Daily Times

‘The Handmaid’s Tale’, ‘Saturday Night Live’ and ‘Veep’ cleaned up at the 2017 Emmy Awards, befitting a three-hour ceremony that simmered with political outrage and proffered television as a haven for diversity, equality and opportunity – and perhaps an escape as well.

Host Stephen Colbert opened the show with a monologue packed with Trump burns, focusing specifically on the president’s obsession with the Emmys and the fact that his long-running reality show, The Apprentice, never won. At the end of his speech, he introduced Trump’s former Press Secretary, Sean Spicer, who rolled a podium onto the stage a la Melissa McCarthy’s SNL impersonation of him and joked, “This will be the largest audience to witness an Emmys, period – both in person and around the world.”

In all, Saturday Night Live took home nine Emmy awards – the biggest haul of the evening. In the night’s two biggest categories, The Handmaid’s Tale won Outstanding Drama Series while Veep took home its fourth Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series. The night saw several stars winning their first Emmys as well, with Donald Glover picking up Best Actor in a Comedy Series and Best Directing for his work on Atlanta, and Elisabeth Moss – after years of coming up short for Mad Men – winning Best Lead Actress in a Drama for The Handmaid’s Tale.

This year’s returning champs included Sterling K. Brown, who followed up his 2016 win for The People v O.J. Simpson, with Best Lead Actor in a Drama for This Is Us, while SNL’s Kate McKinnon won her second straight Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy award. Julia Louis-Dreyfus also made Emmy history with her sixth consecutive Best Actress in a Comedy win for Veep.

Big Little Lies proved to be the night’s other big winner in the increasingly competitive limited series category. The HBO show picked up the trophy for Outstanding Limited Series, while Alexander Skarsgård, Laura Dern and Nicole Kidman all won acting awards and Jean-Marc Vallée won for Best Directing.

In the variety category, Saturday Night Live and Last Week Tonight shared the spoils. John Oliver’s HBO series won Best Writing and Best Variety Talk Show while SNL won Best Directing and Variety Sketch Show. Accepting the latter award, SNL’s creator Lorne Michaels recalled the first time the long-running sketch show won the award after its first season. “I remember thinking as I was standing there, alone, that this was it,” he said. “This was the high point. There would never be another season as crazy, as unpredictable, as frightening, as exhausting, or as exhilarating. Turns out, I was wrong.”

Along with McKinnon’s win for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series, Alec Baldwin also took home the Emmy for Best Supporting Actor for his recurring role on SNL as President Trump.

Published in Daily Times, September 19^th 2017.