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Tina Fey stands with the cast and crew of 30 Rock as they accept the award for best comedy series at the Emmy Awards - Source: Reuters -
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The comedy 30 Rock and advertising drama Mad Men won
television's highest honours for a second year on Monday (NZT) in a
ceremony where old favourites triumphed over a handful of new
faces.
But both shows failed to live up their promise going into the 61st
Primetime Emmy Awards.
30 Rock, which had a leading 22 nominations, came away with just
five, including best actor for Alec Baldwin. Click here for the
list of winners in the leading categories .
But the show's creator Tina Fey, who won last year, lost out
this time to Australian Toni Collette in the best comic actress
race.
"Phew! That was a nail-biter," said Fey, accepting the best comedy
award for 30 Rock.
"Thanks for keeping us on the air even though we are more
expensive than a talk show."
Mad Men, the similarly low-rated but acclaimed drama set in the
1960s, won just three of the 16 Emmys for which it had been
nominated, including best writing.
Last year the show made history by becoming the first series
from a cable network other than HBO to win the Emmy for best
drama.
"I may be the only person in the room with complete creative
freedom. That's why the show is so good," said Mad Men creator
Matthew Weiner, who won the Emmy for best writing for a drama
series.
Glenn Close repeated her win for best dramatic actress for her
role as a ruthless lawyer in Damages.
Accepting her award, Close called it the "character of my
lifetime".
Bryan Cranston, who plays a chemistry teacher who turns to drug
dealing to pay for his medical bills in Breaking Bad, was also a
repeat as best actor in a drama.
Despite expanding the number of nominees this year in a bid to
acknowledge the range of offerings on more than 120 networks and
cable channels available to American viewers, upstarts like Fox's
irreverent cartoon series Family Guy and HBO's polygamy drama Big
Love went home empty-handed.
And there were no surprises in the reality competition show
category.
Amazing Race , won for a seventh straight year,
beating rivals American Idol, Dancing with the Stars, Top Chef and
Project Runway.
Put down the remote
Host Neil Patrick Harris, star of the sitcom How I Met Your
Mother, kicked off the live telecast with a comic song and dance
routine called Put Down The Remote that urged viewers to resist the
urge to switch channels or go online.
Last year's Emmy telecast attracted the smallest audience in the
awards show's history, with just 12.2 million viewers.
In a bid to give viewers a bigger voice in a ceremony that mostly
rewards shows with modest audiences rather than popular favourites,
the Academy asked viewers to vote online during the telecast for
the breakthrough moment of the year.
The award was won for a scene from the vampire series True
Blood.
Kristin Chenoweth won best supporting comic actress for
Pushing Daisies , a show cancelled earlier this
year by ABC.
"I'm unemployed now, so I'd like to be on Mad Men," Chenoweth
joked, adding "Thank you so much to the Academy for recognising a
show that's no longer on the air."
Grey Gardens - about the eccentric relatives of Jacqueline Kennedy
- won six Emmys, including best TV movie.
But the BBC production of Charles Dickens tale Little Dorritt did better with seven Emmys, including outstanding miniseries.
Click here to check out the best dressed and worst dressed stars from the ceremony.
