Inside the TCA Awards Show: Wild Jokes and Heartfelt Speeches

Ken Tucker
·Critic-at-Large, Yahoo Entertainment
Updated

The nation’s top television critics handed out awards to everyone from Jon Hamm to Amy Schumer at the 31st Annual Television Critics Association Awards presentation, held Saturday night in Los Angeles. The TCA gave freshman drama Empire its biggest award, Program of the Year, and Schumer snagged two awards, for Individual Achievement in Comedy and Outstanding Achievement in Comedy for her show Inside Amy Schumer.

The awards show was hosted by James Corden of CBS’s Late Late Show. Corden said when he was asked to host the TCA, he assumed it was “the Teen Choice Awards.” He then compared TV critics unfavorably to teenagers, noting that at least “teens eventually have a chance to get laid.”

Jon Hamm, who was nominated in the same category of Individual Achievement in Drama as Empire’s Taraji P. Henson, asked wryly whether the critics remembered “The Division — 66 episodes, me and Taraji,” a reference to a little-noticed 2001-04 cop drama. Hamm said he was grateful, in the expanding world of television — “or downloadavision, or streamavision, or whatever we’ll be calling it" — that AMC’s Mad Men found its earliest supporters among TV critics at a time when “it took three seasons for the public to understand we weren’t on A&E.”

The TCA Awards ceremony isn’t televised, which can make for a looser, rowdier atmosphere. Host Corden said “only critics would reward an actual murderer,” a reference to Outstanding Achievement in Movies, Miniseries, and Specials winner The Jinx, the HBO documentary about accused killer Robert Durst, and Corden went on to make a couple of scabrously funny jokes referencing Bill Cosby and Whitney Houston. (Corden was also the first among numerous celebrities who referenced True Detective and its baffling second season.)

The award for Outstanding Achievement in Drama, which went to FX’s The Americans, was presented by TCA members Michael Ausiello (TVLine) and Hanh Nguyen (TV Guide) dressed in full costume and makeup as the Americans characters portrayed by Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys. One of the show’s producers called this elaborate prank “the best thing that’s ever happened to us.”

Empire’s Lee Daniels, accepting his show’s Program of the Year award, thanked the critics. “For you to like me,” he said, contradicts “everything my father told me would never happen in my life.” After acknowledging that he, co-creator Danny Strong, and the producers and stars work hard to produce “a black Dynasty,” Daniels added cheerfully, “We’re also a f–king bag of nut jobs — straight-up talk here.”

James L. Brooks, in accepting his Career Achievement Award, gave a funny and heartfelt speech, noting that his TV career began with a job “getting coffee for Edward R. Murrow,” the famous CBS news anchor, and that his long and storied career in establishing such classic shows as The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Taxi, The Simpsons, and so many more was a testament to the medium of television, “in which the pursuit of excellence is considered commercially viable” and the one entertainment industry in which “the writer is top dog.”

The results were determined from votes cast by the TCA’s membership, comprised of more than 220 professional TV critics and journalists from the United States and Canada.

Here is the full list of 2015 TCA Award winners:

  • Individual Achievement in Drama: Jon Hamm (Mad Men, AMC) 

  • Individual Achievement in Comedy: Amy Schumer (Inside Amy Schumer, Comedy Central)

  • Outstanding Achievement in News and Information: Last Week Tonight With John Oliver (HBO) 

  • Outstanding Achievement in Reality Programming: The Chair (Starz)

  • Outstanding Achievement in Youth Programming: The Fosters (ABC Family) – second consecutive year 

  • Outstanding New Program: Better Call Saul (AMC)

  • Outstanding Achievement in Movies, Miniseries and Specials: The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst (HBO) 

  • Outstanding Achievement in Drama: The Americans (FX)

  • Outstanding Achievement in Comedy: Inside Amy Schumer (Comedy Central)

  • Career Achievement Award: James L. Brooks

  • Heritage Award: Late Show/Late Night With David Letterman (CBS/NBC)

  • Program of the Year: Empire (Fox)