While both the drama series "Mad Men" and lead actor Bryan Cranston ("Breaking Bad") won Emmys for the third consecutive year, Kyra Sedgwick defied the odds and finally prevailed with her fifth consecutive lead actress bid for "The Closer." She was expected to lose this year to Julianna Margulies, star of the freshman hit "The Good Wife." Rather, it was Archie Panjabi who flew the flag for that show at the Emmy Awards, winning in the supporting actress category, something none of our pundits foresaw.
They didn't do much better on the supporting actor side, with only two of them predicting that win by Aaron Paul on his second bid for "Breaking Bad." The rest of us were predicting one of the previous "Lost" champs — Michael Emerson or Terry O'Quinn to win again. We had forgotten our Emmy history. Unlike the other acting races, you have to go all the way back to 1995-96 to find the most recent repeat champ in this category: Ray Walston ("Picket Fences").
"Mad Men" creator Matthew Weiner, who won the writing award on his own for the first year of the series, shared it again this year (with Erin Levy) as he had last year (with Kater Gordon). And in a nice Emmy moment, Steve Shill accepted his directing prize for the seaon finale of "Dexter" from John Lithgow, who had won an Emmy this year for guesting on that show.
Photo: Bryan Cranston of "Breaking Bad" onstage at 62nd annual Emmy Awards. Credit: Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times.
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