It's (Breaking) Bad. It's Louie. It's Game of Thrones. TCA Awards Honor TV's Best - Hillary Atkin

Even as the best in current television programming was honored in a dozen categories it was the recognition for a show of yore that brought down the house at the 29th Annual Television Critics Association Awards at the Beverly Hilton39s International Ballroom Saturday night August 3Norman Lear the creator of quotAll in the Familyquot and Rob Reiner its beloved meathead got a sustained standing ovation as they accepted the Heritage Award from TCA vice president Scott PierceThe pair gleefully read a transcript of a recently uncovered conversation that was taped in the Oval Office between President Richard Nixon and Bob Haldeman in which they opined that the groundbreaking CBS comedy glorified homosexualityReiner also couldn39t resist ribbing some of the fellow honorees of the eveningFurther hilarity ensued when Lear imitated Amy Poehler doing a pirouette imitating Kaitlin Jenkins of quotBunheadsquot the now canceled ABC Family program which took the critics prize for outstanding achievement in youth programmingIt was another of many comedic moments in an evening that began with Comedy Central39s Key and Peele doing an Obama and Luther shtick during which Luther threatened a drone strike if Netflix didn39t release its viewership numbersThen Louis CK started the running gag of the night when he accepted the individual achievement in comedy prize for his eponymous FX show calling the acrylic trophy a quotshitty piece of plasticquot that he would use to post drink specials on if he ever bought a barMost of the other winners also proceeded to comment on the trophies which are voted on by the 220member critics organization which invites only the winners to the ceremony amp8211 making for an extremely streamlined presentation which ran for a little over an hourSeveral of the honorees including Barbara Walters for career achievement quotOrphan Black39squot Tatiana Maslany for achievement in drama and Ken Burns for news and information for his docu quotCentral Park Fivequot were not able to attend and taped their acceptance speechesIt was a big night for FX as in addition to quotLouiequot its freshman series quotThe Americansquot took the award for outstanding new program Keri Russell and Noah Emmerich were among those on hand from the show to acceptHBO also scored two TCAs for quotGame of Thronesquot as best drama accepted by Emilia Clarke and Kit Harington and quotBehind the Candelabraquot in the category for movies miniseries and specialsquotI39m a movie guyquot said executive producer Jerry Weintraub in accepting the award quotI didn39t even know what TCA was until six months ago and HBO39s Nancy Lesser told me I had to come tonight and wear a suit They were the greatest people to work with everquot he said in describing the difficult road in getting the Liberace biopic made even with Michael Douglas and Matt Damon on board before the premium cabler gave him the green lightquotShark Tankquot took the prize in reality programming accepted by the realityprolific Mark Burnett and quotThe Big Bang Theoryquot was the winner in comedy adding another feather to Chuck Lorre39s capThe evening ended with the presentation of the program of the year award which Vince Gilligan and Brian Cranston accepted for quotBreaking Badquot which sadly for its many devotees is about to unspool its final eight episodesGilligan said that three days earlier they had a premiere in New York and Warren Buffett was there as well as Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones quotHow the heck did it come to thisquot he recalled asking himselfquotI39ll tell you how it came to this amp8211 folks like you guysquot he said in thanking the television critics quotBack in season one when our official number was 117 viewers folks like you guys spread the word about 39Breaking Bad39quotHillary Atkin is the editor and publisher of The Atkin Report wwwatkinreportcom and has written extensively on media and entertainment for USA Today the Los Angeles Times Daily and Weekly Variety The Hollywood Reporter TelevisionWeek Entertainment Weekly The New York Observer and LA Confidential She is an awardwinning journalist who began her career as a television news writer reporter and producer As a broadcast producer at KCBS in Los Angeles she won numerous Emmy Associated Press and Golden Mike Awards for live coverage and entertainment special events programming and then produced and directed biographies on Robert Duvall Elizabeth Montgomery Linda Darnell and Nicolas Cage for AampampE and E She can be reached at hillaryatkinyahoocom Read all Hillary39s MediaBizBloggers commentaries at Hillary AtkinCheck us out on Facebook at MediaBizBloggerscomFollow our Twitter updates MediaBizBloggerThe opinions and points of view expressed in this commentary are exclusively the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaBizBloggerscom management or associated bloggers MediaBizBloggers is an open thought leadership platform and readers may share their 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It's (Breaking) Bad. It's Louie. It's Game of Thrones. TCA Awards Honor TV's Best - Hillary Atkin

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It's (Breaking) Bad. It's Louie. It's Game of Thrones. TCA Awards Honor TV's Best - Hillary Atkin

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