MOST OF the time, television plays second fiddle to the movies, which have traditionally held the biggest and most widely viewed awards shows in the entertainment world, the Oscars, followed by the Golden Globes.

Lately, however, the Emmy awards for television have been attracting more viewers than ever, proof positive that TV is no longer the movies? poor relation.

This is even more strikingly the case in the Philippines, where the production slump that has affected Filipino movies for a decade now has enabled television to come into its own as the current ?happening? medium in the country.

Thus, when the 62nd Emmy awards were telecast live via satellite last Monday, viewers were inordinately interested in the shows and individual artists who were hailed as the year?s best.

Breezy start

The awards show got off to an unusually breezy start when program host, Jimmy Fallon, got some of his friends in the biz, including Randy Jackson, Jane Lynch and Betty White, to ?spontaneously? perform a big opening number staged a la ?Glee.?

In fact, it soon became clear that the youthful exuberance and irreverence found in ?Glee? would be the evening?s theme, with participants in the awards show trying to score on point of unpredictability and sassiness?not always successfully.

The most successful innovator in this regard was Fallon himself, who did a series of quick costume and character changes to add uncommon edge and verve to his spoofs.

The upbeat mood he established was sustained by the gradual realization that quite a number of the night?s winners were first-timers, like Aaron Paul, Best Supporting Actor for ?The Closer,? and Archie Panjabi, Best Supporting Actress for ?The Good Wife.?

Accent on youth

To be sure, veteran artists also won their share of awards (Jon Stewart of ?the Daily Show? won his eighth consecutive Emmy), but the accent on youth was further firmed up by the first trophy awarded to Jim Parsons, the nerdy lead of ?The Big Bang Theory.?

Also evident was the Emmys? new openness to edgy characters and themes, like the teacher-turned-meth dealer in ?The Closer? and Al Pacino winning Best Lead Actor in a Miniseries or Movie for ?You Don?t Know Jack,? where he played euthanasia advocate, Dr. Jack Kevorkian.

Less effective was the show?s ?experiment,? giving viewers a chance to write some of the show?s spiels via Twitter. Most of the viewing public?s ?contributions? sank rather than soared, indicating that spiel-writing should be left to the professionals.

All told, however, the 62nd Emmy Awards show was a relatively bracing viewing experience, indicating that the television medium continues to dynamically reinvent itself.