The Future is Female as Women’s Stories Dominate the 69th Primetime Emmy Awards

Erik Anderson September 17, 2017

All four major program winners – **The Handmaid’s Tale**, **Big Little Lies**, **Veep**, **Black Mirror: San Junipero** – were female-fronted shows.

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The future of TV is female.

Every single winner of the top programs of the Emmys – Comedy Series, Drama Series, TV Movie and Limited Series – was a female-led show that also resulted in multiple acting and technical wins (from last week’s Creative Arts Emmys), giving us a ‘the future is female’ outcome that was realized at Emmys during the Creative Arts Emmys. Big Little Lies won five awards tonight for a total of eight overall, a field best for the Limited Series/TV Movie section.

John Lithgow was the first Emmy winner of the night; Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for The Crown. The five-time Emmy winner became a six-time Emmy winner tonight. Laura Dern (Big Little Lies) finally became an Emmy winner after six nominations and Saturday Night Live‘s Kate McKinnon went 2-for-2 tonight as Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series.

Saturday Night Live won Variety Sketch Series (the 2nd year of the category) and has 22 nominations this year and 231 nominations overall.

Alec Baldwin’s third win in 18 nominations came in Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series with his portrayal of Donald Trump on Saturday Night Live. It was also the seventh win in 11 nominations won for SNL director Don Roy King.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Veep) won her 6th Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series, earning herself a place in Emmy history as winningest performer for a single role in Emmy history.

Big Little Lies continued its winning streak, snagging acting wins for Alexander Skarsgård in Supporting Actor, Directing for Jean-Marc Valleé and Lead Actress Nicole Kidman along with a Limited Series win for the show for Kidman, co-nominee and co-star Reese Witherspoon. Kidman secures her E to go along with her O in the quest for EGOT.

Elisabeth Moss, after seven failed attempts at an Emmy win finally triumphed in Lead Actress for The Handmaid’s Tale, which also won for Supporting Actress (Ann Dowd) and Drama Series Writing before its historic win for Drama Series. It was the first streaming series to win the top award at the Emmys, giving Hulu a nudge above Amazon and Netflix in the awards game. Overall, The Handmaid’s Tale earned seven Emmys, the most for a Drama series this year with Veep and Atlanta earning top prizes in the comedy categories. Lena Waithe, a co-winner in the comedy writing category for Master of None, became the first black and first openly LGBTQ woman to win that award. For co-writer Aziz Ansari, this was his second consecutive win in this category.

Riz Ahmed became only the 3rd Asian actor to win an acting Emmy, winning Lead Actor in a Limited Series for HBO’s The Night Of. He is the first Asian acting winner since Archie Panjabi (The Good Wife) in 2010 and the only male performer to win, ever.

Speaking of continued wins, Last Night with John Oliver won in Variety Talk Series while Veep won its third Comedy Series win in a row.

Here is the full list of winners from tonight’s Primetime Emmy Awards.

1. Drama Supporting Actor – John Lithgow, THE CROWN
2. Comedy Supporting Actress – Kate McKinnon, SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE
3. TV Movie/Limited Series Supporting Actress – Laura Dern, BIG LITTLE LIES
4. Comedy Directing – Donald Glover, ATLANTA (“B.A.N.”)
5. Variety Sketch Series – SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE
6. Drama Writing – THE HANDMAID’S TALE (“Offred”)
7. Comedy Supporting Actor – Alec Baldwin, SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE
8. TV Movie/Limited Series Directing – Jean-Marc Vallée, BIG LITTLE LIES
9. TV Movie/Limited Series Supporting Actor – Alexander Skarsgård, BIG LITTLE LIES
10. Variety Series Writing – LAST WEEK TONIGHT WITH JOHN OLIVER
11. Drama Supporting Actress – Ann Dowd, THE HANDMAID’S TALE
12. Comedy Writing – Aziz Ansari and Lena Waithe, MASTER OF NONE
13. Reality-Competition Program – THE VOICE
14. Drama Series Directing – Reed Morano, The Handmaid’s Tale – “Offred (Pilot)”
15. TV Movie/Limited Series Writing – John Booker, Black Mirror: San Junipero
16. Variety Series Directing – Don Roy King, SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE
17. Variety Talk Series – LAST WEEK WITH JOHN OLIVER
18. Comedy Series Actor – Donald Glover, ATLANTA
19. Comedy Series Actress – Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Veep
20. Comedy Series – VEEP
21. TV Movie/Limited Series Actor – Riz Ahmed, THE NIGHT OF
22. TV Movie/Limited Series Actress – Nicole Kidman, BIG LITTLE LIES
23. TV Movie – Black Mirror: San Junipero
24. Limited Series – BIG LITTLE LIES
25. Drama Series Actor – Sterling K. Brown, THIS IS US
26. Drama Series Actress – Elisabeth Moss, THE HANDMAID’S TALE
27. Drama Series – THE HANDMAID’S TALE

Wins by network (two or more)

HBO 29
Netflix 20
NBC 15
Hulu 10
ABC 7
FX Networks 6
Fox 5
Adult Swim 4
CBS 4
A&E 3
VH1 3
Amazon 2
BBC America 2
ESPN 2
National Geographic 2

Wins by program (two or more)

“Saturday Night Live” 9
“Big Little Lies” 8
“The Handmaid’s Tale” 8
“Stranger Things” 5
“The Night Of” 5
“Veep” 5
“Westworld” 5
“13th” 4
“Last Week Tonight” 4
“Samurai Jack” 4
“Hairspray Live” 3
“RuPaul’s Drag Race” 3
“The Crown ” 4
“Atlanta” 2
“Black Mirror: San Junipero” 2
“Born This Way” 2
“Dancing With the Stars” 2
“Feud: Bette and Joan” 2
“Master of None” 2
“O.J.: Made in America” 2
“Planet Earth II” 2
“The Beatles: Eight Days a Week” 2
“This Is Us” 2

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.