Emmys 2014: Early buzz focuses on 'Orange Is the New Black,' 'Breaking Bad ...
The 66th annual Primetime Emmy Awards started on a familiar note of almost giddy fun Monday, even with at least one somber moment ahead.
The red carpet that funnels the stars inside filled early with the well-dressed likes of Laverne Cox, Michelle Dockery and January Jones.
If the previous night's Video Music Awards was a hard fashion act to follow, Lena Dunham topped pretty much everything up to and including Riff Raff.
Chiwetel Ejiofor proved it wasn't only the girls who could make it happen.
The requisite brief and superficial interviews outside the Nokia Theater also revealed the standard nervousness about who the Television Academy would reward this year.
Would it stick with past winners like AMC's 'Breaking Bad,' ABC's 'Modern Family' and CBS's 'The Big Bang Theory,' or would it turn to whippersnappers like HBO's 'True Detective' and FX' s 'Fargo'?
Or would it go all the way and hand a major piece of hardware to 'Orange Is the New Black,' a TV show that isn't carried on traditional TV?
For viewers who like to make it interesting, the bookies in Las Vegas late Monday afternoon had 'Breaking Bad' nominees as prohibitive favorites in three of its four major categories.
Vegas had 'Breaking Bad' way ahead of 'True Detective' for best drama, while Aaron Paul and Anna Gunn were runaway favorites for best supporting actor and actress in a drama.
But lead 'Bad' man Bryan Cranston was trailing Matthew McConaughey of 'True Detective' for best actor in a drama.
The closest race, according to Vegas, was best comedy series, where the bookmakers had 'Orange Is the New Black' and HBO's 'Veep' in a dead heat.
While the Emmys aren't particularly known for whacky stunts or behavior, Paul livened the preshow hours Monday by hosting a scavenger hunt for 'Breaking Bad' fans.
He used social media to send them around Los Angeles, where they found several actors from the show handing out show swag.
Paul himself was the grand prize, waiting in a park wearing his yellow meth-cooking suit.
He changed before the show, though the suit offered a unique fashion statement. The most delicate moment of Monday's show will likely to be a tribute to the late Robin Williams by his friend and fellow comic Billy Crystal.
The show took some mild criticism last year for turning the mood too somber with its annual 'In Memoriam' segment, and this year's first-time host Seth Meyers told TV writers in July that 'we certainly don't want to make it morbid.'
Williams's suicide earlier this month, however, created a large, fresh and dark shadow the Academy could not ignore.
Williams only did two regular TV series, 'Mork and Mindy' in the 1970s and last year's 'The Crazy Ones,' which was cancelled after one year.
But he was a fast-talking guest on so many late- night talk shows that almost every television viewer also saw him as a TV personality.
Crystal, widely praised for his skill on awards shows, was expected to keep the mood celebratory by reminding the audience what they loved about Williams, not his stunning death.
The Emmys had one other unusual feature this year, which was airing on a Monday in the last week of August, rather than on a Sunday in September.
The reason was that NBC had the show this year, and NBC wasn't going to bump or skip the most popular show on prime-time network television, 'Sunday Night Football,' even to honor its own industry.
Long-time Emmy producer Don Mischer insisted to TV writers last month that a Monday in August was fine - a declaration he may or may not reprise when the ratings come in.
Elsewhere Monday night, several of the internal dramas revolved around whether several much-honored nominees would be honored again.
If 'Modern Family' won for best comedy, it would tie 'Frasier' with five trophies.
If Cranston won his fourth Emmy for best drama actor, he would tie Dennis Franz of 'NYPD Blue' for the all-time record.
If Jim Parsons won best comedy actor for 'Big Bang Theory,' he would tie Kelsey Grammer of 'Frasier' and Michael J. Fox for the record of four.
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