Emmys 2011: ‘Boardwalk Empire’ dominance, ‘Futurama’ and other Creative Arts surprises

It’s always fun to look at the Creative Arts Emmy winners to see if they hold any predictors of what might happen at the primetime Emmy ceremony. This year’s Creative Arts ceremony, just over one week before the primetime awards are given out, is no exception, given some of the surprises that we saw Saturday (Sept. 10).

Whether these are any indication of what might happen next Sunday is anybody’s guess. But it’s sure as heck fun to speculate, right?

“Boardwalk Empire” dominates: It wasn’t a big stretch to think that the academy voters were going to fall in love with “Boardwalk Empire.” It’s a sweeping period piece shot on an epic scale, with the pedigree of both Martin Scorsese and Terence Winter behind it. But given the love the academy has had for “Mad Men” during the last three years, it was a surprise to see “Boardwalk” dominate most of the technical awards for drama, including the outstanding casting category.

This could mean that both the series and Steve Buscemi might have a better night next Sunday than originally thought. Then again, “Mad Men” has been shut out of the technical awards before and won the writing and series prizes during the main ceremony. But it sure makes for an intriguing last week.