It’s never easy to be a freshman television show vying for an Emmy Award against the most popular upperclassman.But the Showtime thriller “Homeland” pulled it off on Sunday night, not once but four times, piling up writing and acting awards and winning the biggest one of them all, best drama, and thereby denying AMC’s “Mad Men” and its creator, Matthew Weiner, a place in the television history books.Heading into Sunday night’s show here, the television industry collectively wondered whether “Mad Men” would become the first television drama ever to win the top award five times.
“Homeland” assured that it would not; further, it ushered Showtime, the premium cable channel owned by CBS, into a new realm.
“I want to start by congratulating Showtime on its first best-series Emmy ever,” said Alex Gansa, one of the show’s executive producers, as he accepted the best-drama award. “It’s been a long time coming, and “Homeland” stands on the shoulders of a lot of great shows over there: “Dexter,” “Weeds,” “Nurse Jackie,” among them all.”
The “64th Primetime Emmy Awards” did play like a TV repeat in another way, however, when ABC’s “Modern Family” won the best-comedy award for the third straight year, beating out several sitcoms on HBO and other networks.
Earlier in the evening the HBO movie “Game Change,” the FX mini-series “American Horror Story” and the History channel mini-series “Hatfields & McCoys” shared wins in the movie and mini-series category, reflecting the increasing variety of prize-worthy programming on cable.
While the broadcast networks came away with a few noteworthy Emmys — Jon Cryer of CBS’s “Two and a Half Men” won for lead actor in a comedy and Maggie Smith of PBS’s “Downton Abbey” won for supporting actress in a drama — it was cable programming like “Homeland” that clearly wowed Emmy voters, continuing a long creative drift away from broadcast.
After “Homeland” won for writing, the series won for lead actor in a drama, for Damian Lewis’s gripping portrayal of a war hero turned terrorist, and for lead actress, for Claire Danes’s even more gripping portrayal of the bipolar C.I.A. agent chasing him and sometimes sleeping with him.
Ms. Danes, who was the early favorite in the category, thanked the writers for “subverting our expectations in the most masterful way.” She said Mr. Lewis had performed a magic trick of “turning a villain into someone so human and someone we feel so deeply about.”
The timing could not have been better for “Homeland,” since that show’s second season is set to begin in a week.
The shut-out of “Mad Men” — it won no major awards on Sunday night — surprised some in the audience. But Mr. Weiner had effectively managed expectations on the red carpet earlier in the day, saying: “No one is expecting to win tonight. Don’t be crazy. It’s never been done before.”
AMC’s other critically acclaimed drama, “Breaking Bad,” was recognized when Aaron Paul won for best supporting actor in a drama. Mr. Lewis’s win as best actor broke the “Breaking Bad” star Bryan Cranston’s three-year winning streak in that category.
Presented by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, the Emmys are the most prestigious prizes for television achievement in the United States. Winners are selected by the academy’s more than 15,000 members, a subset of whom vote in each category.
In the comedy categories, Mr. Cryer of “Two and a Half Men,” Julia Louis-Dreyfus, the winner in the lead-actress category for the new HBO sitcom “Veep,” and Louis C. K., the winner in the writing category for his FX series “Louie,” were the three big exceptions to the “Modern Family” sweep.
Julie Bowen, who plays Claire Dunphy on “Modern Family,” won in the category for supporting actress in a comedy, just as she did last year. And Eric Stonestreet, who plays Cameron Tucker, won for supporting actor, as he did two years ago.
Ms. Bowen beat out one of her co-stars, Sofia Vergara, and Mr. Stonestreet beat three of his, Ed O’Neill, Jesse Tyler Ferguson and last year’s winner, Ty Burrell. “I was pulling for Jesse or Ed tonight,” and Ms. Bowen was pulling for Ms. Vergara, Mr. Stonestreet said backstage after accepting the award. “It’s nice to win, but we want to spread it around, too.”
On stage Mr. Stonestreet said of his co-star’s character, named Mitchell, “There is no Cam without Mitch.” Implicitly referencing the fact that their characters are gay, Mr. Stonestreet said he was glad he could help “show America and the world what a loving couple we can be, just like everybody else.”
One of the “Modern Family” executive producers, Steve Levitan, also won a directing award for the show. Mr. Levitan remarked: “I was complimenting a guest director recently on the job he did, and he said, ‘You know, with your cast and your crew and your writers, a complete idiot could direct a great episode of ‘Modern Family.’ And I think we’ve proven that here tonight.”
The HBO movie “Game Change,” a retelling of the John McCain-Sarah Palin campaign in 2008, won three awards back to back, first for the writer Danny Strong, then for the actress Julianne Moore, then for the director Jay Roach. “I feel so validated,” Ms. Moore joked, “because Sarah Palin gave me a big thumbs down.” The movie later won the category’s top award as well.
When Tom Hanks, one of the movie’s executive producers, came onstage to accept, he thanked “our founding fathers for the democratic process that they came up with that has provided not only us and HBO and all the comedy series here a plethora of material that seems to just go on and on and on and on.”
The movie’s main competition, “Hatfields & McCoys,” won two acting awards, first for supporting actor Tom Berenger and then for lead actor Kevin Costner.
Before the telecast the History channel chief Nancy Dubuc said that the multiple nominations for the mini-series were a significant moment for History, a channel best known for reality shows like “Pawn Stars.”
“It clearly signals we’re here to play in the high event mini-series/series scripted platform; it signals that we have a brand that can carry the quality and the caliber that these projects deserve,” Ms. Dubuc said as she walked the red carpet.
Not surprisingly, Emmy voters picked “The Amazing Race” as the best reality show for the ninth year out of 10, and “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart” as the best variety show for the 10th time in a row.
The host of the evening, ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel, started the telecast briskly with a few jokes about television — “the only American product that the Chinese haven’t figured out how to make.”
He told the nominees, most of whom were sure to leave without a statue, “Tonight you will be asked to play your most challenging role yet — that of an actor happy about the success of another actor.”
By that standard the cast of “Modern Family” performed exceptionally on Sunday night. Ms. Vergara joked backstage after the show that even though Ms. Bowen “keeps winning
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