Basic Cable Shines at Emmys

LOS ANGELES, September 22:
AMC’s Mad Men made history at
last night’s 60th annual Primetime Emmy Awards as basic cable’s first show to
win the award for best drama, though HBO’s John Adams scored the most wins, with 13 in total.

Basic cable even ruled the
performance side in the drama category, with Glenn Close of FX Networks’ Damages
and Bryan Cranston of AMC’s Breaking
Bad taking home the statuette. In
supporting roles, Damages scored
again with Željko Ivanek winning on the male side, while Dianne Wiest was the
female who came out on top for her role in HBO’s In Treatment.

For the second year in a
row, NBC’s 30 Rock was named
best comedy. The show swept the category on the performance side, with Alec
Baldwin and Tina Fey both winning out, and Fey taking the award for outstanding
writing for a comedy series as well. Supporting wins went to Jeremy Piven of
HBO’s Entourage, his second
year in a row for the award, and Jean Smart of ABC’s Samantha Who?

John Adams garnered the most awards, including outstanding
miniseries, and its stars Laura Linney and Paul Giamatti were named best
actress and best actor, respectively, in the miniseries/movie category.

This year marked another
first for the Emmys, as the show had five hosts who were actually the nominees
for outstanding host for a reality or reality-competition program. Survivor’s Jeff Probst took the win in the end, while the
award for outstanding reality-competition program went to CBS’s The Amazing
Race.

—By Kristin
Brzoznowski