Hosts Eugene Levy and Dan Levy speak during the 76th Primetime Emmy Awards on Sunday at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles.

Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP

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Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP

Sunday night’s Emmy Awards didn’t produce a single show that outperformed the rest. Instead, a handful of shows split most of the major categories without many surprises (or maybe even one). Hosts Eugene and Dan Levy did their best to keep things moving, and as always, everyone was very appreciative. Here are a few takeaways from the ceremony and the Emmy season.

Shogun was the gripping historical drama that swept the top categories. More could follow.

The team of Shogun receives the Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series.

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Phil McCarten/Invision/AP

Shogun is the biggest Emmy winner this year, after taking home 14 awards at last weekend’s Creative Arts ceremony and four on Sunday night: the show won best drama series, along with awards for lead actor Hiroyuki Sanada, lead actress Anna Sawai and director Frederick E. O. Toye. Sweeping historical epics aren’t as popular as they once were, and time and again FX and Hulu have been praised for being willing to back an expensive period piece that was largely in Japanese with subtitles. It will be interesting to see if there’s any effort in the coming years to emulate the sweeping epic series that aired in the ’70s and ’80s, such as North and South or The Thorn Birds.

It’s hard to create an exciting awards show if it takes place too soon after the last show.

The Last Emmy Awards were only in January of this yearafter being delayed by actors and writers strikes. So we just celebrated all the shows we love, the people who The Bear And Tricksand discussions about how important television is to people. It might seem like the difference between a year and 8.5 months isn’t that big, but it did feel like we had just done this, and it felt a little lifeless because of that. Not because there was anything wrong with the winners, but just because… you know, we had just done this.

Baby Reindeer has been cleaned up and the creator hopes it proves him right.

Richard Gadd, winner of the outstanding limited or anthology series for Baby reindeer.

Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images

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Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images

Richard Gadd’s Netflix series won awards for Lead Actor, Supporting Actress, Screenplay and Best Limited Series. It can be found in the in the middle of a lawsuit of the woman who says she inspired the stalker played by Jessica Gunning, but that didn’t bother Emmy voters, who gave Gadd three chances to give speeches. He took the opportunity to point out that the show had no established intellectual property, no established stars, and still became a hit. It would be nice to think that Netflix—and other media outlets—will learn the lesson that risks can pay off.

Hacks came in handy and The Bear may have run into a category problem.

Jean Smart won the Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for her role in Tricks.

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Danny Moloshok/Invision/AP

The Bearwho was a sensation at the Emmys in January, did very well in the comedy categories. It won for Lead Actor (Jeremy Allen White), it won for Supporting Actor (Ebon Moss Bachrach), it won for Supporting Actress (Liza Colón-Zayas), and it won for Directing, for the episode “Fishes.” (Keep in mind that these are awards for season two, not the most recent season.) The only acting category in which The Bear Not winning was Best Actress, while Ayo Edebiri lost to Jean Smart, who had won last year in the Best Supporting Actress category.

It was a harbinger of what was to come during the ceremony: Tricks also won the critical award for comedy writing (for the episode “Bulletproof”). And then, unlike the most recent Emmys, The Bear did not win an award for best comedy series; Tricks did. Since there was a biting joke in the monologue by hosts Eugene and Dan Levy about the widespread feeling that The Bear does not belong in the comedy category in the first place. And given the laugh-out-loud quality of the series, it may be that some people who were more than happy to reward the great performances in the series were ultimately hesitant to award the Best Comedy Series award to something they do not consider a comedy.

The hassle between the prizes was… fine?

TV dads Damon Wayans (left), George Lopez and Jesse Tyler Ferguson presented the Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series.

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Kevin Winter/Getty Images

As with many awards shows, Emmys Night had a recurring segment between the awards ceremonies. This night featured a series of groups of actors who had a connection with each other: TV moms, TV dads, TV doctors, TV lawyers, TV coaches. There was even a couple of Ron Howard and Henry Winkler to celebrate the 50th (!!) anniversary of Happy days. But these moments always seem to be less than the sum of their parts, and this year was no exception. There are a lot of TV dads; just picking three of them and having them co-host on a set that looks like a living room to deliver a patter that sounds exactly like the patter on every other awards show doesn’t really celebrate anything except the one who booked the talent for the broadcast. One point for Winkler banging out the jukebox on the dinner set to keep it playing, just like Fonzie used to do. That was fun.