Last night, I watched the 61st Emmy Awards air live on CBS. The award ceremony was hosted by the one and only, Neil Patrick Harris and his opening performance was brilliant! What I found also to be quite brilliant was splitting the show in genres. This was long overdue, so it was nice to see this modification in the show. The genres were presented in the order of Comedy, Reality, Miniseries/TV Movie, Variety, and Drama.

There were so many people that I was excited for! Kristin Chenoweth won the first award of the night for Outstanding Supporting Actress for her work in Pushing Daisies. As a longtime fan of Kristin Chenoweth and a fan of the show, Pushing Daisies, I was thrilled to see her win. Her acceptance speech was very emotional and made me all the more happier for her. Congratulations Kristin! Matt Hubbard won the award for Outstanding Writing for his work on an episode of 30 Rock, which I enjoy. I was thrilled that Toni Collette won Outstanding Lead Actress for her work on United States of Tara, which I absolutely love. As I run Diablo Cody Fan, it was very exciting to hear Toni give thanks to Diablo in her speech and I believe this is just the beginning of many awards that United States of Tara will receive. It was no surprise that Tina Fey won Outstanding Guest Actress for her work as Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live and Justin Timberlake won Outstanding Guest Actor for his work on SNL. I knew they would win! What I found to be a nice addition to the show were the video interviews for nominees in certain categories, such as Outstanding Director. Jeffrey Blitz won this award for his work on an episode of The Office.

I don’t watch much reality television, however I did enjoy Dancing With The Stars dancers, Maksim & Karina‘s performance with the crew from So You Think You Can Dance. Even though I do not watch The Amazing Race, it has always been a show that I have wanted to watch and this show winning the Emmy for Outstanding Reality Competition Show makes me want to watch this show even more.

As for the Miniseries/TV Movie Genre, I have only seen Grey Gardens, so I was rotting for this of course. This film took home the award for Outstanding TV Movie, Jessica Lange won the award for Outstanding Lead Actress, and Kevin Howard won for Outstanding Supporting Actor, so congratulations to everyone who worked on Grey Gardens! Now is it just me, or did it seem like there was tension between Jennifer Love Hewitt and Patricia Arquette when they presented the award for Outstanding Directing? Also, I was pleasantly surprised and was thrilled when Neil Patrick Harris an the cast of Dr. Horrible did a skit for the show. What a treat!

The best part about the Variety genre was Ricky Gervais presenting the award for Outstanding Variety, Music, or Comedy Series (which The Daily Show won).

Finally, Drama! I was thrilled when Michael Emerson won Outstanding Supporting Actor for his work on Lost. It was highly important that Lost was acknowledged and those working on the show be acknowledged for their incredible work with this upcoming season being its last. Bryan Cranston winning Outstanding Lead Actor for his work on Breaking Bad was in a sense surprising since it is not that well known of a show but as I have seen the first season of the show and part of the second, I must say very well deserved. So congratulations Bryan! Glenn Close took home the award for Outstanding Lead Actress for her work in Damages and while I was rooting for another lead actress, I have seen the incredible work that Glenn has done on Damages and see why she won! What an amazing job she does on this show. I knew that Michael J. Fox would take home the award for Outstanding Guest Actor for his work on Rescue Me, so it was rewarding to see his work recognized.

As for the biggest awards of the night…30 Rock took home the award for Outstanding Comedy Series and Mad Men took home the award for Outstanding Drama Series. Everyone that knows me tells me that I would love Mad Men and while I have not seen an episode yet, I was thrilled to see this show win! As a fan of 30 Rock, I was also thrilled to see this show acknowledged…it seemed like a no brainer.

Sarah McLachlan‘s performance for the “In Memoriam” segment was very moving. Let’s not ever forget Michael Jackson, Farah Fawcett, Patrick Swayze, Ed McMahon, Paul Newman, Army Archerd, Beatrice Arthur, Nora O Brien, Natasha Richardson, Dom DeLuise, Karl Madden, and all of those who passed away this year.

This award ceremony was sponsored by Vaseline Sheer Infusion with Stratys-3 who selectively supported the Breakthrough Award, which True Blood won. The fans voted for this award, so congratulations True Blood!

NBC won 16 awards for the night! Check out Photos of The Office Cast at the Emmys. Also, check out Photos of the 30 Rock Cast at the Emmys.

This year’s award show was a pleasure to watch and I cannot wait until next year!