And the Emmy goes to...

Just finished watching 4 hours of Emmy's coverage - god how I love having Austar at home...

Some observations then.

I really should watch Angels in America it would seem. 11 awards by my count, including 6 in the 'prime-time' categories. It was on ABC a few months ago but for some reason or another I just seemed to miss it. Now I'm going to have to watch it so I too can be one of those people who say "Oh darling, did you see Angels in America? They say that television is the new cinema, and after watching this I just have to agree! Al Pacino was incredible!"

Al Pacino... well, he talked a lot. From what I've heard he definitely deserved the best leading actor award, but I don't think he had to talk for quite that long.

As Kelsey Grammer said, only Sarah Jessica Parker could get away with thanking "passers-by" in her acceptance speech for best leading actress in a comedy. Good work on that award by the way!

Good work as well to Frasier: 6 awards, including best actor for Kelsey Grammer, best supporting for David Hyde Pierce, and best guest star in a comedy for Laura Linney. Frasier never did particularly well in Australia, which is a pity, because it's a bloody good show. Very strange to think that it's over - what will Kelsey Grammer do now? He's played the same character on television for over 20 years...

There were other huge shows that said goodbye this year, most notably Friends and Sex and the City. It's a pity that none of these 3 shows won for outstanding comedy series, which was taken by Arrested Development (I don't think this has been shown in Australia yet, like most good tv). It will be a very different Emmy's next year without these programs, and apparently more are set to join the list, including Everybody Loves Raymond (thank god - I never got the appeal of that show) and Law & Order, a show that seems to have been running longer than television itself has.

Another show that could be joining the list is, god willing, The West Wing. By all reports the show is a very poor shadow of its former self, particularly now that Aaron Sorkin has left. As much as I absolutely worship this program, I definitely do not want to it to go on and on and on past its time. The fact that The West Wing only won one Emmy (more about that one a second) shows that it's maybe time to let go. Certainly a tad different to the 12 or so that it hauled in its first year.

So, Allison Janney winning best actress in a drama, huh? I think it's safe to say that no-one was more surprised by this than 'CJ' herself. From what I've read, everybody thought that Edie Falco had this one in the bag after The Sopranos was ineligible to enter the awards last year. But I guess Allison Janney really is as good as I think she is! Not sure about the dress though...

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Bradley Whitford and Jane Kaczmarek are officially the sweetest couple. Ever. I always want either one of them to win at awards shows, not only because they're both incredible actors, but because their acceptance speeches are always so very very sweet. Just find what Whitford said to his wife when he won an Emmy a few years ago, and you'll understand.

Gary Shandling was absolutely shocking as a host. Not funny, at all. And he looked like he'd ODed on botox.

Actually, he had one funny comment: "Hey, we missed Osama Bin Laden, but we got Martha Stewart! Don't you feel safer now?"

The other classic comment of the night was from the man who should've been hosting, Conan O'Brien. "It's a pity Joan Rivers couldn't be here tonight. Yeah, apparently she's out protesting against high-definition tv."

The constant jokes about the very strange Elaine Stritch were also pretty funny. As was the woman herself, but in a different way...

Barbara Streisand's dress was the only particularly hideous one I saw, but then I didn't really see many beforehand. The 'red carpet' coverage was incredibly bad. When you have to bring on Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy to make a show interesting, you know that there's something wrong. Please, please come back Joan and Melissa!

So all in all, a pretty damn good awards show. Maybe television is the new cinema afterall. If HBO continue to make the incredible stuff that they've been making (The Sopranos, Sex and the City, Angels in America, Deadwood) and Hollywood keeps on putting out the overwhelming crap that they've been making lately (Troy, Van Helsing, anything with The Rock or Mandy Moore), then it just might happen. As long as they quickly and very efficiently move away from reality tv...