Emmy Reactions

Well, that’s a wrap on an Emmy season that felt like my most invested in a while since there were so many shows I didn’t regularly watch contending. My score was considerably worse than last year’s, when I ranked 15th out of almost 3000 on GoldDerby, whereas this year, I’m 1738th. I got only 12/27, which is down from 18/26 last year. That said, I’m pretty happy overall with a lot of the winners.

I just watched season two of “Fleabag” two weeks ago and loved it. Even though I think that “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” was excellent and could also have won, it still took home four acting trophies, which is not nothing. I’m happy that “Veep” wasn’t rewarded since it already has been, and I’m fine with Bill Hader repeating. “Fleabag” winning so much is really wondrous, especially after being shut out for season one.

“Game of Thrones” was always going to dominate, but it took only two expected awards tonight. I’m not fond of “Ozark” or “Succession,” but good for them for getting in some wins for hard work. I was thrilled for Billy Porter, who showed up in a big way, and I couldn’t be more excited about being wrong in my prediction for Best Lead Actress in a Drama Series since Jodie Comer is absolutely incredible and totally deserved to win.

I tune out the variety and reality categories, and in the limited series races, my two favorites that I actually watched all the way through, “When They See Us” and “A Very English Scandal,” each only scored one win apiece, which was expected for the latter but not as much for the former. Jharrel Jerome’s speech was superb, and it was very affecting to see the Exonerated Five in the crowd. I backed the wrong Patricia Arquette performance to win, and I do enjoy it when there are multiple people in the same category with the same first name (like Patricia Clarkson, the predicted favorite). Tonight, I expected to hear Tony Hale called but instead it was Tony Shalhoub, which wasn’t a surprise to many.

What I didn’t love about the show is how certain categories were rushed through, announced by an unseen voice and then interrupted to bring in and introduce the presenters. There’s no consistency, and so one category featured clips and then the next didn’t for no discernable reason. This show is best as a platform for underseen programs to be exposed, so bring on the clips! What’s not necessary, however, are spoiler-filled tributes to two departing HBO series that ensure that any viewer will now how they ended, and that weird tribute to other departing shows including “Gotham.” No thanks.

I did love seeing Bill Hader and Phoebe Waller-Bridge present together and joke about being the tallest people there, presenting “most limited actor in a cancelled series.” Maya Rudolph and Ike Barinholtz pretending to have had Lasik surgery and mispronouncing every nominee except Ted Danson was pretty hilarious. And Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel taking down the no-host concept with references to Applebee’s and Jason Bateman’s boring vacations was a lot of fun too.

And just like that, it’s time for all the new fall pilots to start beginning tomorrow. I’ll be posting a whole host of Minute with Abe pilot reviews along with regular written reviews of my returning favorites. Things will also be getting started back up on Movies With Abe as I start to see more movies. Thanks for reading, and stick around!