The Golden Globes again heavily favored new shows and first-time nominees Sunday, with breakout USA drama Mr. Robot and under-the-radar Amazon comedy Mozart In The Jungle the big winners of the night with two trophies each, including best series.
The only repeat winner was Mad Men‘s Jon Hamm, who understandably looked surprised and had not prepared a speech after nicely bookending his run on the AMC series with Globes for the first and final seasons and making a strong final foray for the show with back-to-back Emmy and Golden Globes wins.
Netflix, which made history by snapping HBO’s 14-year streak as the most nominated network at the Globes and became the first streaming service to lead the pack, was left empty-handed.
For a second year in a row, the CW carried the torch for commercial broadcast television with a freshman comedy in the best comedy actress category. This time, it had some help from Fox hit Empire, whose Taraji P. Henson won her first Golden Globe.
There were surprises all-around on the comedy side as the HFPA went for pretty obscure (Mozart In The Jungle, best series, best actor for Gael Garcia Bernal) and low-rated Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (best actress, Rachel Bloom) first-year series. Also surprisingly, that was a complete repeat from last year when once again a freshman Amazon comedy, Transparent, won best series and best actor, and a new CW comedy, Jane The Virgin, won best actress.
In another repeat, the upset win for the CW comedy came just hours after the show received some good news in the morning. Last year, the CW renewed Jane, this year, its president Mark Pedowitz gave Crazy Ex-Girlfriend a resounding vote of support. “I wish the numbers were better but we believe and stand by the show,” he said at TCA.
While going for newcomers was not a shocker given the HFPA’s track record, Garcia Bernal was right to act as surprised as he did on stage because there was another newcomer on a freshman streaming comedy, Aziz Ansari from Netflix’s Master Of None, who had been heavily tipped for a Globe.
The biggest surprise in the drama series categories was that USA’s Mr. Robot did not win in the one category that is was considered a shoo-in for: best actor in a drama series for star Rami Malek. But it converted its two other noms, for series and best supporting actor, Christian Slater.
As usual, the HFPA found a way to honor a British production, with Wolf Hall winning the best movie/miniseries category, upsetting FX’s Fargo and American Horror Story: Hotel. But the basic cable networks scored a win with AHS’ Lady Gaga landing her first acting award.
Maura Tirney kept The Affair’s winning streak going. Despite landing only one nomination this year, for Tierney, after winning best drama series and best actress (for Ruth Wilson), last year, the show scored a rare Golden Globe feat of victories in two consecutive years.
Rare because the Golden Globes are notoriously fickle, so once a series, especially on the drama side, is recognized, they rarely look back at it. AMC has been a rare exception, with both Breaking Bad and now Mad Men scoring Globes for their final seasons.
