Everybody loves Raymond, and everybody enjoys getting Lost too.

Reuters reports a handful of surprise wins – and lots of laurels for ABC – at the 57th Primetime Emmy Awards. The new castaway series Lost was named best drama, and nine-year-old sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond won for best comedy.

The much-loved Raymond winning out over the soapy shoo-in Desperate Housewives was one of the upsets of the night. Everybody Loves Raymond, considered one of television’s last true sitcoms, was one of only a few TV series in the past 30 years to win an award after going off the air.

“All year long they’ve been asking us, do you think now that your show is going, that this means the end of the sitcom, and I want to say yes,” said Raymond co-creator and producer Phil Rosenthal. “Beyond that, it’s the end of laughing, and soon the end of smiling. But we want to thank all of you for nine wonderful years.”

Although the ladies of Wisteria Lane lost to Raymond, housewife Felicity Huffman earned a best actress award. Patricia Arquette is another surprise winner in the best dramatic actress category for her role as a psychic in Medium.

ABC enjoyed one of its best Emmy nights in years, winning six major awards overall. James Spader won another Emmy for best actor in the drama Boston Legal, and the supporting actor award went to William Shatner.

Tony Shalhoub won his second Emmy for best actor in a comedy for his role as the obsessive-compulsive detective Monk. Everybody Loves Raymond supporting actors Brad Garrett and Doris Roberts picked up their third and fourth Emmys, respectively.

Meanwhile, HBO’s The Life and Death of Peter Sellers added three Emmys, including an award for Geoffrey Rush’s titular role, to the six it earned at the Creative Arts Emmy Awards last week. Veterans Paul Newman and Jane Alexander, won supporting actor and actress awards for miniseries and TV movies for their respective work in Empire Falls and Warm Springs.

CBS’ The Amazing Race won its third consecutive Emmy for reality series (for your “Who Cares?” File).

This year’s awards were hosted by Ellen DeGeneres, who paid tribute to the victims of Hurricane Katrina in her opening monologue. “I’m really, really honoured because it’s times like these that we really need to laugh,” she said, following with a quip: “And look for me next month when I host the North Korean People’s Choice Awards.”

The evening’s funniest moment appeared to be when the star of HBO’s Lackawanna Blues, S. Epatha Merkerson, lost her thank-you notes down her dress.

“I wrote something, and I put it in my thing (bra) and it went down and I can’t get it,” the actress said when accepting her award for best lead actress in a TV movie. “It’s probably stuck to me.”

USA Today has a complete list of winners.






Related Stories: