The 68th Primetime Emmy Awards drew 11.3 million viewers, the smallest audience since individual viewership figures began being released on an annual basis in 1982, according to preliminary data released Monday by Nielsen.
Advertisement
The comic surprises stopped with the Best Actress and Actor categories: Julia Louis-Dreyfus won for the fifth time in a row for Veep – a repeat, sure, but a well-deserved one.
Game of Thrones was the big victor at last night’s Emmy awards.
Amazon Prime is the home of “Transparent”, victor of two Emmy Awards (Jeffrey Tambor, Actor in a Comedy Series, and Jill Soloway, Directing for a Comedy Series). Tatiana Maslany finally was acknowledged for her role on Orphan Black which one of her characters is a lesbian picking up the Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series.
American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson, which earned the second-highest number of nominations, converted five to trophies Sunday.
The top victor in the streaming space was Netflix, which came in third with a total of nine awards, three of which were awarded during the “68th Primetime Emmys Awards” telecast on Sunday night – Ben Mendelsohn for Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for “Bloodline”, Writing in a Comedy series for “Master of None” and Outstanding Writing for a Variety Special for “Patton Oswalt: Talking For Clapping”.
Kate McKinnon, who won best supporting actress in a comedy for her performance on “Saturday Night Live”, generated the most Twitter buzz of any nominated actor, with about 28,000 tweets.
In the comedy realm, Asian-American writing team Aziz Ansari and Alan Yang won the Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series award for the diasporic experience-concerned “Parents” episode of their Netflix series “Master of None”.
Host Jimmy Kimmel joked during his opening monologue that the veteran actress should have made an effort to be at the event, having not attended in previous years either.
Louis-Dreyfus, who plays the vainglorious USA president Selina Meyer on HBO’s “Veep”, apologized for what she called “the current political climate”.
John Oliver captured the best variety talk series award for Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, ending Comedy Central’s 13-year run of wins in the category.
“I think “Veep” has torn down the wall between comedy and politics”, she said. That alone was an excellent example of why this Kimmel hosting stint went so much better than the last one: He had a better sense of where the “too much” line lies, and other than an ill-advised in memoriam joke, he avoided crossing it.
ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel hosted Sunday’s Emmys, as he did in 2012, the last time they aired on the network.
Louie Anderson was honored as best supporting actor in a comedy series for his portrayal of a loving but tough mom in “Baskets”. The best television movie honour was given to “Sherlock: The Abominable Bride”. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and his proposal to build a wall between the United States and Mexico inspired some of the ceremony’s most memorable jabs.
Advertisement
And Kimmel kept the three-hour show moving, poking some jokes at the nominees, including Apprentice producer Mark Burnett.
