LOS ANGELES — “Widow’s Bay” stormed the Emmy Awards on Monday night, breaking a record for a comedy series with 14 awards including best comedy series and three acting wins.
The first-season horror comedy created by Katie Dippold about a New England island community reckoning with a centuries-old curse spoiled the going-away party for “Hacks,” which had gotten the most comedy nominations of any show in its fifth and final season.
It broke the comedy record set last year by “The Studio” when it won 13.
It also won for directing for Hiro Murai and for writing for its creator Dippold, a first-time Emmy winner and first-time nominee who was previously best known for an old viral tweet showing her dressed as “The Babadook.”
Star Matthew Rhys won best actor, Stephen Root won best supporting actor and Kate O’Flynn won best supporting actress. Dippold won for writing.
“The celebrations will be long, varied, and I hope at times wild,” Rhys said backstage while holding both Emmys.
It also won for directing for Hiro Murai and for writing for its creator Dippold, a first-time Emmy winner and first-time nominee who was previously best known for an old viral tweet showing her dressed as “The Babadook.”
“The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” taken off the air by CBS, won best variety series. It’s one of six Emmys the show has won this year after the show was canceled for what the network said was economic reasons while many believe it was his criticism of the Trump administration.
“If you like the comedy tonight, my old writers wrote it,” said Colbert, who graduated from Northwestern University and cut his comedy teeth at Chicago’s Second City and now chairs its board of directors.
“The Pitt” won the Emmy Award for best drama series for the second straight year on Monday night, along with best actor for star Noah Wyle.
HBO Max’s 24-hours-in-the-life-of-an-emergency-room series created by R. Scott Gemmill has now won for each of its first two seasons.
The series has sought to merge elements of network television from its 1990s peak with streaming-era prestige, and it has paid off with critical acclaim, cultural relevance, and awards like the biggest prize on TV’s biggest night. It won its first best drama Emmy as a rookie upstart and takes its second as a revered favorite, beating fellow nominees including “Pluribus,” “Paradise” and “The Diplomat.”
Wyle won the Emmy for the second season of “The Pitt,” on which he plays Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch, a role that brought him a major career revival after starring in “ER” in the 1990s.
“I grew up in LA, I’m a Hollywood kid. I was raised on a television, and movie theaters were my place of worship,” Wyle said in his acceptance. “This is all I’ve ever wanted to do, and this is the only club I’ve ever wanted to join.”
Jean Smart won her fifth best actress award in an unprecedented sweep for the fifth and final season of “Hacks.” No actor had won an Emmy every year for a series that lasted more than three seasons until she did it Monday.
“What a ride this has been,” an emotional Smart said after getting a standing ovation.
The 75-year-old Smart has won eight Emmys overall in a career that was already more than respectable when she landed her defining role of Deborah Vance, a brash stand-up comic pushing back against age, obscurity and sexism in the HBO Max series.
Rhea Seehorn won best actress in a drama for playing the lone central character on Apple TV’s “Pluribus.”
The 54-year-old had been nominated twice without winning for her breakthrough role on “Better Call Saul,” a show from “Breaking Bad” creator Vince Gilligan, who put Seehorn at the center of “Pluribus.” Gilligan won his fifth career Emmy for his writing on the show.
It was the first Emmy for both O’Flynn and Root.
O’Flynn, a 40-year-old British actor whose previous acclaim came mostly for her work in theater, plays Patricia Moyer, a city worker and social outcast dealing with a demonic darkness on “Widow’s Bay.”
“This is the role of a lifetime,” O’Flynn said from the stage. “This is for all the Patricias out there.”
Root, one of the most ubiquitous character actors of the last few decades, beat out Harrison Ford, who many thought would get his first major competitive Hollywood award for his role on “Shrinking.”
“Thank you, sir, for all your many years of great, great, great acting,” Root said to Ford during his acceptance.
Root, 74, is the oldest person to win the category.
Sally Field, 79, became the oldest woman to win best actress in a limited or anthology series or TV movie for “Remarkably Bright Creatures.”
Allison Janney won best supporting actress in a drama over Katherine LaNasa from “The Pitt,” who won last year, and three of her castmates. Janney joined Smart as an eight-time Emmy winner.
Tom Pelphrey won supporting actor in a drama for “Task.”
Mariska Hargitay opened the NBC telecast with a musical tribute to television viewing, “I Love TV Screens,” sung to the tune of “I Love Rock ’n’ Roll.” A recorded start featured NBA champion Jalen Brunson of the New York Knicks and actor Jennifer Coolidge. It continued inside the theater with a group of dancers with TVs for heads.
“NBC is celebrating its 100th year, and I have been on ‘Law & Order: SVU’ for all of them,” said Hargitay, a three-time Emmy winner who has starred in the show for 27 seasons.
Taylor Swift acted alongside Hargitay in a pre-recorded “Law & Order”-based bit during the show.
Michael J. Fox, a nominee for his work with Ford on “Shrinking,” received the Bob Hope Humanitarian Award.
Field honored her “Steel Magnolias” co-star, the late Dolly Parton, in a tribute during the telecast that also included Reba McEntire.