'The Crown' Dominates the Emmys
by EG
This weekend's Emmy awards ceremony heaped honors on a small number of TV series, including Netflix's The Crown and Apple's Ted Lasso. Adding to the lack of diversity among the winners, no acting awards were handed to any of the nominees of color. Read on for details.
Host Cedric the Entertainer opened the 2021 Primetime Emmys with a declaration that the annual TV kudos would be a celebration of the entire medium, not just the past year’s standouts. Well, either the entirety of TV is much smaller than we’ve been led to believe or he simply didn’t get a preview of the winners list… because the show lavished an overwhelming majority of its praise on just a few series and even fewer people of color.
Echoing 2020’s wild Schitt’s Creek sweep, Netflix’s The Crown nabbed an Emmy in every category it was up for — sweeping all performances in the drama race before going on to win the genre’s top prize. Apple TV+ flagship Ted Lasso had similarly wild momentum early on in the comedy races, though HBO Max’s Hacks certainly made its presence known. The only arena where more than two series got in on the action was among limited series, where voters vacillated between HBO’s Mare of Easttown, Netflix’s The Queen’s Gambit and HBO’s I May Destroy You.
Ted Lasso’s Hannah Waddingham, delivering a speech that could only be described as endearingly euphoric, nabbed best supporting actress in a comedy at the very top of the show. The impressive fact that she earned that nod by overcoming a potentially split vote with co-star Juno Temple was echoed (and bested) when the supporting actor in a comedy category went to co-star Brett Goldstein. He beat back three colleagues, winning in a category he shared with Brendan Hunt, Nick Mohammed and Jeremy Swift.
Comedy writing and directing, in a bit of a surprise, went to Hacks scribes Lucia Aniello, Paul W. Downs and Jen Statsky — and then to Aniello again for directing the same show. Two of the night’s few foregone conclusions — a lead actor in a comedy win for Ted Lasso star and co-creator Jason Sudeikis and lead actress in a comedy win for Hacks star Jean Smart — made the night’s ultimate comedy prize feel somewhat up in the air. But it was Ted Lasso‘s all along. The Bill Lawrence-produced comedy won the top prize in its first year of eligibility.
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