head-scratching, and the back-to-back presentation of a clip package from the Academy in honor of 75 years of Emmys and the presentation of the Governor’s Award hurt the momentum a bit in the final hour. But it was a night full of historic and deserving winners that paid tribute to the rich, beautiful, and important history of television in a way that was joyous, celebratory, and thoughtful. And it did all of that without running over its allotted run time (take note, Oscars).
To put it quite simply, this year’s Emmys exemplify the reason I still watch — and care about — awards shows.
75th Primetime Emmy Award Winners:
Drama
- Outstanding Drama Series: Succession (HBO)
- Outstanding Lead Actress: Sarah Snook, Succession (HBO)
- Outstanding Lead Actor: Kieran Culkin, Succession (HBO)
- Outstanding Supporting Actress: Jennifer Coolidge, The White Lotus (HBO)
- Outstanding Supporting Actor: Matthew Macfadyen, Succession (HBO)
- Outstanding Writing: Jesse Armstrong, Succession (Episode: “Connor’s Wedding”) (HBO)
- Outstanding Directing: Mark Mylod, Succession (Episode: “Connor’s Wedding) (HBO)
Comedy
- Outstanding Comedy Series: The Bear (Hulu)
- Outstanding Lead Actress: Quinta Brunson, Abbott Elementary (ABC)
- Outstanding Lead Actor: Jeremy Allen White, The Bear (Hulu)
- Outstanding Supporting Actress: Ayo Edebiri, The Bear (Hulu)
- Outstanding Supporting Actor: Ebon Moss-Bachrach, The Bear (Hulu)
- Outstanding Writing: Christopher Storer, The Bear (Episode: “System”) (Hulu)
- Outstanding Directing: Christopher Storer, The Bear (Episode: “Review”) (Hulu)
Limited Series
- Outstanding Limited Series: Beef (Netflix)
- Outstanding Lead Actress: Ali Wong, Beef (Netflix)
- Outstanding Lead Actor: Steven Yeun, Beef (Netflix)
- Outstanding Supporting Actress: Niecy Nash-Betts, Dahmer — Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story (Netflix)
- Outstanding Supporting Actor: Paul Walter Hauser, Black Bird (AppleTV+)
- Outstanding Writing: Lee Sung-Jin, Beef (Netflix)
- Outstanding Directing: Lee Sung-Jin, Beef (Netflix)
Variety and Reality
- Outstanding Reality Competition Program: RuPaul’s Drag Race (MTV)
- Outstanding Variety Talk Series: The Daily Show with Trevor Noah (Comedy Central)
- Outstanding Scripted Variety Series: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)
- Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)
- Outstanding Variety Special (Live): Elton John Live: Farewell from Dodgers Stadium (Disney+)
Governor’s Award: Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD)
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