Thoughts on the 2011 Emmy awards

I haven't been watching that much TV of late, but the kick-off for the fall season began last night by honoring the best of last season at the 2011 Emmy awards.  This was a very odd year.  A lot of people won out of left field, and then there were the completely expected that happened exactly as predicted.

First - the wonderful and amazing:
1. KYLE CHANDLER WON AN EMMY!!!!  Coach Taylor from my beloved "Friday Night Lights" was finally recognized for creating a wonderful male role model and half of a model marriage.

2.  Melissa McCarthy will not be nominated for an Oscar for her part in Bridesmaids, but now at least she has an Emmy for "Mike and Molly" and most deservedly.  I have a feeling there was some vote-splitting  between the bigger name comediennes, but I don't doubt the people who voted for Melissa knew what they were doing.

3. Margo Martindale, a supporting character actress you've seen dozens of times plays such a bad-ass on "Justified" that someone paid attention and gave her an Emmy for Best Supporting Actress in a Drama.

4. I haven't seen "Game of Thrones" yet, but anyone who wants to tell Peter Dinklage he's amazing and should keep acting is fine by me, and giving him the Emmy for supporting Actor is a pretty great idea that I have no problem with.

5.  Because this was the first award of the night it was definitely the biggest surprise, but it set us up for less surprising wins for the rest of the night.  Julie Bowen from "Modern Family" beating Jane Lynch for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy meant it wasn't that big a surprise when Ty Burrell and the show also won.  Still, it was a pretty amazing season (I was stuck on lots of planes this summer and several showed episodes from this show).

Not surprising:
1.  "Amazing Race" reclaiming its Best Reality Show title.  It's won like 7 of the 8 years the category has existed.

2.  Jon Stewart and the Daily Show taking their 9th straight win for variety show.  It might be time they retired the category - and I love and adore both the Daily Show and Jon Stewart, but it would be nice to share some love.

3.  Kate Winslet and Mildred Pierce taking it for the mini-series category.  I haven't seen it yet (can't wait actually) but Kate's outburst thinking they wouldn't win anything seemed somehow not particularly genuine.  False modesty doesn't work when you recently won an Oscar.

4.  "Mad Men" won again.  So?

5. Okay, it was a pretty good show and Jane Lynch was funny, so I don't have another thing that wasn't surprising.  But I guess the fact that Jane Lynch hosted a good show wasn't particularly surprising.

TV Meme: Day 29

Day 29 - Current t.v show obsession

My current TV obsession is My Life on the D-List with Kathy Griffin.  I confessed during Episode 3 of Reel Insight how much I love it, but now I'll tell the world (since most of you might not listen to the podcast, but you totally should, even I listen to it and I hate my voice).  I watch all of Kathy Griffin's specials, which are all basically her stories of her interactions with A-list celebrities and how crazy or full of themselves they are.  Or, it's about how high she is on their s*#$-list, or what she did to get on their list.  She's pretty high on Oprah, Ryan Seacrest or Lindsay Lohan's lists, I'm sure.  You can see she's sometimes exaggerating, but not by much.  She once described eating a meal next to Anna Nicole Smith, and her imitation was amazing.  On the TV show on Bravo, she does crazy things to attempt to get off the D-list, but mostly it's just things to get attention, with a splash of her actual life and the lives of her crazy assistants.  This season already she's demolished the interior of her house, then fired the designer and told her assistant to fix it.  She's asked Liza Minneli for acting advice when she did her "emmy-bait" appearance on Law & Order: SVU and kissed BOTH Mariska Hargitay AND Chris Maloney.  Oh, and I bought and read her book, Official Book Club Selection, and actually really liked it.  Now I've confessed my obsession and will go bury my head in shame. 

TV Meme: Day 16

Day 16 - Your guilty pleasure show

There are a lot of shows I watch that I feel like no one else watches so I don't really talk about the fact that I watch them, but my guilty pleasure is definitely one that many people will groan and I'm actually embarrassed to admit that I like it.  There are times it's like a train wreck and you can't look away, and other times there were actual moments of sweetness, humor, and insight.  The show formerly known as Jon and Kate Plus Eight, now known as Kate Plus Eight since she got rid of Jon, is my guilty pleasure.  I've seen most of the episodes at least twice.  I only started watching last spring when I was really sick and it was on 4 times a day, so I caught up out of order and hadn't really heard of the show before.  

Of course with a lot of things you watch a lot of in a short amount of time, you get addicted and want to keep watching more.  So now I watch Kate Plus Eight, and actually will watch just about anything that features the family.  I'm not a huge fan of Kate (she was so painful on Dancing with the Stars that I question whether she's actually a robot), but I love the kids.  They're kind, friendly, silly, bratty, etc. and so much fun to watch interact with each other and the public.  So now I've admitted my guilty pleasure.  Enjoy.