2017 PRIMETIME EMMY AWARDS ANALYSIS! HANDMAIDS & LIES, DONALD GLOVER MAKES HISTORY, "SNL" and the STUPID F***ING AWARDS ORDER!

Well, the big news for me, is that, at least when it comes to tonight's awards, I did amazingly well! 22/27 tonight! Even I'm shocked by that! Happy, but shocked. I never do that well at these things anymore.

As to the show, I'd say this was a hum-drum year. Colbert was fine, and at times really funny, but what the hell was with the format? Now, I had heard this weird report that the structure of the series was all over the place, but good god, it really was all over the place and completely nonsensical.

And I do not care if people think the Limited Series or Drama Series are bigger in one year or another, OUTSTANDING COMEDY SERIES doesn't belong in the middle of the show. That was atrocious! Yeah, no, I'm not crazy "Veep" won again, and that Julia Louis-Dreyfus extended her record to SIX CONSECUTIVE EMMYS, comedy series is the genre that survives; it's the premiere Emmy category, it should at least, be in the same league as Drama Series. Hell, I'd put it above that too. Some of you may watch the Drama Series and go, "They're the premiere shows", but you know what, nobody's gonna remember what the top drama series are ten years from now. Comedy series are around forever, they're rerun more often, they stick in the head, they're importance and influence is vastly greater. You think the Emmys liked "The Brady Bunch", hell no, but they made damn sure to mention Ms. Brady's passing didn't they? It sticks with you, trust me. It shouldn't have been there.

Now, admittedly, I've never been particularly thrilled with how they do the Emmys recently either. I don't personally like how they do the Genre thing, so for next year's Emmys, can I suggest a format? I don't know why I asked that formally, but how about this, let's separate them by categories next time. For instance, the Supporting acting categories first, like this perhaps:

SUPPORTING ACTOR-COMEDY SERIES
SUPPORTING ACTRESS-DRAMA SERIES
SUPPORTING ACTOR-LIMITED SERIES
SUPPORTING ACTRESS-LIMITED SERIES
SUPPORTING ACTOR-DRAMA SERIES
SUPPORTING ACTRESS-DRAMA SERIES

Okay, then maybe do, Directing next

DIRECTING-VARIETY SERIES/SPECIAL
DIRECTING-LIMITED SERIES
DIRECTING-COMEDY SERIES
DIRECTING-DRAMA SERIES

then perhaps Writing

WRITING-VARIETY SERIES/SPECIAL
WRITING-DRAMA SERIES
WRITING LIMITED SERIES
WRITING-COMEDY SERIES

then maybe, the do the Lead Performances

ACTOR-LIMITED SERIES
ACTRESS-LIMITED SERIES
ACTOR-DRAMA SERIES
ACTRESS-COMEDY SERIES
ACTRESS-DRAMA SERIES
ACTOR-COMEDY SERIES
(Include Reality Host if you have it one year here too.)

Then maybe, PROGRAMS
REALITY-COMPETITION SERIES
TELEVISION MOVIE
VARIETY-SKETCH SERIES
VARIETY-TALK SERIES
LIMITED SERIES
COMEDY SERIES
DRAMA SERIES

I mean, you can alternate from here, but why not this format if you don't want to do the typical COMEDY, then REALITY, then, VARIETY, then LIMITED then DRAMA, and come back to COMEDY SERIES. Just don't do this, fucking random shit, where nobody knows what the hell category's up next, and shoving bigger categories where they shouldn't be!

As to the results, with Drama Series being the big unknown, we knew we'd get a new winner, and "The Handmaid's Tale" swept! It became the first Streaming Service Series to win the Best Drama Series, or any series category-, well, technically Technically won for "Black Mirror" for TV Movie, for Netflix, but TV Movie, let's be fair, doesn't count, I don't care if it's a regular series and participating in category fraud, it doesn't actually count, which means congrats to Hulu. They finally broke through and they won. "The Handmaid's Tale" won Series, Lead Actress, finally Elisabeth Moss, wins, like 12 years overdue, but great, Writing and Directing for the Pilot episode, and Ann Dowd, a surprise winner for Supporting Actress, that was a shock, and she gave a wonderful speech. Good for her, longtime, great character actor, finally getting a win. John Lithgow, "The Crown''s only win, and this is interesting, it's his, sixth Emmy overall, or something ridiculous like that, but he's the first person to ever win the Supporting Actor in a Drama Series category, for playing a real-life person! I know, I couldn't believe it either. Lead Actor, went to Sterling K. Brown beating out, among other his own castmast Milo Ventimiglia, for "This is Us" the first person to win that category for a network series in a long time; discarding Kyle Chandler's win for "Friday Night Lights" cause that was more, DirecTV or "Audience" at that point than NBC, you gotta go back to James Spader winning for "Boston Legal". He's also the first African-American to win the category, as he lovingly pointed out before they cut off his mike, since Andre Braugher did it for "Homicide: Life on the Street". BTW, Reed Morano's win for directing "The Handmaid's Tale" the first female to win that category since Mimi Leder won for "ER" in '94! Just looked that one up.

On to Comedy Series, less surprises, "Veep" and Julia Louis-Dreyfus won again, Donald Glover though, winning for Directing, and for acting, and I don't think that combination has ever happened. In fact, I think he's the first African-American to win that category, and he's the first African-American to win Lead Actor in a Comedy Series since Robert Guillaume did it for "Benson", (First time both Lead Actor in a Drama and Comedy Series went to African-Americans to btw) First time somebody's won for Acting and Directing for the same show, in the same year, and the only other person to win both for the same series was Alan Alda, for "M*A*S*H" a long-ass time ago, back in the '70s. Alda also won Writing at a certain point, Glover might do that someday, but "Master of None" won it for the second year in a row, and with that win Lena Waithe became the first African-American woman to win that category, ever, and she gave a wonderful speech, and I'm glad she won, 'cause that was a great and important episode.

Other than him though, more "SNL" both Alec Baldwin and Kate McKinnon won Supporting Actor and Actress respectively, and on top of Sketch Comedy Series and Directing wins, they won eight total Emmys this year, counting the Creative Arts, that's the most they've ever won by far in a given year, which is insane considering what season they're in, and also, they're the first regular series to ever win four acting awards in the same year, since both Melissa McCarthy and Dave Chappelle won their respected Guest Acting awards earlier. (BTW, why did they just announce the winners of the Guest categories? C'mon! Some people might not known Carrie Fisher was nominated, and even if you didn't, just don't introduce them like that, make a presentation of it! Stupid.) Variety-Talk Writing and Series, also went as expected for the second year in a row to "Last Week Tonight with John Oliver". Kimmel & Colbert had a nice funny bit about that show only having to do one show a week, but yeah I get that.

Other than Limited Series Writing going to "Black Mirror" the biggest upset of the night, might've been "The Voice" repeating for Reality-Competition Series, upsetting newcomer to the category "RuPaul's Drag Race", although it was interesting to point out that Mark Burnett didn't show up to collect this year. Wonder why....

Limited Series, which just pushed up beyond Comedy Series this year, mostly went swept to "Big Little Lies", Series, Directing for Jean-Marc Vallee, Nicole Kidman winning for Lead Actress, Laura Dern, winning for Supporting Actress, which is the first time a Dern has ever won a major award I think. No Oscars, no Tonys, no Emmys 'til now, I don't know how that happened, and for Supporting Actor for Alexander Skarsgard, which is also the first major award given to any Skarsgard too. Weird. The only thing they didn't take was Riz Ahmed taking the Emmy for Lead Actor for "The Night Of", which unfortunately just ran into a juggernaut in "The Night Of", which I suspect would've won in another year, but the category was crowded. The most nominated one, "Feud: Bette and Joan" was shutout, as was both "Westworld" the most nominated series and "Stranger Things" the one, most experts had listed as the favorite for the Drama races; I'm glad I never jumped on that bandwagon.

Overall, winners-wise I can't really make any major complaint-, well, sure there's my annual Julia Louis-Dreyfus complaint, but other than that, dreaded vote-splitting was limited, everybody who won seemed to be a worthy winner, as far as I can tell. "Master of None" might not be back next year at least, and we know "Game of Thrones" is coming back, so the drama series race is gonna get more crowded next. I know, there's a certain contingent wondering how Marc Maron would've done in Supporting Actor if "GLOW" had been eligible, so we'll look at that.

Show-wise, eh, I think last year's was better, and yeah, if I really wanted to, I could be nitpicking for a little while. (What was with the picture frames and the dissolves in the In Memoriam? I couldn't read some of the names.) Rachel Bloom's song-and-dance about the accountants was forgettable, but at least the accountants didn't screw up the envelopes. (I'M ALMOST TO THE POINT OF GETTING OVER THAT! Sorta. Not really) I love the "Westworld" sketch and a few others, but the show was format was a mess, the consistency was way off everywhere, they even misspelled Thandie Newton's name, and it didn't have the natural feel of the huge awards show that it really is. The Emmys are television's Oscar, and they're not the movies' redheaded stepchild anymore. There were about a couple dozen Oscars winners in that room tonight, and as Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman mentioned, there's a lot more room on television for quality roles and parts and stories than there is in the theater these days; they should really remember that and make this show and huge and grand as it can be sometimes. Kimmel managed that last year, others can too, including Colbert when he's on, but for now, the show was average while the awards themselves, the nominees, winners, even presenters, were for the most part, pretty good, overall.

Okay, that's all everyone, it's "Time for Beany." I know, nobody's gonna get that reference, so how about this one, Oscar season's around the corner and I need some rest.

BTW, Donald Glover's purple suit, awesome. I vote for him for best dressed.

And in terms of the rest of the general mood of the place, yeah, Fuck Trump!