It is time to give up on the Emmys. Really, truly, once and for all. The media and the nation must stop paying attention. The television industry could show its solidarity by surrendering all the statuettes, heaving them into a yawning crucible and smelting them. The liquid scrap metal could be recast into one Prius-sized Emmy to be shared by Julia-Louis Dreyfus and Jon Stewart, who were the only people to show rebellious verve onstage during an otherwise dismal, predictable show hosted by that deadpan cipher of late night, Jimmy Kimmel. 
 
 Stewart, accepting the 10th consecutive Emmy for outstanding variety series for “The Daily Show,” acknowledged the exasperating ridiculousness of the exercise. 
 
 “Years from now, when the Earth is just a burning husk and aliens visit, they will find a box of these,” Stewart said, holding his Emmy aloft, “and they will know just how predictable these [expletive shows] are.” 
 
 So let’s get the actual bit of news out of the way before we go back to the dirge: Don Draper died in a terrorist attack! 
 
 “Mad Men,” which won best drama series for the past four years, fell to Showtime’s paranoid CIA thrillfest “Homeland,” in which Claire Danes goes a little bonkers while trying to sort through chatter both in the field and in her head. Danes won best actress in a drama and her co-star, Damian Lewis, extended the winless streak of Draper himself, Jon Hamm. “Homeland,” which also snagged an award for writing and is Showtime’s first best-series award winner, cast a pallid Langleyesque light on a ceremony that has had in recent years the art-deco sheen of Madison Avenue. 
 
 Burnishing that capital vibe were two women who won for playing a real potential vice president and a fake actual vice president. Julianne Moore won best lead actress in a miniseries or TV movie for playing Sarah Palin in HBO’s “Game Change,” which also won best miniseries or TV movie. Julia Louis-Dreyfus won best lead actress in a comedy series for playing Vice President Selina Meyer, the bumbling sparkplug a heartbeat from the presidency in HBO’s tart half-hour Beltway parody “Veep.” 
 
 Louis-Dreyfus, collecting her third career Emmy, began reading co-nominee Amy Poehler’s acceptance speech. The two women, engaging in a subversive sketch they prepared themselves, provided one of the few amusing, well-timed moments in an otherwise painfully scripted night larded with Kimmel’s wan bits. Exhibit A: After “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” failed to win best variety series, Kimmel asked security to escort his actual parents from the auditorium in order to punish them for lying that he could achieve any dream he wanted. Get it? No? That’s because it’s not really a joke. It was a hollow, staged prank. 
 
 The other big winners were tiresomely predictable, and predictability makes for really, really, really bad television. The much-heralded Lena Dunham, the 26-year-old creator and star of HBO’s buzzy “Girls,” lost all three of her solo nominations within the first 45 minutes of the show. ABC’s “Modern Family” won its third consecutive Emmy for comedy series, and its supporting actors, Julie Bowen and Eric Stonestreet, exercised their “Why am I winning this again?” faces. Five of the first six acting awards went to performers who had already won once for their roles. These winners all seemed chagrined or perplexed, and spent a precious portion of their speeches apologizing to their overlooked — and, in all instances, more deserving — co-nominees. Even Jon Cryer’s wife seemed baffled when Cryer won best leading actor in a comedy for “Two and a Half Men.” 
 
 When he was handed his second Emmy, Cryer said, “Something has clearly gone terribly wrong.” 
 
 Not “something.” 
 
 Everything. 
 
 Speaking of Cryer, is there an assemblage of words more depressing than “the season premiere of ‘Two and a Half Men’?” 
 
 But back to the pressing question: How can TV people make for such dismal TV? It’s not enough to have one or two nice moments in a three-hour telecast that rewards many of the same faces year after year. The show was front-loaded with comedy awards, then transitioned to drama and saved the miniseries and TV-movie categories — and therefore the bigger and stodgier stars (Kevin Costner won lead actor in a miniseries or movie for “Hatfields and McCoys”) — for the third hour, when viewers had presumably expired from sheer boredom. The director of the Emmy telecast won for directing the Tonys, and his charmless, overly long acceptance speech from inside the director’s truck illustrated everything that’s wrong with these shows: They navel-gaze without the proper volume of irony or rollicking self-awareness. 
 
 Comedian Louis C.K. — beloved for his sour wryness, and for being above the glitzy blandness of Hollywood — had two chances to give the show the Heimlich after he won best writing for a comedy series and also for a variety special. 
 
 “Well,” he said, “I won an Emmy just now so . . . I’m just gonna thank people.” 
 
 See, that’s exactly what we don’t want you to do. Keep that in mind next year, stars — although, ideally, none of us will be watching. ||||| Well, that was painfully dull. The Emmys, hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, proved to be an extremely good night for “Homeland,” “Modern Family,” “Game Change” -- and no one watching at home. Those three programs swept the drama, comedy and miniseries awards, respectively, winning almost every single category they were nominated in and turning the Emmys into a long, boring, predictable coronation. 
 
 “Homeland” kept “Mad Men” from winning its fifth straight best drama award in a row, but by the time this award — the second to last of the night — was announced, “Homeland” not winning something, anything, would have been the surprise. As Jon Stewart put it, after beating out “The Colbert Report” yet again, in the future aliens “will find a box [of his Emmys], and find out just how fucking predictable they are.” Or, to put it another way, this year Jon Cryer won best actor in a comedy for his role in “Two and a Half Men.” Oh boy. 
 
 The night didn’t begin badly, leading with the best, toughest gag of the evening: Lena Dunham sitting on a toilet, naked, eating a piece of cake. In the bit, Zooey Deschanel, Martha Plimpton, Mindy Kaling and Connie Britton were assembled in bathrobes listening to someone sob in a bathroom stall. Looking for the source, they knocked open a door and found Dunham sitting on the porcelain throne, eating dessert, proving yet again that she really doesn’t give a shit about what people think of her or her body. 
 
 Things got weirder from there, with Kathy Bates arriving to hulk-smash the door off another stall, revealing a sobbing, botoxed Jimmy Kimmel. The actresses then all decided to fix Kimmel’s distorted face by punching him. The sketch was just one of the night’s sequences that resonated with the "War on Women” in perhaps not entirely well-thought-out ways: A bunch of actresses beat up a guy! Who has succumbed to the typically feminine pressure to get botox! [Tom Berenger joked redacted.] What does it all mean?! This coming-from-a-good-place-but-ending-up-in-an-odd-one was repeated later, with the “Homeland” creator's energetic imperative to “Thank all the wives!” which seems like something Ann Romney might say. 
 
 Events descended from Lena and her cake pretty rapidly. Kimmel’s opening monologue was extremely short, flat and to the point. He made a couple of jokes, some at Mitt Romney’s expense ("Downton Abbey" really must give a sense of what it's like to grow up in Mitt Romney's house”), but didn’t level any zingers. At some point he introduced Zooey Deschanel and Jim Parsons as “very white people,” which, OK ... that’s a little pot calling the kettle bone china, no? 
 
 The host just getting out of the way of the winners and letting them do their thing would have been a nice, self-effacing, non-Gervais-ian move, except that Kimmel’s two biggest riff’s were hugely self-aggrandizing: first the gauche, faux-“In Memoriam” gag in honor of Jimmy Kimmel and then the bit in which he got his parents kicked out of the theater. Kimmel was a non-presence when he needed to be a presence — during the monologue and the introductions — and too big a presence when he didn’t need to be — during the extended, planned bits that should involve other famous people. (Kimmel also masterminded the moment where he basically asked America to do product placement for the Emmys, by tweeting that something shocking had happened there. Gross.) 
 
 The pre-taped bits, by and large, did work. The “Breaking Bad” black and white segment and the pre-taped interviews in which the comedy nominees were asked questions were strong and polished. The “Modern Family” gag about Lily being a total diva was very funny — and would have been funnier if the whole night hadn’t already felt like a giant plug for “Modern Family.” 
 
 But none of this matters when the show is an hour longer than it needs to be. When all but a few of the major awards have been handed out and there is still an hour and a half to go, something is wrong. When Damian Lewis won for “Homeland,” beating out Bryan Cranston and Jon Hamm, that was a surprise. He gave a very adorable, Hugh Grantish speech. But by the end of the night no cute speech was going to make another “Modern Family” or “Homeland” victory interesting, even great speeches, of which there were plenty. (Standouts: Claire Danes’ talk, and especially the line, “Mandy Patinkin, holla!” or, as I prefer to think of it, “Mandy Patinkin, challah!” And Aaron Paul, who has already won an Emmy, but gave an adorable, cute, genuinely surprised speech anyway.) 
 
 And when it wasn’t “Homeland,” “Modern Family” or “Game Change” winning, it was someone almost as predictable — Jessica Lange for “American Horror Story,” Dame Maggie Smith for “Downton Abbey. Or, worse, someone who didn’t really deserve an Emmy, like Jon Cryer or, great as she is, Julia Louis-Dreyfus in “Veep.” (That should have been Amy Poehler’s award, and the wonderful gag Louis-Dreyfus and Poehler played when they “switched” speeches made it seem like even Louis-Dreyfus knew it.) The best win of the evening, Louis C.K.’s victory for comedy writing, was awesome, unexpected and well-deserved — and C.K. didn’t crack one joke when he accepted. It was that kind of evening. ||||| Hosted by Seth Meyers, the awards show saw big wins for 'Breaking Bad,' 'Modern Family,' 'American Horror Story' and 'Sherlock' 
 
 Seth Meyers Hosts 
 
 The Late Night host emceed the Emmys, kicking off his TV industry-targeted opening monologue by poking fun at the fact that the awards show was scheduled on a Monday, "which, if I understand television, means the Emmys are about to get canceled." The new time slot was chosen to avoid overlapping with Sunday's MTV Video Music Awards. Of MTV still holding an awards show for music videos, which they rarely show anymore, Meyers quipped: "That's like network TV holding an award show and giving all the awards to cable and Netflix," which drew raucous applause. When a joke fell flat, he said, "Jokes are like nominees: They can't all be winners." 
 
 The Saturday Night Live alum also made jokes about Orange Is the New Black and True Detective's category controversy, How I Met Your Mother's not-so-well-received series finale, The Good Wife's and Homeland's decision to kill off their main characters, and The Big Bang Theory cast's million-dollar episodic paycheck, telling Jim Parsons, "You're worth every penny." 
 
 Beyonce? 
 
 To present the award for best supporting actor in a comedy series, Meyers called on "Beyonce," which then cued Amy Poehler to walk onstage from her seat in the audience and jokingly announce what she said was the first award: "Best Onscreen Orgasm in a Civil War Reenactment." 
 
 Supporting Actor, Comedy 
 
 Modern Family actor Ty Burrell took home his second Emmy for playing Phil Dunphy in the ABC comedy. He read a speech written by his castmates noting that his kids aren't " 'I can support my whole family' cute" and that he was "so excited for this award, and I can't wait to give it to Nolan Gould," the actor who plays his onscreen son, Luke. 
 
 Writing, Comedy 
 
 Louis C.K. won the statuette for penning the Louie episode "So Did the Fat Lady." He humbly said, "I'd like to thank Ron Lynch, who gave me my first shot as a comedian, and Conan O'Brien, who gave me my first job on television. That goes way back." 
 
 Movie Stars at the TV Awards Show 
 
 Before presenting the award for best supporting actress in a comedy, Jimmy Kimmel jabbed Matthew McConaughey for being nominated for a TV award. "You just won the Oscar five months ago — no offense, but how many of those speeches are we supposed to sit through?" he joked. "Should we give you the BET Award for best male hip-hop artist?" He compared the True Detective actor's "movie star" face to that of Ricky Gervais: "That is a television face! Not really a television face, that's a Netflix face! … You don't belong here, and take Julia Roberts with you, while you're at it!" Kimmel also shouted out to Tracy Morgan, who was injured in a car crash earlier this year: "We'll see you here next year." 
 
 Supporting Actress, Comedy 
 
 Allison Janney took home the statuette — her sixth overall — for Mom, opposite Anna Faris. "She is the sister I never had. She is the daughter I never had." 
 
 Directing, Comedy 
 
 Gail Mancuso won her second consecutive Emmy, for directing Modern Family's "Vegas" episode. She also came up with a novel way to stop herself from crying during her speech, telling Matthew McConaughey, "If you don't mind, I'm just gonna make eye contact with you right now." 
 
 Emmys in NYC? 
 
 In a special Billy on the Street segment, Billy Eichner and Seth Meyers walked around New York City to see how the Big Apple feels about TV's biggest night. Unfortunately, a passerby mistook Meyers for Seth MacFarlane, and another called the statuette an "anniversary." They also collected donations to meet the paycheck demands of The Big Bang Theory cast and raged over how Mindy Kaling had to get up at 5 a.m. to announce the Emmy nominations but wasn't nominated for The Mindy Project. 
 
 Clark Gable and Tim Whatley 
 
 A mustachioed Bryan Cranston and Julia Louis-Dreyfus took the stage to present the award for lead actor in a comedy but not before the Veep star poked fun at the Breaking Bad actor's facial hair. "Hold on, Clark Gable," she said, noting he looked a lot like a recurring character on Seinfeld, dentist Tim Whatley, one of Elaine Benes' many love interests. At which point Cranston "reminded" her that he played Whatley and that they "actually had a kissing scene together." 
 
 Lead Actor, Comedy 
 
 Jim Parsons won his fourth career Emmy for The Big Bang Theory, telling his fellow nominees, "To say that I watch your work and I feel inspired is a bit of an understatement. ... I see people doing things, in all seriousness, that are so divergent and all over the place and all of us doing such different things that I do pray to do one day. I really do. But that's the landscape we live in. And this is all a long way of saying there's no accounting for taste, and that it's through a lot of good fortune I stand up here tonight." He also thanked his late father for the first time. 
 
 A Bit of Perspective 
 
 Before presenting the award for lead actress in a comedy, Jimmy Fallon stated one quick truth: "None of us will make as much money as Kim Kardashian did for her iPhone game." 
 
 Lead Actress, Comedy 
 
 Julia Louis-Dreyfus won her third consecutive Emmy for Veep, and after presenter Jimmy Fallon interrupted her kissing fest with Bryan Cranston — "Yeah, he was on Seinfeld," she admitted — she noted (out of character), "The show is very dense. It's a huge labor of love." 
 
 The Truth About Reality 
 
 Mindy Kaling and John Mulaney noted the truth about the category they were presenting. "Reality shows are the exact thing you make your husband watch before you have sex with him," said Kaling, while Mulaney added, "They're also the thing putting hundreds of writers out of work." 
 
 Reality Competition 
 
 The Amazing Race won the category's award for the 10th time. Said Bertram van Munster, "The world is not a bad place. Actually, you can go safely to a lot of places, contrary to what they make you believe." 
 
 Meyers' Odd Q&A 
 
 In an awkward bit, Meyers took questions from the star-studded audience. Jon Hamm asked whether or not the show would be televised, and was shocked to learn he was currently live on the air. Melissa McCarthy wondered about her car potentially being towed for illegally parking on the sidewalk out front, blaming Edie Falco for telling her to simply leave a note. Andre Braugher wanted the key to use the bathroom, and Julianna Margulies asked, "I see that Maggie Smith isn't here tonight — if she wins the Emmy, can I have it?" (No, because someone already called it: Hamm.) And Fred Armisen asked if the annual event would happen every year. 
 
 Writing, Miniseries/Movie 
 
 Steven Moffat nabbed the writing award for Sherlock: His Last Vow, immediately apologizing to PBS Masterpiece for ignoring their advice to prepare a speech. "A huge thanks to my brilliant, sexy producer, whom I also married," he said. "And although I would marry him, I haven't married Mark Gatiss. He should be up here because every word of Sherlock is down to him as well." 
 
 Supporting Actress, Miniseries/Movie 
 
 Kathy Bates won for American Horror Story: Coven, and though she touted the upcoming season and made fun of her seating arrangement in her speech — "I came in tonight and I was way over there and I thought, 'Yeah, that's right. I'm not going to win.' " — she told reporters backstage that she nearly dedicated the win to Robin Williams. 
 
 Supporting Actor, Miniseries/Movie 
 
 In a bit that fell flat, Stephen Colbert noted that the greatest supporting actor on television is his invisible — and only — friend, Rosco, whom he then proceeded to embarrass with his effusive praise. "Walk away, walk away, that'll solve everything!" Colbert shouted to an empty stage. "Walk away like all my imaginary friends have!" he continued, then remembering, "Damn it, he has the limo driver's number!" And when an absent Martin Freeman won for Sherlock: His Last Vow, Colbert noted, "I accept this award on my behalf." 
 
 Directing, Miniseries/Movie 
 
 Colin Bucksey won for directing the Fargo episode "Buridan's Ass" — "I'm so glad I got back from the loo in time!" he said. 
 
 True Detective 
 
 Seth Meyers called on Amy Poehler to help him introduce True Detective stars Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson. Meyers suggested that the HBO anthology "was like making love: I didn't understand what was going on, but I liked it," while Poehler said the actors both "seemed like they'd be chatty in the sack." Also of note, they're "the only actors in Hollywood not rumored to be starring in season two of True Detective." 
 
 Lead Actor, Miniseries/Movie 
 
 Woody Harrelson quoted Matthew McConaughey's "All right, all right, all right" line, and the two then poked fun at their memorable True Detective moments. Harrelson added that his co-star had most of "the plagiarized lines — was that too inside of a joke? Yeah." They then announced that an absent Benedict Cumberbatch had won the lead actor in a miniseries or movie award for Sherlock: His Last Vow. 
 
 Lead Actress, Miniseries/Movie 
 
 Jessica Lange took home the lead actress in a miniseries award for American Horror Story: Coven. "I am profoundly surprised at this, but very grateful," she said. 
 
 "Weird Al" and Wordless Theme Songs 
 
 After Brooklyn Nine-Nine star Andy Samberg joked that he was co-hosting with Seth Meyers, the two noted that today's theme songs don't have words that explain the plot of the show, like The Brady Bunch's did. Weird Al Yankovic then added lyrics to the wordless theme songs of Mad Men, Scandal, Homeland, Modern Family and Game of Thrones. 
 
 Joffrey Is Back 
 
 As Game of Thrones actress Lena Headey presented the award for best miniseries, Andy Samberg showed up alongside her dressed as a recently poisoned Joffrey. 
 
 Miniseries 
 
 Fargo took home the award for best miniseries. "This is a true story: The first time I talked to Joel and Ethan Coen was when they called me after they read the script, and I had a baby strapped to me — I mean, my baby, not a random baby," recalled Noah Hawley. "And they said, 'Look, we hate imitation, but it was eerie reading this because it felt like you were channeling us.' So who else can I thank but Joel and Ethan Coen, who, of course, don't watch the Emmys." 
 
 TV Movie 
 
 HBO's The Normal Heart took home the award for best TV movie. Director Ryan Murphy thanked playwright Larry Kramer in his speech — "We did this for him." — and credited the production's realism to Julia Roberts and Mark Ruffalo: "It took the super powers of Erin Brockovich and the Incredible Hulk" to get this movie made. He also asked viewers to donate to HIV/AIDS organizations. 
 
 Ricky Gervais' Pseudo-Win 
 
 The lead actor in a comedy nominee seized his award-presenting moment to vent about not winning for Derek. "I lost again. Twenty-one times I've been nominated, lost 19 times. … Well done to Jim Parsons though — I would've preferred to have won it. Also, I've come a long way; he's probably local! Four years in a row seems unfair, doesn't it?" He then chose to read his prepared acceptance speech anyway: "Ha ha, I won. I knew I would, because I'm the best actor." 
 
 Writing, Variety Special 
 
 Sarah Silverman won for her variety special, Sarah Silverman: We Are Miracles. "Thank you to my Jews at CAA," she began her speech, closing with, "We're all just made of molecules, and we're hurtling through space right now." 
 
 To All Internet Trolls 
 
 Presenter Chris Hardwick shouted out to Internet trolls because "they provide a public service to everyone in this room, because they dare to tell us the truth. Anonymously!" He then looked into the camera and told all of them, " 'Your' is a possessive pronoun. 'You're' is a contraction!" 
 
 'The Col-What Report?' 
 
 While presenting the winner of the variety series award with Adam Levine, fellow Voice coach Gwen Stefani unfortunately mangled the show title, The Colbert Report, mispronouncing the host's last name as something closer to "Colborg," which Levine quickly tried to correct. (The incoming Late Show host promised backstage that he will be parodying Stefani's flub on his Comedy Central program: "I think I might just change my name to Colborg. I am the Colborg, resistance is futile. Oh, you will be absorbed.") 
 
 Variety Series 
 
 Jimmy Fallon poked fun at the moment when he ran onstage to accept the accolade. "She said it wrong, so there must be a mistake!" he said before continuing to make a speech on Stephen Colbert's behalf. Colbert then whispered his thanks into Fallon's ear, telling him to thank the host's family and refer to IMDb for the full list of people he'd thank. 
 
 Rotating Sofia Vergara 
 
 As Academy of Television Arts and Sciences president Bruce Rosenblum explained the Academy's mission, he had Sofia Vergara stand on a rotating platform, triggering the audience to cheer when faced with her bum. "We always give our viewers something compelling to watch," he joked. (Though the segment was seen by some viewers as "sexist," Vergara shook off the idea.) 
 
 Supporting Actor, Drama 
 
 Aaron Paul took home his third Emmy for Breaking Bad. "I miss him. I love him," he said of his character, Jesse Pinkman. Before shouting out to his wife's organization, The Kind Campaign, he said to Bryan Cranston: "There's not a single day that goes by that I don't miss running to work to work opposite you, my friend." 
 
 In Memoriam 
 
 Sara Bareilles sang Charlie Chaplin's "Smile" during the ceremony's In Memoriam segment. 
 
 Honoring Robin Williams 
 
 Billy Crystal gave a heartfelt tribute to his good friend, the late Robin Williams. "He made us laugh hard every time you saw him on television, in arenas, hospitals, homeless shelters, and even in a dying girl's living room," Crystal said of Williams. "The relentless energy was kind of thrilling." 
 
 Directing, Drama 
 
 Cary Joji Fukunaga won the directing award for the True Detective episode "Who Goes There." "You're gonna need a broom for all the names I'm about to drop," he warned at the beginning of his speech. 
 
 Supporting Actress, Drama 
 
 Anna Gunn won her second Breaking Bad Emmy. "It is luck that brought me seven years ago to getting a phone call from Sharon Bialy, our amazing casting director, who said, 'Get your patootie in here and read for the show. It's the best pilot script I've ever seen.' She was right, and it turned into the most extraordinary journey over the past seven years, and I have been unbelievably fortunate." 
 
 Writing, Drama 
 
 Moira Walley-Beckett won for penning Breaking Bad's "Ozymandias" episode. "Vince Gilligan, this is your fault!" she said, thanking the showrunner. "Thank you for your mentorship and your mad skills, yo." 
 
 Lead Actress, Drama 
 
 The Good Wife star Julianna Margulies won the Emmy for lead actress in a drama. "What a wonderful time for women in television," she said. 
 
 Drama Actors' Competition 
 
 It was a tough race in the category for lead actors in a drama, and even presenter Julia Roberts felt the heat. "This is horrible! This is a horrible category. God I'm glad I'm not in this category," she said after announcing the nominees. "You're all fabulous, by the way." 
 
 Lead Actor, Drama 
 
 Bryan Cranston took home the Emmy for lead actor in a drama for Breaking Bad. "Even I thought about voting for Matthew," he said of fellow nominee McConaughey, and added of the acting craft, "It is a passion of mine, and I will do it until my last breath." And to his onscreen wife, Anna Gunn, he said he loved working with her, "especially those scenes in bed." 
 
 Comedy Series 
 
 Modern Family won the comedy series category for the fifth consecutive time. "It's a wonder we get to do this for a living," co-showrunner Steven Levitan said in his acceptance speech. "Modern Family has been a beautiful dream for the last five years, and we thank you for not waking us up." 
 
 Drama Series 
 
 Breaking Bad won the final award of the night. "Thank you so much for this wonderful farewell," said Vince Gilligan. "This is indeed a wonderful time to be working in television." 
 
 Email: Ashley.Lee@THR.com 
 
 Twitter: @cashleelee ||||| We don’t ask much of the Primetime Emmy Awards. Nobody ever gets one of these three-hour statuette dispensaries completely right, but the Emmys always seem as though they’d be the easiest of all the awards shows to pull off — mostly because the likelihood of culturally disruptive twerking is very, very low, which means the Emmys are the awards show no one ever remembers 18 hours later. 
 
 So what happened Sunday night during CBS’s anemic and often awkward Emmys telecast, hosted by Neil Patrick Harris? (Or let me put it another way: I had to next-day “Breaking Bad” for this?) 
 
 Everyone’s favorite messed-up meth saga did at last win the best drama award, so the night wasn’t a total wash, but all those highfalutin theses about the Netflix-y future of television failed to materialize. Claire Danes won lead actress (drama) for Showtime’s “Homeland” for the second year in a row, and, inexplicably, Jeff Daniels won lead actor (drama) for HBO’s “The Newsroom.” 
 
 “Modern Family” won best comedy series for what seems like the squillionth time, but it is really just the fourth. HBO’s Washington-based comedy “Veep” took two acting awards — Tony Hale for supporting actor, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus for lead actress the second straight year. And Anna Gunn won for supporting actress (drama) for AMC’s “Breaking Bad.” 
 
 That’s most of the news, now for the snooze, starting with a dreary opening sketch that featured Harris locking himself in a multi-screen chamber to binge the entire 2012-13 season of every television show in a matter of minutes. 
 
 1 of 57 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad × Emmys red carpet fashion: View Photos Buttoned-up gowns felt fresh compared with the amount of skin seen on carpets of late. — Cara Kelly Caption A hint of modesty infused the red carpet at the 65th annual Emmy Awards on Sunday night. Call it a backlash to summer headlines of nude pop stars and a sensational buff-colored bikini at MTV’s Video Music Awards. Buttoned-up gowns felt fresh compared with the amount of skin seen on carpets of late. — Cara Kelly The visual interest was provided by unique necklines. Zooey Deschanel’s sea-foam J. Mendel delicately traced the line of her collarbones before breaking into a small slit diffusing the solid block of color. Jason Merritt/Getty Images Buy Photo Wait 1 second to continue. 
 
 Once onstage, Harris was joined by former Emmys hosts (Jimmy Kimmel, Jane Lynch, Jimmy Fallon and Conan O’Brien), who needled him in one of those tiresome meta-routines in which all the comedy is directed at the existence of the show itself, in real time. The joke just got staler when an unamused Kevin Spacey, the star of Netflix’s hit “House of Cards,” turned and addressed the camera as House Majority Whip Francis Underwood, his fictional character from the show. 
 
 Later, Harris’s “How I Met Your Mother” co-stars confronted him in an intervention for “EHD” (excessive hosting disorder), treatable only at the “Ryan Seacrest Center for Excessive Hosting.” 
 
 Halfway through the evening, Harris finally brought out the jaunty song-and-dance routines, the main symptom of his EHD, with a number called “The Number in the Middle of the Show.” (Sample lyric: “The Emmy Awards are three hours long / Now there’s three minutes less to go.”) One can’t imagine a flashier way to demonstrate that Hollywood’s awards-show writers desperately need to think of a way to tell jokes that aren’t about telling jokes; to stage a show that’s not only about the show. 
 
 The best line of the evening came very early on from Merritt Wever, who seemed so shocked at winning the supporting actress Emmy for a comedy show (“Nurse Jackie”) that she went with her flusteredness and said: “I gotta go, bye.” 
 
 The rest of us (well, some of us) gotta stay, alas, in a listless position on the couch while the Emmys poked along as flatly as possible. The banter had no flair for comedy. The tributes — including short monologues from Robin Williams, Rob Reiner, Michael J. Fox and Jane Lynch (honoring the recent deaths of comic actor Jonathan Winters, “All in the Family’s” Jean Stapleton, producer Gary David Goldberg and “Glee’s” Cory Monteith) sometimes seemed stiff and, most curiously, clip-less. 
 
 Lynch said that Monteith was “a beautiful soul. He was not perfect, which many of us here can relate to. . . . Tonight we remember Cory for all he was and mourn the loss of what he could have been.” That was supposed to be one of the evening’s most moving moments, and it only sort of was. Edie Falco also encountered a similar struggle in a tribute to “The Sopranos” star James Gandolfini, trying to make what was on the teleprompter sound as authentic as the pain she so clearly feels at losing a friend. 
 
 More strangeness: Elton John performed a song that he said was a tribute to Liberace, which is topical because of all the nominations for HBO’s “Behind the Candelabra,” a film didn’t exactly leave everyone who saw it with a warm feeling about the flamboyant pianist. (“Behind the Candelabra” went on to win three big awards, for best miniseries/movie, best director for Steven Soderbergh and best actor for its star Michael Douglas, who tried to perk up his acceptance speech with jokes about gay sex.) And somewhere in this now-blurry Emmys night, Carrie Underwood performed the Beatles’ song “Yesterday,” as a tribute to all the things that happened during or close to the year 1963 (the March on Washington; the John F. Kennedy assassination), because . . .? Because the world is round, it blows my mind. 
 
 1 of 10 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad × Claire Danes’s ‘faux bob.’ Jeff Daniels’s win and other Emmy moments View Photos Surprising winners Merritt Wever and Jeff Daniels, a faux bob, an extra-large beard, Will Ferrell’s kids and more top moments from the 65th Primetime Emmy Awards. — Veronica Toney Caption Surprising winners Merritt Wever and Jeff Daniels, a faux bob, an extra-large beard, Will Ferrell’s kids and more top moments from the 65th Primetime Emmy Awards. — Veronica Toney Claire Danes’s faux-bob Real or faux? That was the question surrounding Claire Danes ’s hair. No need to worry, “Homeland” fans; Danes’s bob was a fake. Danes and her “bob” went on to win the prize for outstanding actress in a drama series at the 65th annual Primetime Emmy Awards. Mario Anzuoni/Reuters Buy Photo Wait 1 second to continue. 
 
 “The Emmys are so good this year,” Stephen Colbert deadpanned as he and his “Colbert Report” crew accepted the award for variety series writing. (The show also won best variety series. Another victory for the “finally” list.) “Modern Family” creator Steven Levitan also took a dig at the show while accepting the best comedy series award at the evening’s end: “This may be the saddest Emmys of all time, but we could not be happier,” he said. 
 
 So, to sum up: An awards show filled with skits about how bad awards shows are gave awards to people who talked about how bad the show turned out, while everyone on Twitter had decided that hours earlier. These days, that’s entertainment. 
 
 See all of the winners and highlights from the 2013 Emmy Awards
– And they're off! Host Jimmy Kimmel opened the Emmys with jokes about Honey Boo Boo and politics ("Being a Republican in Hollywood is like being a Chick-fil-A sandwich on the snack table at Glee."), and noted that this is the first year none of the four major networks have been nominated for Best Drama. "The Academy is sending a pretty clear message," he said, "and that message is, 'Show us your boobs.'" And (some of) the awards go to: Lead Actor, Comedy: Jon Cryer, Two and a Half Men Lead Actress, Comedy: Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Veep Reality Program: The Amazing Race Lead Actor, Drama: Damian Lewis, Homeland Lead Actress, Drama: Claire Danes, Homeland Variety Series: The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Lead Actress, Miniseries or Movie: Julianne Moore, Game Change Lead Actor, Miniseries or Movie: Kevin Costner, Hatfields & McCoys Miniseries or Movie: Game Change Drama Series: Homeland Comedy Series, presented by Michael J. Fox, who got a standing ovation: Modern Family Click for the complete list of winners. For more from the night, check out the eight best and worst moments or the 10 best things winners said backstage.