2006 Primetime Emmy Winners

August 2006 Special Edition

The Academy of Arts and Sciences' official website says, "New Voting Rules Yield Eclectic Winners at 58th Primetime Emmys." While I'm a little dubious about whether eclecticism, rather than excellence, should be the Academy's goal, I have to agree that this year's ceremony did result in awards for fresh faces -- or, at the very least, familiar faces in different places.

Comedy winners

Jerry Seinfeld (left) was not nominated for an Emmy this year, but his name -- or rather, the name of his show -- was invoked during the night. As Julia Louis-Dreyfus accepted the Leading Actress Emmy for The New Adventures of Old Christine, she declared that the Seinfeld curse was now broken. Well, maybe for her. The jury's still out on George and Kramer.

Tony Shalhoub of Monk exuded considerably less confidence, claiming, "There's been a terrible mistake," after he was awarded the Lead Actor Emmy. (A bit disingenuous of him, since it was his third win in four years.) In the supporting categories, Jeremy Piven won for Entourage, and Megan Mullally, who won a Supporting Actress in a Comedy Emmy for Will & Grace's first season, got a matching bookend for the show's final season.

The pilot episode of My Name is Earl won both the writing and directing Emmys. That gave writer Greg Garcia the chance to win the unofficial Best Acceptance speech award by naming people he was not thanking, culminating in God: "You took my hair -- that's not cool, man." However, My Name is Earl lost out in the Comedy Series category to The Office.

Drama winners

The Lead Actor and Actress awards both went to actors who finally broke through after multiple misses. Kiefer Sutherland, the agent constantly racing against time on 24, won on his straight fifth nomination. His fellow law enforcement officer, Mariska Hartigay of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, won on her third nomination.

The Supporting awards in the Drama category both went to stars of since-departed shows. Alan Alda (right) won for The West Wing and Blythe Danner for Huff. Danner, who won the Supporting Actress in a Drama Emmy last season, was genuinely surprised to repeat, and unofficially won the 1st Discombobulated Speech of the Night award.

Speaking of speech, The Sopranos got its only Emmy in the Writing category, for the "Members Only" episode. 24 was more successful. In addition to Sutherland's Lead Actor Emmy, the show also won the Directing Emmy (for the episode 7:00 AM - 8:00 AM) and its first Drama Series Emmy.

Other highlights ... and one lowlight

If Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert didn't already have day jobs, I'd say they should hire themselves out as award presenters. I can think of a lot of events that would be livened up by the fake-news duo. It almost would've been a shame if Colbert had won the Individual Performance Emmy (music or variety program). Then he wouldn't have had the chance to justify his neocon rant against the audience: "I lost to Barry Manilow!" Hugh Laurie could also do well as a presenter-for-hire, both here and in French-speaking countries.

At the other end of the spectrum was Simon Cowell, whose appearance was so distracting -- in the same way that a car crash is -- that I've forgotten everything he said. It's not that I care that much about fashion, but a ceremony like the Emmys does require a little dressing up. In Cowell's case, a shirt with some buttons would've been nice and much, much preferable to the bad sunburn and chest hair on display.

The fully-tuxedoed Conan O'Brien hosted the ceremony for the second time, joking in his opening monologue that his third time would be the charm. He was funny at some points, doing a very good deadpan during the opening montage and carrying off a hilarious running gag with Bob Newhart. At other times, though, his one-liners fell flat. It didn't help that many of the jokes were of the tried-and-true jabs at show business.

Aha, that's what the Academy needs to do for next year -- find more eclectic jokes. It could do worse than start with Stewart and Colbert.

-- A. Wu