Wow, can you believe it!? Bryan Cranston!

The Emmys. Oy!  People actually get paid to produce this stuff?

Poor Josh Groban.  His medley of television theme songs will live in infamy. Said Chicago Tribune’s Maureen Ryan, "The nadir of this pastiche had to be when leggy showgirls arrived on stage while Groban gave a bit of Broadway razzle-dazzle to M*A*S*H’s ‘Suicide Is Painless.’"

I’ll post the vid as soon as it becomes available on youtube.  

At least Bryan Cranston won Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series (Breaking Bad) for his superb portrayal of the quietly desperate Walter White, a high school chemistry teacher who turns to cooking meth after his cancer diagnosis threatens to bankrupt his family.

Cranston was one of several unexpected wins of the evening.

I love Breaking Bad but hardly anyone watches it, so I assumed Cranston would be overlooked.  I’ve never actually met anyone - other than my fellow tv critics - who’s seen Breaking Bad.  (Here’s my review last January of the series premiere.) 

The other surprise of the night was Zeljko Ivanek for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama (Ray Fiske in Damages). - over his castmate Ted Danson,

Again, I’ve never met anyone who’s actually watched Damages, other than my husband and my colleagues.

Someone is paying close attention - just not television audiences.

The other highlight: the commemorative Emmy for Tommy Smothers of the Smothers Brothers. 

In accepting the Emmy for writing, Mad Men creator Matt Weiner said he’d have to "find something new to complain about."

It didn’t take long.  Back stage, after collecting the outstanding drama Emmy, Weiner groused that none of the Mad Men cast had been selected to present.

"I didn’t know there was such a caste system at the Emmys and that they were so segregated," said Weiner. "I’m also surprised we have this amazing cast and no one was asked to present tonight."