‘Breaking Bad,’ ‘Modern Family’ Take Top Honors in a Tribute-Heavy Emmy Awards

I think it needs to be said: there were too many tributes, and just too much death, on tonight’s show. For a program that’s supposed to be about the best of what TV currently represents, there was precious little of that currency represented.
It’s stunning that no one looked at a show rundown and did the math to realize that 10-15 percent of the show touched on death, directly or indirectly. And this, with TV as vital as it’s ever been.
Indeed, in a year when a network that can’t be found on a traditional programming grid is getting nominated for Emmys, a tribute to the Beatles playing Ed Sullivan could hardly have felt less vital.
Nor the NPH cabaret routines. Nor the “Breaking Bad” dubstep dance. Nor the Elton John album plugging. Almost none of the set pieces celebrated television — it was a genuinely baffling night.
And after the surprise and spontaneity of early wins by Merritt Wever and Tony Hale, all that energy just seemed to dissipate.
Except in one place: those liquid backstage interstitials with Shemar Moore. Is it safe to say #ShemarMooreEmmys2014Host ?
I think you just did. And now it’s out there in the universe.
For Jon Caramanica, this has been Tatiana Maslany.
Until next time, Jon, a happy “Breaking Bad” to you.

Will Ferrell is here? Oh, thank the maker.
And wearing shorts and sandals. Might as well just say that Will Ferrell wasn’t that funny when he guested on “Billy on the Street.”
His appearance tonight however was a welcome respite from “Modern Family” winning yet again.
Anyone ever point out that Steven Levitan looks like Ray Romano with Botox?
“This may be the saddest Emmys of all time, but we couldn’t be happier,” says “Modern Family” co-creator Steve Levitan, in a deft swipe at tonight’s show. Meanwhile, the “Breaking Bad” win should be the Emmy for best drama/show I wish I’d watched instead of the Emmys.
Or the Emmy for Best Show We Meant To Give An Emmy To Before.
“I did not see this coming. I thought this was going to be ‘House of Cards,’ ” says “Breaking Bad” creator Vince Gilligan, a man who is pretty good at anticipating twists and turns before the rest of us.
Does that even count as a surprise?
On a night when so many things have gone contrary to plan and to expectation, I’d say so. (Even if it was the front runner.)
Maybe voters felt safe to play it loose in the acting categories, but kept it obvious in the main ones. “Modern Family” and “Breaking Bad” are no one’s idea of upsets.

Awesome, one more opportunity for Michael Douglas to speak on live television. There was much laughter in the room when Douglas remarked that “Behind the Candelabra” was “a two-hander.” It was his way of thanking co-star Matt Damon. It got even more off-color from there.
Michael Douglas using up all the leash the Emmys have given him, and then some.
Your headline for tomorrow: “Liberace Defeats The Bible.” Jerry Weintraub, the “Candelabra” producer, used to manage Frank Sinatra, so you know they won’t dare try to play him off.

Until tonight, “Frasier” had won more Emmys than any other series ever — 37 total. Now there’s a new champ: “SNL.” (With 40 total.)

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) 23 Sep 13

PLEASE let Soderbergh be in the house.
Soderbergh has a 23-minute speech planned.
Here comes Soderbergh to tell us how the medium is dying.
Instead he simply thanks Michael Douglas and Matt Damon.
Way to soft-pedal, Soderbergh!
Ellen Burstyn thanks “Political Animals” writer Greg Berlanti for creating a female character over the age of 65 “who still had a lot of juice.” I want to believe that’s a veiled reference back to “Requiem for a Dream.” But probably not.
Did you know “Karate Kid 3″ is on right now? And “Ghost Rider”!
“Honeymooners” in 10 minutes on WPIX.
Reruns of NHRA drag racing on ESPN2.

For years, the Emmy Awards “played in the minor leagues” when it came to red carpet fashion, but “times change,” writes Ruth La Ferla, a fashion reporter for The Times. “Now that television is vying with the big screen for accolades and audiences, the stakes have jumped considerably.”

Hey Dave, are you aware that CBS has some new comedies coming this fall? And some old ones? Are you aware CBS is a TV network?
Someday, Jon, programs will be shown only on CBS or Netflix. Then you won’t be laughing at their promotional strategies. I’d say that’s a big win for Abi Morgan, who triumphs over writers like David Mamet, Tom Stoppard and Jane Campion, and projects like “Behind the Candelabra” and “Top of the Lake.”
I’d like to say that “Two and a Half Men” is still on the air. Abi Morgan also just slighted the T.S.A. and by extension the N.S.A. — have fun getting out of the country, Abi.
James Cromwell was pretty damn spooky on “American Horror Story” — a long way from the gentle farmer from “Babe,” I would say.

“You all knew James Gandolfini the actor. I was lucky enough to know Jim, the man,” says his “Sopranos” TV wife, Edie Falco, in a tearful tribute to him.
It’s worth discussing whether these tributes are too much, even, in the context of this ham-handed show.
In a strange way, that particular one was a much needed shift of tone after that bizarre choreography sequence. But are they working overall? I’m skeptical.
I’m not sure anything could have righted that ship.

I think “The Colbert Report” just won something, but that image of the “Breaking Bad” dancers is still burned into my retinas.
It’s okay. Colbert is dance.
It is the show’s first win in the variety category after losing out to “The Daily Show” for oh-so-many years.

Nappytabs >>>> Rodgers and Hammerstein.
There’s a twerking joke coming, right?
Best Choreography For A Routine Involving Neil Patrick Harris will be a category next year, I’m sure.
Nice to see the ol’ Leather Man from “American Horror Story” making a wholly appropriate return appearance in an Emmys dance number.
That was pure nightmare fuel, I’m sorry. Good for you, Derek Hough. Tough break, Rodgers and Hammerstein, whoever you might be.

Another opinion:

I’m glad we cut Claire Danes’ speech short for this fascinating interpretive dance. #Emmys

— Mike Birbiglia (@birbigs) 23 Sep 13

Don Roy King now a four-time winner for directing at “SNL.” His TV career goes all the way back to “The Mike Douglas Show,” if you’re curious. He gets played off, anyway.
He’ll do better in the afterlife, if this year’s ceremony is any indication.

Jim Parsons telling Bob Newhart “You have really good timing” is the understatement of the millennium.
“Portlandia” is a variety show?
It’s cannon fodder for “The Colbert Report.”
And now the most ill-fitting tuxedos of the night.

David Fincher is easily the most prominent name on the directing list. His win denies, among others, the talented “Breaking Bad” director Michelle MacLaren, who’s also a directorial force of nature on “Game of Thrones.”
He is also way too cool to be at the Emmys.
You know what’s cooler than a million dollars? Not being at the Emmys.

Claire Danes a three-time winner now, between “Homeland” and “Temple Grandin.” A safe but still worthy winner in a competitive category. Danes graciously uses a portion of her acceptance speech to pay tribute to the late writer Henry Bromell, and she gets played off anyway.
Kerry Washington probably already left the building.

Dave, is death the theme of the Emmys?
I think there are tributes worth making, and those that feel immediately gratuitous.
I think that in a year with a tremendous amount of worthy television in the nominations, to spend so much time looking backwards bespeaks a terrible lack of vision on the part of the producers. Or fear. I’ll go with fear.
And when so much of the show has been taken up by the terrible off-color jokes being fed to NPH, the immediacy of what’s happening in TV this very moment could not be more important to emphasize. Especially when so many viewers are more interested in, literally, what’s happening on TV right this very moment.
Next year we’ll liveblog the other shows that are up against the Emmys — I bet it’ll do better.

Jeff Daniels a huge upset win in the best dramatic actor category. Surely the odds-on favorite was Bryan Cranston, who’s in his second-to-last “Breaking Bad” episode at this very moment. (He will be eligible for an Emmy again next year.)
Leave it to Will McAvoy to quote Lanford Wilson… and to begin after the play-off music began.
Pretty sure the orchestra was instructed to play the moment they heard the name “Lanford Wilson.”
I wish Lanford Wilson had written about the Beatles — maybe he would have gotten some airtime. Apparently you can’t introduce Carrie Underwood without mourning J.F.K. There isn’t a thing subtle about Carrie, which is why she comes off like an elephant trying to tip-toe when singing the Beatles.

Another opinion:

Why

— Aimee Mann (@aimeemann) 23 Sep 13

EVERYBODY should have won that category. But good on Cannavale, who was the single best thing about the “Boardwalk Empire” season.
Shouts to Bobby Cannavale and his Cary Grant hair.
None shall play Bobby Cannavale off stage or he will beat you with a rubber wrench.

Great to see Diahann Carroll and Kerry Washington together on stage. But to reveal the winners of the men’s acting categories? “The men are much more beautiful than when I was doing television,” Carroll explains.
Tough shot at Lloyd Nolan.
As a fan of Ice Station Zebra, I object!
Dave, you are too real for the Emmys
OK, awesome category coming up.

Is it time to say that reality competitions are far and away the least relevant category of reality programming?
I’m trying to get excited about the fact that “The Voice” just dethroned “The Amazing Race.”
Keep trying.
Meanwhile, 30 minutes of “Breaking Bad” have elapsed and I don’t know what they contain.
For real, though — yes, “The Voice” is better than “The Amazing Race,” but about 40 reality shows are better than “The Voice.”

Are you kidding? They put the NPH number in the middle of the show?
Why?
The Emmys should not do meta-commentary. Oh wait, maybe this is the promo for the Jesse Eisenberg magic movie.
Boy, will everyone who switched over to “Dexter” and “Breaking Bad” be disappointed to hear that they missed Nathan Fillion and Sarah Silverman singing for like 20 seconds.
Think of everyone who just cancelled the series recording of “Castle” on their DVR. Just kidding — no one DVRs “Castle.”

How did you feel about how they handled the Cory Monteith tribute, Dave? It was less personal than the others, but I thought, much more direct, and poignant.
You know, for all the hue and cry about whether it was too soon to honor someone as young as Monteith, I felt it struck the right balance between the personal remembrance of an emerging young talent, and the acknowledgment of the terrible toll that drug abuse exacted. Just one brief video clip would have made it even better, though.
I agree about the video clips. But let’s also note that we’re about 75 minutes in and have already had three segments about death, four if you include the “Homeland” writer who passed away. This is why, I imagine, all the tributes are typically bunched together.
On a night when I’m sure Emmys producers were supremely conscious of the competition they faced, there has been too much experimentation with what should be a straightforward format.

Now I don’t feel so bad for missing “Breaking Bad” in real time.

“Bryan Cranston just told me to breathe” — spoiler?
Everything in this acceptance speech is a potential clue.

The Emmy goes to Henry Bromell, a writer from “Homeland” who died in March. The award is accepted by his widow.

I think we’re watching another pre-taped comedy bit? It’s the other stars of “How I Met Your Mother” in a public service announcement for “Excessive Hosting Disorder.”
I was going to say that this bit with the stars of “How I Met Your Mother” is at least funnier than “How I Met Your Mother” but who am I kidding nothing is less funny than this skit.
This Arsenio Hall cameo appearance is quite timely.
I would prefer a world in which Arsenio hosted the Emmys.

An awards show is an awards show. But it is a bit brutal that, at the exact moment Showtime is beginning the “Dexter” finale and AMC is showing the second-to-last episode of “Breaking Bad,” the Emmys have a tangential musical tribute to Liberace and a trophy won by an actress who’s not in the theater.
There is also Twitter! Other things are happening in the world. Drake is doing a live interview at N.Y.U. that people are live-Tweeting. There are football games happening. All of that is more interesting than anything that has happened on the Emmys thus far.
Maybe Tony Hale will crash the next winner’s speech too. That ought to teach the 99 percent of the viewership who changed the channel 10 minutes ago.

Slide Show: A look at Emmy fashion.

Uh-oh: Michael Douglas back on live TV. Anything could happen.
He’s the new Dave Chappelle.
They quickly throw to Elton John, who’s here to pay a musical tribute to Liberace. He introduces an original song called “Home Again,” which he says reminds him of Liberace.
Which is conveniently the first single from his new album. Can I make a radical proposition? I would like to see longer speeches. Or at least, selectively longer ones — let the comedians go wild for 80 seconds and cut some of this Elton fat out.
How Swiftian.
Taylor or Jonathan?

Our second tribute of the night comes from Rob Reiner, to Jean Stapleton, his “All in the Family” co-star (and, as Edith Bunker, mother-in-law) who died in May.

Can we talk about these tributes, which are well intentioned, and clearly deeply felt, but which are dropped in with no introduction, thereby not allowing the proper level of emotional resetting?

The tone is appropriate, but could there be at least one clip of the performers being eulogized?
It’s a smart idea, giving a few people these extended tributes, but the quick shift to Shemar Moore cheesing heavy backstage is a supreme fail.

Another opinion:

What happened to the good old days where they just played a sad song and showed the picture of the dead guy?

— Albert Brooks (@AlbertBrooks) 23 Sep 13

Hey, Jim Parsons, let’s hear it for the underdogs. [Makes weak “bazinga” joke, flips around to other channels.]
Let’s go back to that moment on the red carpet where Michael Douglas treated Jim Parsons like Sir Laurence Olivier.

Finally a win for “Modern Family.”
I await Lena’s wrath.
I’m writing Emmy fanfic where Louis CK and Lena Dunham tied in that category, then met cute at the podium and started dating.
I’m writing Emmy fanfic where Louis CK and Lena Dunham tied in that category, then met cute at the podium and started making amazing television shows together that would also get snubbed at the Emmys.
While you were typing that, you missed a terrible NPH joke about Sofia Vergara’s breasts. He is going underserved and it is cruel.

Early congratulations to Jon Hamm for his Emmy Award for best beard. None will top it. Not even Mandy Patinkin. A well-earned win for JLD, though I suspect hearts will also weep for Tina Fey, late of “30 Rock,” and for Amy Poehler, who is still Emmy-less.
So basically it’s just “Seinfeld” and “Arrested Development” fans voting? Tony Hale doing his body-man bit is funnier than anything NPH has done.
Bonus cutaway to “Veep” co-star Anna Chlumsky, texting away.
Best Emmys In-Show Bit That’s Funnier Than The Actual Emmys.

Robin Williams pays tribute to his mentor/idol Jonathan Winters; Williams also wrote a terrific appreciation of Winters, who died in the spring, in The New York Times.

Big win for Tony Hale, prevailing over like half the cast of “Modern Family.”
My sinister plot to overthrow the hegemony of “Modern Family” is right on schedule. Tony Hale’s happiness is a collateral benefit. Frank Rich shout-out!
They scheduled 15 minutes for the opening of the show, then started playing off Tony Hale after about 15 seconds.
That’s because Jonah and Dan were in charge of the orchestra.
Insidery!
Topical!

Did they just say that Tina Fey was also nominated for “Rural Janitor”? Co-writer Tracey Wigfield apologizes to her parents, who she says were rooting for “Louie” to win. Tina Fey thanks her multi-tasking husband Jeff Richmond.
I literally am already out of NPH bad-host jokes already. It’s 8:27!

I’m not sure which two words Merritt Wever just silently mouthed, but they weren’t “Oh my.”
Cheers to her for that non-speech. Even if they told her to keep it short, which they almost certainly did.

OK, here we go, game on. By which I mean, football over, Emmys underway.
Is this a promo for that Jesse Eisenberg magic movie?
First sight gag of the night is CBS boss Leslie Moonves as a security guard leading Neil Patrick Harris to his hosting job. That should play well at home.
They should let the producers of “Wipeout” do the intro. Oh never mind they already are.
Some on Twitter are suggesting that the wall of video consoles that NPH is watching is a callback to an episode of “Girls”? Is that possible? This is just dead weight.
What do you do when no famous people agree to be a part of the Emmys intro? You use their clips against their will.
Still hoping these limp one-liners are still a lead-in to a Tonys-style musical number…
We’re almost at the point where more people watch “Duck Dynasty” than this, give or take. Oh NPH is doing his Seth MacFarlane imitation. I get it now.
Former Emmys hosts Jane Lynch, Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon are now on stage to offer their counsel to NPH. But it’s still not leading into a Tonys-style musical number.
And Conan O’Brien has been thawed out of the cryogenic chamber to remind America of the time when “a host was a god.”
“It’s all going according to my plan,” says Kevin Spacey (in Frank Underwood mode) as he turns to the camera.
And here’s to the mean girls, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, who cat-called NPH right off the stage, to the relief of all, not just those who didn’t want to see him twerk.
That was 15 whole minutes of no awards given out. Wow.

The Emmys show is starting ever so slightly late as CBS winds down its NFL coverage. I don’t want to see any more men hurling themselves on my screen unless one of them is Neil Patrick Harris.

The Emmy Awards are a celebration of the best shows and performances on television. But that doesn’t mean all television stops for the night. And on Twitter, quite a few people were complaining aloud that the awards were running at the same time as some of their favorite programs.

AMC’s “Breaking Bad” is a contender to win plenty of awards this year. But fans of the show might be watching its penultimate episode at the same time that it could be cleaning up in its various categories. And this upset some of them on Twitter:

The Emmy’s and Breaking Bad are both on at the same time and I don’t know what to do. I wonder if @aaronpaul_8 would know?

— Taylor Phillips. (@taaymoney_) 22 Sep 13

The fact that the emmy awards and breaking bad are on at the same time makes me incredibly emotional

— Casey Cramer (@casey_cramer) 22 Sep 13

The series finale of Showtime’s “Dexter” was also scheduled for this evening. And some fans were ready to throw it over for the Emmy Awards:

Guess I’ll be watching Dexter tomorrow… Emmy’s Live Tweeting tonight!!!!

— Regina Phalange (@sdhiggins) 22 Sep 13

Showtime made a big mistake scheduling the series finale of Dexter during the Emmy’s

— Mollie (@MoTayyy) 22 Sep 13

And then there were the Chicago Bears fans who didn’t know what to do:

The Emmy’s are on at the same time as the Bears game. Who planned this?

— Victoria (@torihatesyou) 22 Sep 13

Although another football fan was ready to put this problem into perspective:

I really want to watch Sunday Night Football and the Emmy’s at the same time~~~What do I do? #FirstWorldProblems

— biomince (@biomince) 22 Sep 13

But at least one person out there on Twitter had a solution to this problem:

Multi-screen #Emmy night. Just happy to be in the same time zone and not watching this at 2am. //t.co/mPzjeo2qQW

— DarrenBGarrett (@DarrenBGarrett) 22 Sep 13

— MICHAEL ROSTON

Another Sunday — another awards show hosted by Neil Patrick Harris. The Emmys mean a lot to the networks and talent competing in them, and there’s a lot at stake this year. But does it feel like there’s a little less heat behind tonight’s show? Is everyone waiting for the clock to elapse so they can immediately switch over to “Breaking Bad” (except on the West Coast)?
You mean the Attack of the Netflix Binge Watchers has been overhyped? It is indeed an unfortunate quirk of the programming schedule that one of the most anticipated TV episodes of the year is in direct competition with the award show that’s intended to celebrate it, but I think that’s fitting for the Emmys — always a bridesmaid, never a bride.
You’d better not be subconsciously sprinkling in spoilers from the “Dexter” finale tonight, Jon. No more than two screens open, I say.
Nah, I’m catching up on “Under the Dome.”
At this time last year it felt like the momentum was trending away from “Mad Men,” and it instead landed on “Homeland.” Is this year definitely the year of “Breaking Bad”?
Well, dammit, if Gordon and Gansa won’t kill Brody, I suppose the Emmys will just have to do it for them. A “Breaking Bad” coronation feels likely, but only in the sense that it’s probably a year or two after when it should have happened.
And the stalwart “Modern Family” to re-re-repeat in the comedy category? Or can a dark horse like “Louie” or “Girls” possibly be the spoiler?
Are they still airing “Modern Family”? Is that on TVLand? That is a show that need not be feted anymore. I think it might be Lena’s time, if only because people are acclimated to seeing her at these things now… and feel obliged.
Interesting! We’ll find out three and a half hours, 25 categories and one “Dexter” series finale from now.

Earlier this week, Lena Dunham began to alert her roughly 1.2 million Twitter followers that she had another important red carpet moment about to come up. “Time we talk Emmy’s fashion,” she tweeted. “Should I do a backwards tux a la Celine Dion or a fringed t-shirt dress from family vacay to Puerto Vallarta?”

The joke was apparently not well-received by some of those fans, some of whom wrote back to the “Girls” director/writer/star that she needed to be careful not to repeat some of the fashion missteps from last year’s awards season, advice that Ms. Dunham did not seem to be embrace.

“Please don’t tell me again that I walked badly in heels at the Golden Globes,” Ms. Dunham posted on Twitter soon after her first tweet went out. “It’s like twitter is populated by thousands of my grandma!”

There is no doubt that Ms. Dunham, who is up for two awards again tonight (starring and directing) and whose show is also up for Best Comedy, will be among those closely watched on the Emmys red carpet tonight, both by her fans and by the self-appointed fashion police. And she seems to know that the latter seldom scores her favorably.

“I have a lot of fantasies about what I’m going to wear that don’t correspond to reality because the people in my life will stop me from doing it — like the rabbit ears I’d like to wear to the Emmys,” Ms. Dunham told the Hollywood Reporter earlier this year. “I really love fashion, but I have not totally mastered what red carpet fashion means.”

But, to her credit, the floor-length Prada gown she wore to last year’s Emmy Awards was among her better looks in 2013, and thus it will be interesting to see what she goes for tonight. (A personal plea: Don’t try that Valentino pantsuit from the second season premiere of “Girls” again. Not a good look.)

Who else to look out for tonight? Unlike last year, the nominees don’t include Nicole Kidman or Julianne Moore, two perennial red carpet standouts. (Last year, Ms. Moore came in a canary yellow Christian Dior couture and Ms. Kidman in a sleek white column dress with aqua blue beading by Antonio Berardi.)

But there are several actresses, known for taking risks on the red carpet, who will be sure to get a lot of attention tonight, among them Claire Danes (who last year came in bright yellow Lanvin), the increasingly fashion-forward Tina Fey (a strapless Vivienne Westwood in 2012), Elisabeth Moss (Versace), Jessica Paré (custom Jason Wu) and the rising red carpet star, Michelle Dockery of “Downton Abbey,” who last year came in midnight blue Louis Vuitton, but who was recently spotted during New York Fashion Week in the front row of Carolina Herrera, which might give a clue as to what she will wear tonight.

For a look back at all of last year’s looks from the Emmys red carpet, check out this slide show.

— STUART EMMRICH

Netflix is the gate-crasher at this year’s Emmy Awards, as my colleague Brian Stelter wrote on Saturday. Victories for Netflix’s original shows “House of Cards” and “Arrested Development” would mean more than shiny statues. They would also signal that Netflix’s strategy of releasing a season’s worth of new shows all at once is viable when contrasted with the once-a-week “appointment viewing” of competitors like HBO, Showtime and AMC.

And there is no certainty that encouraging binge-viewing is the way to go. Netflix closely guards its viewership numbers. As my colleague David Carr argued not long after “House of Cards” was released, Netflix’s watch all you want, when you want strategy runs the risk of draining “the water out of the cooler.” In contrast, weekly viewing brings everyone back around the water cooler and creates the kind of shared cultural moments that lead to a show racking of up awards, not to ignore rising ratings.

With data from Netflix on viewership difficult to come by, proxies like the volume of Twitter activity around its shows could offer a sense of its shows’ enduring effect on audiences. If Twitter users talk about “House of Cards” and “Arrested Development,” it may hint at the scope of the audiences, and indicate when they are watching.

Nielsen, the company that measures viewership, recently released some results from its “Twitter Causation Study.” The research demonstrated a two-way relationship, with highly rated television-programs driving Twitter messages and more Twitter messages leading to higher viewership.

Looking at the volume of Twitter chatter about Netflix shows and their competitors might offer insights into how networks’ differing distribution strategies fare. Take “Arrested Development” and HBO’s “Game of Thrones,” for instance. Neither show was in its first year, both have devoted audiences, and each features an internal universe with its own rules that fans obsess over. And the two shows have generated a few Internet memes, from riffs on “Winter Is Coming” to ubiquitous reminders that there’s always money in the banana stand.

General Sentiment, a social analytics company, measured the volume of activity on Twitter and user sentiment around some shows for The New York Times. It used keywords like “Arrested Development” or “Game of Thrones” as well as related pronouns that can be attributed to that subject.

Around the time of the May debut of new episodes of “Arrested Development,” there was a large spike in the volume of Twitter messages about the show. While the fandom of “Arrested Development” means thousands of people talk about the show with some regularity on Twitter, there were more than 600,000 messages on Twitter on the day of the debut, with a gradual decline in the week after. But the decline was sustained in the weeks afterward. Many people may have worked their way through “Season 4″ at their own pace, but by mid-June, the volume about the show on Twitter was back to the levels generally observed in the months before there was something new to talk about.

The return of “Game of Thrones” was also heavily anticipated by its avid fan base, and the volume of Twitter activity around the show spiked on March 31 to levels similar to those for “Arrested Development.” In the days after the premiere, there was a substantial decline in Twitter volume. But unlike the ever-ebbing activity around “Arrested Development,” the volume of activity around HBO’s tale from the land of Westeros seesawed, declining each week but returning back to respectable levels as each new episode was broadcast. The season’s dramatic, penultimate episode appears to have generated more than one million messages by users on Twitter.

The data may suggest that the option to binge-watch fails to produce the kind of continuing shared moments that occur with weekly television and lead to everyone talking about them for days after they air, eager to see what’s next. But if the streaming service sees some of its original shows and their actors awarded at the Emmys this year, it might challenge the idea that they haven’t really made much of an impact.

— MICHAEL ROSTON

LOS ANGELES– Which writers, actors, mini-series and shows have most impressed the men and women who make television this year? The votes are in, and tonight they’ll be revealed at the 65th Primetime Emmy Awards, a TV industry tradition that has a futuristic feel this time around thanks to the nominations for Netflix, the online streaming service that screened “House of Cards” and “Arrested Development.”

ArtsBeat will be live-blogging the ceremonies with scenes from the Nokia Theater and reactions from Dave Itzkoff, Jon Carmanica and others starting at 7:30 p.m. Eastern.

“House of Cards” is a contender for the outstanding drama Emmy, but most oddsmakers say AMC’s “Breaking Bad” is the favorite in the category. Last year’s winner, Showtime’s “Homeland,” and the four-time winner before that, AMC’s “Mad Men,” are also nominated, along with HBO’s “Game of Thrones” and PBS’s “Downton Abbey.”

Could Bryan Cranston of “Breaking Bad” win the best actor prize for the fourth time? He could, but he’s up against Kevin Spacey of “House of Cards,” Jon Hamm of “Mad Men” and last year’s winner, Damian Lewis of “Homeland,” among others. Claire Danes, who won the best actress prize for “Homeland” last year, is also nominated again, alongside broadcast-network stars like Kerry Washington of “Scandal” and Connie Britton of “Nashville.”

Meanwhile, in the outstanding comedy category, NBC’s “30 Rock,” CBS’s “The Big Bang Theory,” FX’s “Louie” and two HBO series, “Girls” and “Veep,” could all stop the three-year winning streak of ABC’s “Modern Family.” Since “30 Rock” ended its run in May, this is the last chance for Emmy voters to celebrate Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin for their performances on the show.

The 18,151 members of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences pick the winners, and the broadcast networks take turns televising the ceremony. This time it is CBS’s turn; it’ll be up to Neil Patrick Harris, a four-time host of the Tony Awards and one of the stars of the CBS sitcom “How I Met Your Mother,” to keep the ceremonies moving.

— BRIAN STELTER