'Schitt's Creek' sweeps seven Emmy awards

It took Schitt’s Creek several seasons to catch on. A few months after its series finale, the big-hearted Canadian comedy was the hit of the 72nd Emmy Awards.

Schitt’s Creek swept every comedy award handed out Sunday night, including the top prize in best comedy.

The first hour of the Emmys broadcast was dominated by the show, whose cast members had gathered for a viewing party in Toronto. Daniel Levy, the 37-year-old writer, actor and director who created the show with his father, Eugene Levy, won four Emmys: for writing, directing, best-supporting actor and for best comedy.

“Oh no, oh no,” Levy said, as he accepted the Emmy for best-supporting actor, his third of the night. “The internet’s about to turn on me. I’m so sorry.”

The show’s stars, longtime colleagues Catherine O’Hara and Eugene Levy, won best acting in a comedy honours for their husband-and-wife roles on the comedy. The Emmys were their first since the early 1980s when they won for writing on the groundbreaking comedy series SCTV.

O’Hara thanked the Levys for giving her the chance “to play a woman of a certain age — my age — who fully gets to be her ridiculous self.”

To round it out for the Rose family on Schitt’s Creek, Annie Murphy won for best-supporting actress in a comedy, too.

Daniel Levy’s four wins represented the biggest haul for anyone during the main prime-time telecast, a spokesman for the Television Academy said.

Schitt’s Creek airs on Pop TV in the United States and attracted new viewers after its past seasons started streaming on Netflix in recent years.

‘Watchmen’ wins best-limited series over ‘Mrs. America.’

Watchmen, an ambitious adaptation of a graphic novel from veteran producer Damon Lindelof that addressed police brutality and white supremacy, won in the category of best-limited series. Regina King, the show’s masked hero, won best actress in a limited series, her fourth Emmy win.

In her acceptance speech, King implored viewers to vote in the coming election and paid tribute to Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Supreme Court justice who died Friday. She delivered her remarks while wearing a T-shirt that honoured Breonna Taylor, a Black medical technician in Louisville, Kentucky, who was killed by police in March.

Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, who portrays King’s husband on the show, won for best-supporting actor in a limited series. And Lindelof and Cord Jefferson won for best writing in a limited series for their work on the series.

It wasn’t a complete sweep for Watchmen. Uzo Aduba, who played Shirley Chisholm in Mrs. America, FX and Hulu’s chronicle of the feminist movement (and counter-movement) in the 1970s, won best-supporting actress in a limited series. It was the third Emmy for Aduba.

Welcome to the Wi-Fi Emmys, hosted by Jimmy Kimmel in a nearly empty arena.

Lights! Camera! And ... let’s hope the Wi-Fi works.

The 72nd Emmy Awards on Sunday looked nothing like the earlier ceremonies celebrating the year’s achievements in television and streaming.

Red carpet? Cancelled. Actors seated shoulder to shoulder in an auditorium as the envelopes are unsealed? Nope.

Jimmy Kimmel kicked off the ceremony from a nearly empty Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles.

“Welcome to the Pand-Emmys,” Kimmel said.

In the opening moments, he appeared to deliver his jokes to a live audience — but it was just footage of crowds from past broadcasts that made it seem as if Oprah Winfrey, Michael Douglas and Jon Hamm were laughing at his remarks.

Kimmel eventually gave up the bit to reveal that he was facing rows of empty seats, some of them filled with cardboard cutouts of television stars.

“Of course we don’t have an audience,” Kimmel said. “This isn’t a MAGA rally.”

More than 100 nominees watched his monologue — and would soon broadcast themselves — from locations ranging from Berlin to Fayetteville, Georgia. Nominees dress ranged from extremely casual to designer clothes.

In an effort to make the broadcast go as smoothly as possible, the Television Academy has sent a kit to each nominee with instructions on how to put together a DIY studio. It comes complete with a ring light, a microphone, a laptop and a camera. After that, it’s up to the nominees and their Wi-Fi signals to do the dirty work of beaming live images to viewers’ screens.

“We hope there’s not a major crash,” said Guy Carrington, an executive producer of the Emmys, in an interview.

Several presenters and entertainers — including Jennifer Aniston, Tracee Ellis Ross and Jason Bateman — joined Kimmel on a stage built above the Staples Center basketball court. The show was moved from its usual spot, the Microsoft Theater, to the home of the Los Angeles Lakers and Los Angeles Clippers, because the arena has the technological wherewithal to accommodate dozens of remote feeds.

“We’ve all done some of the biggest award shows ever but none of us have done anything on this scale before,” said Reginald Hudlin, an executive producer.

‘SNL’ continues its streak as an Emmy machine.

It’s getting hard to remember a time when Saturday Night Live had fallen out of favour with Emmy voters, as it had for years.

But the recent winning streak of Lorne Michaels’ NBC juggernaut continues. SNL won best sketch variety series for the fourth year in a row, and it swept guest acting honours as well.

Maya Rudolph won best guest actress in a comedy for her depiction of Kamala Harris. And Eddie Murphy was given guest acting honours for his hosting duties on the same episode, in which he reprised vintage characters like Gumby, Buckwheat and Mr. Robinson. It was his first Emmy win. Don Roy King also won for best directing in a variety sketch series for his work on the episode hosted by Murphy.

SNL is the most decorated series in Emmys history, having won 73 Primetime Emmys.

Cherry Jones (Succession) and Ron Cephas Jones (This Is Us) won the drama guest acting awards. RuPaul, of RuPaul’s Drag Race, won best host of a reality series for a fifth time, setting a record in the category.