Kicking off every award show lover's favorite time of year, the 64th Primetime Emmy Awards aired Sunday as the start to "awards season" as E! News so eagerly calls it.
Hosted by talk show host Jimmy Kimmel the show honors everyone from the casting directors and cinematographers of primetime television series to actors and hosts. From comedies to dramas, The Emmys pay homage to the greatest storylines, talents and artistic structures television has to offer.
"Modern Family" took home the Best Comedy award for the third year in a row, while "Homeland" nabbed the title for Best Drama, preventing "Mad Men" from winning its fifth straight. "Homeland's" Briton Damian Lewis and Claire Danes also took home the awards for Best Actor and Actress in a Drama Series.
Kimmel's jokes were not life-altering, but did keep the program running smoothly with appropriate in-house chuckles. The evening picked up tremendously when Julia Louis-Dreyfus got up to accept the award for Best Actress in a Comedy Series and mistakenly began to read fellow nominee, Amy Poehler's acceptance speech. The mix-up was clearly planned by the two female comedians, but the laughs roared all the same as Louis-Dreyfus concluded her speech with, "Isn't it a shame that Amy Poehler didn't win?"
The show's producers did not shy away from the importance of social media influence during the broadcast, as well. About halfway through the show, Kimmel urged viewers to tweet, "Tracy Morgan just passed out on stage the Emmys. Turn ABC on now," to gain additional viewers. Morgan played along, laying on the stage for about 10 minutes. When the show came back from commercial break, Kimmel assured viewers that Morgan was fine and passed out due to "exhaustion."
While the prank clearly worked, as it quickly became a trending topic, the overall humor was severely lacking.
Perhaps the most controversial moment of the night came when Kimmel poked fun at memorial tributes that awards shows usually run to honor talent who has passed away. Instead of playing a typical tribute, a video of Kimmel's life accomplishments accompanied by Josh Groban singing One Direction's "What Makes You Beautiful" was shown across America. While Groban's version of the pop song was a hit with the younger audience, Kimmel's video could be taken as slightly disrespectful.
Despite some failed attempts at humor and redundancies, the year's Emmys was much more entertaining than some past.
Alexandra D'Aluisio can be reached at Alexandra.Daluisio@student.shu.edu.
