'Game of Thrones,' 'Olive Kitteridge' Biggest Winners at Historic Primetime Emmys

Where to begin for an Emmy Awards steeped in so many historic moments?

"Game of Thrones" is now the most winning series in a year at the Primetime Emmy Awards.

Even before it won for outstanding drama series, the HBO show picked up 11 awards (eight of which came from the Creative Arts Emmys the weekend prior), beating the record of nine held by the first season of "The West Wing" from 2000.

Writing and directing wins at the 67th annual telecast were just enough to push "Game of Thrones" into historic territory. Quickly after that, Peter Dinklage won the supporting actor race giving the show a tally of 11. This is Dinklage's second win in this category following a previous win for the show's first season.

The outstanding drama series win awarded "Game of Thrones" 12 wins from 24 nominations.

Since its first season, "Game of Thrones" has won 26 Emmys, tying it with "Hill Street Blues" and "The West Wing" for most cumulative wins for a drama series. It could break that record as soon as next year if it wins just one more.

The drama acting field was significant for its winning ladies. Viola Davis became the first African-American to win the lead drama actress award for "How to Get Away with Murder". Supporting winner Uzo Aduba, "Orange is the New Black", became the first woman to win acting awards for the same character in two different genres. Aduba won the comedy guest actress prize for her portrayal of prison inmate Crazy Eyes. The Television Academy ruled "Orange" to be a drama this year, and Aduba was bumped up to the supporting race.

Jon Hamm finally won as drama actor for "Mad Men's" final season after seven previous losses.

Another big winner of the evening was another HBO product: "Olive Kitteridge".

The miniseries dominated the limited series/movie categories winning six of the broadcasted seven categories: outstanding limited series; lead actor (Richard Jenkins); lead actress (Frances McDormand); supporting actor (Bill Murray); directing; and writing. In addition to its six primetime wins, "Olive Kitteridge" won Creative Arts Emmys for limited series/movie casting and single-camera picture editing for a limited series/movie.

Regina King broke a complete "Olive Kitteridge" domination with her supporting actress win for "American Crime".

"Veep" and "Transparent" were the big comedy winners at the Emmy awards, winning five each.

Political satire "Veep" took the top prize for comedy series. Also nominated for its first three seasons, this is the first time the show won after consecutive losses to "Modern Family". "Veep" also won comedy writing for the first time. Julia-Louis Dreyfus won her fourth consecutive lead actress Emmy as the titular character Selina Meyer, with Tony Hale winning a second supporting actor gong for his role as Selina's bag man, Gary. "Veep" also won for comedy casting at the creative arts show.

Freshman laffer "Transparent" won lead actor for Jeffrey Tambor and directing for Jill Soloway for Amazon's freshman series about a transgender woman. The show won three Creative Arts Emmys beforehand- comedy guest actress, costumes and main title them music.

Allison Janney rounded wins in the comedy categories, repeating for her supporting turn on "Mom".

HBO picked up 14 of 26 televised awards. Overall, it took the most program awards this year- comedy series, drama series, limited series, TV movie, nonfiction special and nonfiction series. 

In the variety categories, Jon Stewart got a resounding Emmy sendoff for his show's final season. "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" winning the newly created variety talk series Emmy. It previously won the catch-all variety series Emmy 10 consecutive years from 2003-2012. "The Daily Show" won the variety series writing award for the ninth time and also the directing for a variety series.

"Inside Amy Schumer" picked up the variety sketch series award.

"Bessie" was previously announced as outstanding made-for-TV-movie, along with three other wins at the Creative Arts Emmys.

"Modern Family" and "Mad Men" were looking to win the most series prizes this year for outstanding comedy and drama, but were denied, respectively, for a sixth and fifth victories

"American Horror Story: Freak Show" won five Creative Arts Emmys the weekend before, but failed to show during the primetime telecast with eight nominations.
Comedy Series: "Veep"
Comedy Actor: Jeffrey Tambor, "Transparent"
Comedy Actress: Julia-Louis Dreyfus, "Veep"
Comedy Supporting Actor: Tony Hale, "Veep"
Comedy Supporting Actress: Allison Janney, "Mom"
Comedy Directing: Jill Soloway, "Transparent"
Comedy Writing: Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci and Tony Roche, "Veep" 

Drama Series: "Game of Thrones"
Drama Actor: Jon Hamm, "Mad Men"
Drama Actress: Viola Davis, "How to Get Away with Murder"
Drama Supporting Actor: Peter Dinklage, "Game of Thrones"
Drama Supporting Actress: Uzo Aduba, "Orange is the New Black"
Drama Directing: David Nutter, "Game of Thrones"
Drama Writing: David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, "Game of Thrones"

Limited Series: "Olive Kitteridge"
Limited Series/Movie Actor: Richard Jenkins, "Olive Kitteridge"
Limited Series/Movie Actress: Frances McDormand, "Olive Kitteridge"
Limited Series/Movie Supporting Actor: Bill Murray, "Olive Kitteridge"
Limited Series/Movie Supporting Actress: Regina King, "American Crime"
Limited Series/Movie Directing: Lisa Cholodenko, "Olive Kitteridge"
Limited Series/Movie Writing: Jane Anderson, "Olive Kitteridge"

Reality Competition Program: "The Voice"

Variety Talk Series: "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart"
Variety Sketch Series: "Inside Amy Schumer"
Directing for a Variety Series: "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" 
Writing for a Variety Series: "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart"

On Netflix: Same Old Routine on 'Orange is the New Black'

After a powerful and manipulative tornado named Vee ripped through Litchfield in season two of Netflix's hit dramedy series "Orange is the New Black",  things have come back to normal, or even the monotonous, in the follow-up season that premiered a few hours earlier of its June 12 release.

The season starts off quite soft with a Mother's Day celebration at the clink which was a nice breather after everything that had happened at Litchfield in the last season. This allowed us to get reacquainted with a few of our favorites: Red is out of the infirmary; Daya is still pregnant; Poussey, Taystee and Black Cindy are doing whatever they do; and everyone else is everyone else.

Taking a turn for the worse, Alex is "magically" back at Litchfield, continuing a tireless plotline of Piper and her (former) lover still crossing paths at what seems to be the only women's prison in the country - or one of two, after another was temporarily featured at the start of season two.

As the show slowly gets its footing. We find out Litchfield maybe closing, Alex and Piper are angrily in love with each other, and Bennett and Daya are engaged, yet the baby drama doesn't end when Pornstache's mother gets entangled in a shakedown scheme to adopt the baby.

This appears to be the main driving points of the season this year, and with the regular order of 13 episodes it's going to be a long one, and one that will focus strongly on the show's most uninteresting character: its lead, Piper.

It's hard to have a show about any lead character when they're not interesting after the first season. Seeing Piper struggle adjusting to prison life was great, but with all of the time after that focusing more and more on Alex it becomes a drawn-out exercise of whining and a never-ending carousel of emotions that doesn't stop in every episode.

Seeing that season three will, once again, focus on that on-again, off-again relationship, Piper and Alex's only plot on the show has already been played out, but how to compensate for that?

Sure, there are a bunch of funny, endearing and colorful cast members in this diverse ensemble, but nothing they bring to the table can bring the show back up to it's great second season with Lorraine Toussaint's scene-stealing performance as Vee. No subplots or actions are leaving me with an urgency to keep going to the next episode. I keep watching because it feels like a chore: you may want to hold it off until later, but you half-ass getting through it just to be done.

The show is as masterfully created as it ever and the cast is flawless as always, but nothing at Litchfield seems to be going on. The characters are routine and the biggest plot points are ones not even being built up to amount to much by season's end.

Rating: C

On Netflix: 'Happy Valley' is 2014's Best New Cop Show

Sarah Lancashire as Sgt. Catherine Cawood in the miniseries "Happy Valley".

West Yorkshire Police Sgt. Catherine Cawood (Sarah Lancashire) charges onto the screen in just the first three minutes of the entire miniseries with her backstory. She's 47, divorced and has two kids (one dead, and one who doesn't talk to her). She has one grandchild, and her sister, a recovering heroin-addict, lives with her. That's how she introduces herself to a man, and us, who's threatening to light himself on fire at a playground after a break-up with his girlfriend.

Sgt. Catherine Cawood is the tough, yet fragile lead character in "Happy Valley", a BBC One production named after an area of West Yorkshire known for its drug problem. But drugs isn't the focus of this series. Instead, it toes the line of a "Fargo" storyline, with an extortion/kidnapping plot and a likeable female officer at the center. Though, this story doesn't have as much humor peppered into it as the Oscar-winning film.

'Game of Thrones' and ''Fargo' lead Emmy Nominations

 
When it comes to bloodshed, the more the merrier, especially when it means garnering the most Emmy nominations.

"Game of Thrones" and "Fargo" and its characters may have been showered in blood this year, but now they're getting showered with 19 and 18 Emmy nominations, respectively, in the drama and movie/miniseries fields. "Orange is the New Black," which had a bloody season one finale, was the laffer with the most nominations at 12.

In its biggest Emmy nomination haul to date, "Game of Thrones" contends once again for best drama series, with Peter Dinklage and Lena Headey earning supporting bids for their work, and Diana Rigg getting a repeat guest drama actress nod.

The drama slate includes previous winners "Breaking Bad" and "Mad Men", previous nominees "Downton Abbey" and "House of Cards" and freshman series "True Detective". "Mad Men" has the least number of nods among drama series nominees with 8, not earning a single directing or writing nomination

"Fargo", using the Oscar-winning film of the same name as its source material, received the most nominations among miniseries contenders, landing lead actor bids for Martin Freeman and Billy Bob Thornton and supporting bids for Allison Tolman and Colin Hanks. Freeman will go head-to-head with his "Sherlock: The Last Vow" co-star Benedict Cumberbatch in the lead actor race, but competes in the supporting category for his turn in the movie.

Emmy Nominations Predictions

Courtesy of ATAS

With nominations coming up Thursday morning, here's a quick overview of what, and who, will be nominated for the TV industry's highest honors. While new shows are expected to make big breaks ("Orange is the New Black" and "True Detective'), some common standards should make comfortable returns ("Veep" and "Breaking Bad") but a few others may be all but forgotten ("Homeland" and "Mad Men").

Last year made a huge leap for online TV shows, like "House of Cards" reaping the first drama series nod for a online streaming service (Netflix). With "Orange is the New Black" garnering critical and commercial success on the streaming site, expect the dark prison comedy to be the site's first comedy series nominee as well, with a few acting nominees to boot.

Anywho, here's a list of what I think will be nominees come Thursday morning at 8:35 EST. The nomination announcement will be aired live on most broadcast networks and on the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences's website at www.emmys.com.

Outstanding Comedy Series
The Big Bang Theory
Girls
Louie
Modern Family
Orange is the New Black
Veep

The Big Bang Theory, American Horror Story Lead Critics' Choice TV Nominations

CBS laffer "The Big Bang Theory" and FX's horror drama "American Horror Story: Asylum" earned six nominations for the 3rd Annual Choice TV Awards Wednesday morning.

The NBC comedy "Parks and Recreation" and the Sundance miniseries mystery "Top of the Lake" were close behind with five nominations each.

The Broadcast Journalists TV Association will announce the winners on June 10, 2013 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel.

"Bang" earned nominations for best comedy series, comedy actor (Jim Parsons), supporting comedy actor (Simon Helberg), supporting comedy actress (Kaley Cuoco and Melissa Rauch) and guest comedy performer (Bob Newhart). This is the show's and Jim Parsons third nominations in their categories, and the first for all of the others. Parsons won the inaugural award in 2011.

The other nominated laffers include, all from different networks, include "Louie" (FX), "The Middle" (ABC), "New Girl (FOX), "Parks and Recreation" (NBC)" and "Veep" (HBO)