The 76th Emmys made satisfying history while reminding us that TV favors humanity over partisanship

Television is never quite perfect, even in its remarkable seasons. Awards shows celebrating TV have a long history of being far worse, somehow, than the most plodding dramas. That is reason enough to celebrate the 76th Emmys Awards for yielding a three-hour and eight-minute ABC telecast that felt downright sprightly.

It had sufficiently enjoyable if barely noticeable hosts in “Schitt’s Creek” stars Eugene and Dan Levy, who had the good sense to make the night's focus the talent that was there to make a point about the medium or the election's stakes, or in the case of "Only Murders in the Building" stars Martin Short and Steve Martin, simply funnier.

Best of all, it had excellent wins, including the surprising triumph of “Hacks” over “The Bear” in the top comedy race and the impressive dominance of best drama winner “Shōgun,” whose team entered the Peacock Theater on Sunday’s primetime Emmys ceremony having already won 14 Emmys out of its 17 total nominations at last weekend’s Creative Arts Emmys.

By the end of the telecast, it had swept the major individual acting categories, making history with Anna Sawai becoming the first actress of Asian descent to win the best drama actress Emmy and Hiroyuki Sanada becoming the first Japanese performer to win best drama actor. This Emmy represents Sanada’s first major American industry award ever after decades of playing memorable roles in TV and cinema. He and Sawai join Néstor Carbonell, who earned an award for guest actor in a drama.  

History was made many times over last night. “Shōgun” is the first best drama Emmy winner in which Japanese, not English, is the dominant language. Its 18 Primetime Emmy wins set a new record for most wins by a single show during any awards season. “The Bear” distinguished itself earlier this year with its 23 nominations representing the most in a single year for a comedy series and, by the end of Sunday night, earning the most wins in a single season once Sunday's tally was added to the seven it scored at last weekend’s Creative Arts ceremony, bringing its total wins to 11.

Its stars Jeremy Allen White and Ebon Moss-Bachrach repeated their strolls to the awards podium in January, joined this time by Liza Colón-Zayas. At the Creative Arts Emmys co-stars Jon Bernthal and Jamie Lee Curtis were awarded guest actor and actress Emmys for their knockout performance in “The Bear” episode “Fishes.”

Ayo Edebiri, who won the best comedy actress Emmy in January, was unseated this time by six-time Emmy winner and “Hacks” star Jean Smart. Nevertheless, this was not an Emmys year that necessarily favored repeat winners or industry stalwarts.

In a series of categories that includes an HBO stalwart in “True Detective: Night Country” and an especially strong season of “Fargo,” a pair of titles that qualify as marquee brands, “Baby Reindeer” took home four Emmys between the top prize and individual Emmys for Gunning and its creator Richard Gadd, a two-time winner on Sunday for writing and lead actor.

Colón-Zayas was an unexpected victor in a comedy category she shared with legends Meryl Streep, Sheryl Lee Ralph and Carol Burnett.

Lamorne Morris’ deserved win for his work in “Fargo” means he defeated recent Oscar winner and co-star in “The Sympathizer” Robert Downey, Jr. in the best supporting actor for a limited or anthology series or movie category.

On the other hand, Jodie Foster won the first Emmy of her career for “True Detective: Night Country” . . . which, as TV creator Sierra Ornelas pointed out in a post on X, makes her the sole winner representing any shows about Indigenous peoples. Foster’s co-star Kali Reis was also nominated but lost to “Baby Reindeer” star Jessica Gunning. “Reservation Dogs” and its star D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai  were also nominated but shared categories with White and “The Bear.”

“The Bear” may have lost in what is considered to be an upset, but if it weren’t in the running a “Hacks” win would have been a foregone conclusion. So yes, these Emmys made history while reminding us that certain barriers are still waiting to be broken.

Awards shows are platforms performers use to acknowledge whatever political or social strife is souring life outside the Hollywood bubble, although on the surface, their producers try to err on the side of non-partisanship.

The 76th Emmys went a different direction, speaking to the common multicultural humanity TV shows us at its best by paying homage to TV archetypes.

Introducing several categories were actors associated with famous TV villains (Antony Starr from “The Boys” joined by Giancarlo Esposito from “Breaking Bad” and Kathy Bates ostensibly from “American Horror Story,” but really from "Matlock"), alongside coaches (Jane Lynch from “Glee,” Brendan Hunt from “Ted Lasso”, doctors, attorneys and cops.

But it was the TV moms and dad groupings that spoke volumes, calling on Damon Wayans (“My Wife and Kids”), George Lopez (“The George Lopez Show”) and Jesse Tyler Ferguson (“Modern Family”) — a Black, Latinx and gay father — to do the honors for the dads.

Connie Britton (“Friday Night Lights”), Meredith Baxter (“Family Ties”) and Susan Kelechi-Watson (“This Is Us”) hailed the evolution of TV moms from simple nurturers to women, as Kelechi-Watson put it, "who have choices."

That language is as intentional as the selection of Candice Bergen to present for best actress in a comedy. Bergen does not have a show to promote in this new season. Instead, the “Murphy Brown” star was there to remind us of when, in 1992, Vice President Dan Quayle criticized the show for featuring an arc when Murphy became pregnant and decided to raise the baby as a single mother.

“Oh, how far we’ve come. Today a Republican candidate for vice president would never attack a woman for having kids, so as they say, my work here is done,” she said wryly, adding, “Meow.”

This wasn’t the only direct jab at right-wing idiocy in the presidential election, although John Leguizamo introducing himself as “one of Hollywood’s DEI hires” put a little more heat on the serve, adding, “The D is for diligence, the E is for excellence, the I is for imagination.”

Leguizamo’s point was to celebrate the strides brown actors have made over the last three-quarters of a century of the Emmys’ existence: “Everybody played us, except us,” he said, listing the famous white actors who played Latinx characters in film — Marlon Brando, Al Pacino and Natalie Wood — along with the stereotypes that alleged to speak for his people on TV.

The producers saved another no-brainer archetype, the TV president, to introduce the award for best TV drama. But for that, they put aside the problematic POTUSes of yore — leaders from “24” and “Scandal,” for example – and called on the cast of the aspirational multiple Emmy winner “The West Wing” to do the honors.

 If you thought that meant the cast of “Veep” would do the honors for the top comedy award, Annie Murphy’s appearance alongside the Levys quickly zapped that idea. Murphy joined her “Schitt’s Creek” co-stars to introduce their TV mom Catherine O’Hara, who revealed that the top comedy Emmy went to a show that is very easily recognizable as a comedy.

Sunday’s production wasn’t free of awkwardness, besides the usual cuts into the presenters' lines and a stiff Johnny Walker product placement bit that reeled Moss-Bachrach and Taylor Zakhar Perez into an embarrassingly stiff exchange that might have made half of America reach for some other brown liquor if the show wasn’t going down smoothly otherwise.

One reason it did was that Eugene and Dan Levy redefined the hosting approach of “getting out of the way” by entirely refusing to imprint themselves on the show. They played the part of Those Guys From That Show You Liked a Few Years Back and let the funnier people do their thing.

That began with Martin and Short, the first presenters of the evening alongside their “Only Murders in the Building” co-star Selena Gomez, who couldn’t keep herself from breaking as they launched into their old man comedy duo accessorized at times with a “Shingles Doesn’t Care” caption banging over their shot.

It was a weird non-sequitur that winked at their age and reminded us of why these old guys are still two of the best reasons to watch TV, and how well-matched they are with Gomez.

They were also the night’s first example of showing progress through demonstrated popularity and success. As “Hacks” creators Lucia Aniello, Paul W. Downs and Jen Statsky took the stage to accept their best comedy Emmy, Downs spoke about the necessity of showing vibrantly written older characters like Smart’s — and Martin’s and Short’s, for that matter.

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Some acceptance speech stands were wobblier, as when Billy Crudup, who won a supporting actor in a drama Emmy for “The Morning Show,” described his Emmy- and Oscar-nominated wife Naomi Watts as “an immigrant who starts businesses.”  Which is . . . an accurate description, although one that ignores the fact that the only risk the British-born Watts may have taken to emigrate to the U.S. may have been to decide whether to fly into JFK or LaGuardia.

A more poetic connection to the hope that remains in our anxious times might be seen not only in the historic wins for Colón-Zayas, who became the first Latina to ever win in her category.

Or “Y Tu Mama Tambien” stars Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego introducing the nominees for director in a limited or anthology series or movie entirely in Spanish, without subtitles or translation. This was a solidarity gesture to the more than 42 million people in this country who primarily speak Spanish, which acknowledged the hundreds of thousands of Spanish-speaking migrants being demonized by one major political party’s presidential candidate. It also correctly bet that the audience could follow along without a problem.

Consider, too, the overwhelming success of “Shōgun” — a story inspired by Japanese history and celebrated in a country that less than a century ago persecuted and imprisoned Americans of Japanese descent.

As he accepted his Emmy, Sanada described “Shōgun” as “an East meets West project, with respect.” He added, "'Shōgun' taught me that when people work together, we can make miracles. We can create a better future together.”  Stories bringing that vision to life proliferate across TV. Sometimes, though, it takes acknowledgments like this to prove the spirit behind them is understood and seen.