Show about nothing

 

Jeremy Piven called it out early, but the prattling of the unscripted hosts during tonight's live telecast was not lost on Kirk Ellis, the writer of "John Adams."

It sucked up time from his acceptance speech for outstanding writing for a miniseries, he said backstage after the show, and from other scripted programs that won during the Emmys and deserved their freedom of expression.

How exactly did that happen?

Moments later one of the Offending Five, Jeff Probst, hit the press room, with the ranks of rabid/eager reporters quizzing him to try to clear this up. Apparently the quintuplets couldn't agree on what they should do. They'd come up with an idea and three would take a shine to it, and two wouldn't. Confusion ensued.

"That's why we ended up in nothing," he said.

That's it?

"We knew it was going to be tough," a sheepish and fairly apologetic Probst said.

Isn't that what a producer is for? Make decisions, give direction, cut and pare, slice and dice, if need be. Ellis articulately pointed out the disparity of this telecast, with the lopsided allotment of air time to TV's current go-to genre.

Not sure how this played at home, but from here it looked like a ginormous misfire.

Bryan Cranston does a jig

Bryan Cranston has been asked to the dance before, but now he gets to spin around the floor with the prettiest girl.

That's how he's describing this Emmy win, his first, for best lead actor in a drama on his AMC show.

He gives us a peek into his new look -- the bald head and the 17-pound weight loss: His teacher character in "Breaking Bad" is in chemotherapy in season two and, thus, has lost his hair. Can't wait to see where the series goes.

 

Big winners

 

At least he acknowledged that the live Emmy telecast is running late because of the drawn-out banter, or whatever that was, from the five unscripted show hosts.

But we still had to sit through it. Painful.

So Jeff Probst only gets partial credit for saying what we all already knew. Probst, a perennial winner, just snagged another Emmy for hosting "Survivor."

"30 Rock" just won for best comedy, and "Mad Men" for best drama. Both somewhat preordained, but their wins still pack a wallop.

Another winner tonight, Alec Baldwin, called his co-star Tina Fey "the Elaine May of her generation," and she represents a rare female writer/actor in the business who has a showcase in prime time TV. And she's given the freedom to do an unconventional comedy that pokes fun at the very world it inhabits.

"Mad Men," years in the making because Matthew Weiner couldn't sell it, has put AMC, a little cable network best known for showing old movies, on the map. Go and do likewise, the rest of you.

Cranston breaking good

It's a Spader four-peat, right?

No. Hold. The. Phone.

Three other nominations for Bryan Cranston for "Malcolm in the Middle," and he never won. Should've.

But this -- Cranston just said the restraining order must've been lifted -- is absolutely beautiful. He was the darkest of the dark horses, an apt metaphor given the teacher-turned-meth-dealer he plays.

Cranston wins best actor in a drama, showing that the TV Academy voters actually watched the submitted episodes of this series, "Breaking Bad," and that they don't recoil from baddy bad bads on FX and elsewhere on cable. In fact, they embrace those characters and the actors who transform into them (ie Michael Chiklis as Vic Mackey in "The Shield").

Amazing competition, including "Mad Men's" Jon Hamm, "House's" Hugh Laurie, the aforementioned Emmy hoarder Spader, Gabriel Byrne, "In Treatment," and Michael C. Hall, "Dexter."

Bad girl, funny man

Glenn Close and Alec Baldwin. Can't really take much credit for this, because everyone else in the business, and people who aren't even peripherally involved the entertainment, and perhaps your folks back in the Midwest saw this coming.

Close just won her second Emmy, this time for best lead actress in a drama for playing the scheming, type triple-A, morally ambiguous Patti Hewes on "Damages." On the other side of the coin, Baldwin won best lead actor in a comedy for "30 Rock."

Both well deserved in races where any of the nominees rightfully could claim to be at the top of their games.

'The Wire' dissed again

It was a category completely dominated by cable, where the most intense, charged, complicated and conflicted stories and characters are born these days.

But there had to be one winner for outstanding writing in a drama, and no amount of potential pent-up make-good feelings from the TV Academy voters could propel "The Wire" over current It Show/It Guy "Mad Men"/Matthew Weiner.

Mixed feelings over here at Gold Rush, knowing that "Mad Men" has plenty of other shots, being a freshman series, and "The Wire's" days are done as a weekly mainstay that no one watched but those who did were ferociously loyal.

"Mad Men" started its hardware collection last weekend, with four Emmys. Expect more.

Let Mr. Warmth host the Emmys!

"Let's read these funny lines they've written for us."

Oh, Don Rickles. He's still got it.

If anyone could give Kathy Griffin a run for her money on the rude and unpredictable scale, it would be Mr. Warmth. Is the audience afraid? Lots of nervous laughter? Awesome!

Let Don Rickles host the Emmys!

"Amazing Race" just took the best reality show award, and Jerry Bruckheimer can't even bother to look surprised anymore. Six times, right? The other guys didn't even have a chance. Some people thought it could be "Project Runway's" year, or maybe even "American Idol." Nope.

HBO starts sweep

If you're just hanging around multitasking your little heart out this afternoon/evening, do check in with our brother blogger James Hibberd at Live Feed. A TV reporter extraordinaire, he's typing as fast as his nimble hands will manage here in the press room.

There's been a parade of winners over the past few minutes -- boy, with all the speechifying, time still does really fly by -- and we wonder if the best director for a comedy award for Barry Sonnenfeld means that "Pushing Daisies" could win some other trophies tonight. Fingers crossed.

We can probably say with some certainty that no one else will let loose with the words penis, scrotum and other related genitalia. And if that sounds disconnected to you, just know that it wasn't any more contextual here in the press room.

Tina Fey won for writing "30 Rock" which, again, is no surprise.

HBO's cleaning up. Between "John Adams" and "Recount," the pay cable network that's known for being awards savvy and campaign aggressive is having a very good night. ("John Adams," if you'll recall, already had eight Emmys coming into tonight, given at last weekend's ceremony for those awards that aren't televised because they gum up the works. Like they could've done a worse job than Probst, Klum, Seacrest ...).

Forgot our stun gun

This may sound like a dumb question, but here goes: Who's the genius who shows up to the Emmys with an air rifle in his car?

Not saying that we didn't kind of enjoy watching that show of force from the L.A.P.D. this afternoon when we were trying to get to the Nokia to do our measly little jobs. But we'd really like to strangle that insightful someone who caused The Situation.

It made us so late we had to run. We got sweaty. Hair falling, makeup melting. Not pretty, people!

But now there's the refrigerated press room to crystalize our sweat and start the bone chilling that might've happened anyway because of our piss-poor prediction rate.

We're going in search of coffee and more of those mini-molten things.

 

Let Groban host the Emmys

Why can't Josh Groban host the next Emmy Awards? Or why can't he just step in and finish off this one?

He just rocked the house, literally, with a medley of songs from TV shows ranging from "Friends," yes, he did the rapid claps, "Cops," "Rawhide" mashed up with "Gilligan's Island," and did a damn fine Cartman impression to boot. Hire him!

Others who've been highly engaging tonight: Steve Martin, Conan O'Brien and Ricky Gervais. Hire them! Hire anybody, except don't let Heidi, Howie, et al, take up that valuable time ever again. There's a reason they don't have a lot of chat time on their own shows.

Back to the winners:

"John Adams" is well on its way to becoming the winningest miniseries ever. The incomparable Laura Linney just picked up a trophy for her portrayal of Abigail Adams. No surprise there, but we're always heartened to see her recognized with major hardware.