'Real Friends' wins 3rd Emmy

Even in a weak season, show remains critically acclaimed

LOS ANGELES (RWN) - David married Margot and Ibn got mad, but in the end, everything worked out, as Real Friends, the blockbuster hit that disappointed fans this season, won its third Emmy Award for Outstanding Ensemble Show.

Many observers didn't think that the show would win this year after lead writer Nimah Saxon left in a contract dispute. But the Academy of Television Voters seemed to think differently.

"It was clearly a mercy award," said Amira Rivers, an industry columnist for Vanity Fair magazine. "The show has done so much for the medium that you couldn't not give it an award, even if this year's plot was beyond moronic."

This year's story arcs focused on the love triangle of carpet salesman David Imway, schoolteacher Margot Althair and stuntman Ibn bin-Laden, almost excluding the other characters. At the end of the show's second season, it appeared that Margot and ibn were going to get married. But then David started "Operation Remove the Ring," to try and win Margot's heart. The plot devices used to this bordered on the idiotic, including David arranging for a cabdriver to crash his car into Ibn's as Ibn drove to an important dinner date with Margot.

"I look at this as a vindication of all of us," said the show's executive producer, John Wells IV. "The critics said this wasn't a very good show, that it was contrived, that every disaster that could hit Ibn did, short of biological warfare. But in the end, the Academy loved us, as they have every other year. To the doubters, I say that you should look at what happens next year. It's going to be full of surprises."

Lisa Merrit, who plays Margot, received a best actress award. Hans Kubler, who composes the show's soaring musical scores, received an Emmy for best original music. Kubler's win came as a surprise; he was a Catholic and the other four nominees were Muslims.

In its first two seasons, Real Friends came under withering fire from conservatives for approaching some of the most controversial topics of the day, including premarital sex, divorce and adultery. Despite repeated calls for its cancellation - Mullah Oxley, the head of the Black Robes, described it "sin instructions for those sinners who need no instruction in sinning" - the show stayed on the air and became a viewer hit, not just among fringe moderns, but also among some conservatives who viewed watching the show as a guilty pleasure.

Shortly before the second season ended, the show's chief writer, Adam Calhoun, died in a car accident along the northern California coast. Wells took over writing duties - and many of the show's fans believed, caved into authorities.
"They pushed the limit in the first two seasons, making it about real life," said Adar Mojumbi, a television critic for the Detroit Scimitar. "Then Calhoun dies, Wells comes in and they're outrageous, but never so outrageous, never pushing the limit so much that it really offends anyone.

"It watered down the content."



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