The Morning After: The Emmy Awards

Last night's Emmy Awards were decently fun, and certainly better than last year's, but they still weren't completely terrific. I'm proud to announce that my prediction total more than doubled from last year, rising from 22.6% to 53.1% (or 17/32) - I even won the pool at my Emmy party. I'm also happy that I successfully predicted all six top categories (drama series, comedy series, miniseries, TV movie, variety series, and reality-competition program). I did, sadly, underestimate the upset potential of Bryan Cranston, Zeljko Ivanek, and Dianne Wiest. I, much like everyone else, was rather shocked by Jean Smart's surprise victory for "Samantha Who." There isn't too much to say about the show, because there really wasn't much to it. Share your thoughts in the comments! Some of my brief thoughts below:

The good:
"Mad Men" and "30 Rock" take home deserved trophies with touching acceptance speeches.
Alec Baldwin and Tina Fey give great, extremely happy acceptance speeches.
Pretty much all of the winners seem genuinely excited, even three-time champ Jeremy Piven.
Ricky Gervais - absolutely hilarious. After missing out last year when he won (though I don't think he deserved it), he totally made up for it this year.
Martin Sheen acting as president once again.
Don Rickles - so much fun.
The Smothers brother - though I'm unfamiliar with him and his award seemed awfully random, he gave a great speech.

The bad:
The reality hosts. They tried their best, but it just didn't work out too well. It was never really a good idea to begin with.
Dianne Wiest isn't there to accept her trophy, and as a result, still no one has heard of "In Treatment."
The "TV's greatest moments" bit - didn't really work, and nothing seemed all that interesting with those fake set pieces.
No truly incredible surprises, and no love for "Dexter" at all.

The ugly:
The last winning speech of the night ("Mad Men") being cut short.
Kirk Ellis getting his speech cut short not by music but by a complete cut-away after he started talking about days when politicians used big words.
The reality hosts (I'm thinking they belong here a bit more than in the bad).

I may have more thoughts soon, but the three-hour premiere of "Heroes" will be taking up much of my time tonight.