If you’re a big TV fan like myself, you know that Monday night, September 17, was the Emmys. The 2018 award show was the 70th annual Emmy celebration of the best of television, the peak of all the shows binged, loved and now recognized for their great success.
The show was hosted by Saturday Night Live’s Weekend Update stars, Colin Jost and Michael Che. At the start of the show, the duo poked fun at diversity and what life was like when the first Emmys first aired, 17 cent gas and agreement that Nazis were bad. Che joked that his mom doesn’t like “white” awards shows because they don’t thank Jesus enough and he says that’s why she would not be watching him. They also talked a bit about Netflix’s success even though most people share a $9 a month account and the company has spent $8 billion on programming and have over 700 original series. They wrapped up their opening of the program with more talk of all the shows coming back with more diversity. For example, a new Magnum PI featuring a Latino lead and a black Samantha in a reboot of Bewitched, which they joked would be balanced out by a reboot of Atlanta called 15 Miles Outside of Atlanta, which would feature all white people.
It was no surprise that the ever-so-popular Game of Thrones went home with the gold of Outstanding Drama Series. The show was in good company as the other nominees are also extremely popular, binge-worthy dramas such as This Is Us, Westworld, The Crown, The Handmaid’s Tale, Stranger Things and The Americans. If only they could all win. All are widely-known and all, except The Americans, have highly anticipated future seasons to come. (Just a reminder that This Is Us comes back Tuesday, September 25 at 9 p.m.) Game of Thrones’ Peter Dinklage (who plays Tyrion Lannister) won Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series. GOT also won for Special Visual Effects. The series’ Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Jaime Lannister), Lena Headey (Cersei Lannister) and Diana Rigg (Olenna Tyrell) were also nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress and Guest Actress, respectively.
Another huge winner was The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. This Amazon Prime Video original series is about a young divorcee named Miriam “Midge” Maisel who in 1958 dives into the male-dominated world of comedy. It is a different kind of series, unlike anything else on television. The risk clearly paid off as the series beat out hilarious shows in their win for the category of Outstanding Comedy Series. Nominees included Atlanta, Barry, Black-ish, Curb Your Enthusiasm, GLOW, Silicon Valley and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel was nominated for many awards and left with 4 wins. The show’s Alex Borstein won Outstanding Supporting Actress in A Comedy Series. She plays Mrs. Maisel’s manager, Susie Myerson. The show’s star, Rachel Brosnahan a.k.a. Mrs. Maisel won Outstanding Lead Actress in A Comedy Series. The writer and director of the series, Amy Sherman-Palladino won Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series and Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series. Tony Shalhoub was also nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series and Jane Lynch was nominated for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series.
The winner of Outstanding Limited Series was given to the FX series The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story. In this category were The Alienist, Genius: Picasso, Godless and Patrick Melrose. Star of the show, Darren Criss won Lead Actor in a Limited Series/Movie. This was Criss’ first Emmy win. The series also received awards for Casting in a Limited Series, Movie or Special. Other actors in the show such as Penelope Cruz, Judith Light, Finn Wittrock, Ricky Martin and Edgar Ramírez were nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actress and Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series/Movie.
A big surprise of the night was that director of the Oscars, Glenn Weiss (who won the award for his work on the Oscars for Outstanding Directing for a Variety Special) proposed to longtime girlfriend Jan Svendsen. The romantic encounter included him asking “You wonder why I don’t like to call you my girlfriend?” followed by the applause filled answer, “Because I want to call you my wife.” He popped the question soon after and gave Svendsen the ring that his father gave his mother 67 years ago. The audience was surprised and gave the couple a standing ovation. Weiss’ daughters, whom he did thank in his speech, were reportedly not informed that he was going to do this. According to Page Six, “sources say that Weiss’ 17- and 21-year-old daughters learned that their dad was getting remarried at the same time as the rest of America — while they were watching the NBC awards broadcast at home.” Apparently, the girls are not happy that they were not given a heads up.
So, if you have not watched these big winners, get to it. They definitely worked very hard for these wins.
Information about winners and nominees are courtesy of Rolling Stone.