‘Breaking Bad’ gets Golden Globes send-off as ‘Brooklyn’ boosted

Goodbye, “Breaking Bad.” Hello ... “Brooklyn Nine-Nine”?

AMC’s drama about a teacher turned meth kingpin, “Breaking Bad,” capped its celebrated final season with a win for best TV drama at Sunday’s 71st Golden Globes in Beverly Hills. The series was nominated last year but had never won the Globe before.

But maybe the night’s biggest shocker came with the TV comedy prize for “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” Fox’s new cop spoof starring Andy Samberg, who also scored a head-turning coup as lead comedy actor.

“I couldn’t be more surprised,” Samberg told reporters backstage, adding that in his on-camera acceptance speech he had forgotten to thank his parents, not to mention the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn., which organizes the Globes.

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Sunday’s wins could prove crucial for “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” which has earned generally strong reviews but has struggled in the ratings. Although the September premiere attracted 6.2 million total viewers, only a bit more than half that number have watched episodes since, according to Nielsen. On Sunday, the show was No. 1 in a field of much better known competitors: “Girls,” “Modern Family,” “Parks and Recreation” and “The Big Bang Theory.”

“We’re very stunned, very grateful, very happy,” said “Brooklyn” co-creator Dan Goor backstage. Fox executives will decide in May whether to bring the show back.

“Breaking Bad,” meanwhile, celebrated its Globes victory without having to worry about a renewal. The show wrapped up its run in September with a finale seen by more than 10 million total viewers. The creators are preparing a sequel, “Better Call Saul.”

“The fans have lifted this up to a level that none of us could have predicted,” Bryan Cranston, who played drug lord Walter White on “Breaking Bad,” told reporters backstage. Cranston also won the lead dramatic actor prize, after going home with nominations but no wins for the role three times previously.

Creator Vince Gilligan said that the producers were determined not to keep the show on the air too long.

“Better to go out with people wanting more than people going, ‘Aw, crap, is that thing still on the air?’” Gilligan said backstage.

The prize for best miniseries or TV movie went, as many observers had expected, to “Behind the Candelabra,” HBO’s biopic of the popular pianist Liberace, starring Michael Douglas. The project was originally intended as a feature film until director Steven Soderbergh drew a tepid reaction from the movie studios to the gay romance between Liberace and Scott Thorson (Matt Damon).

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Douglas, who also took home the lead actor prize in the miniseries category, said his costar deserved a nod as well.

“It’s fine for somebody of my age to reach out and do this character,” the 69-year-old “Wall Street” star told reporters. “But for a leading man of [Damon’s] stature to take on this gamble and perform as well as he did is inspirational.”

Robin Wright won the lead actress prize for Netflix’s drama “House of Cards” — the first time an actor has taken home a Globe for a role in a series that originated online.

Amy Poehler, who co-hosted NBC’s Globes telecast with Tiny Fey for the second straight year, won her first-ever Globe for NBC’s comedy “Parks and Recreation.” She was shown just before the win getting a massage as a gag with U2 frontman Bono.

But maybe the most talked-about acceptance speech came from Jacqueline Bisset, who had been nominated for Golden Globes four times previously, including as best newcomer in 1969. This time, collecting a prize as supporting actress in the miniseries category for the BBC period drama “Dancing on the Edge,” which aired in the U.S. on Starz, Bisset delivered a halting, emotional speech that led some observers wondering.

“My skin is very alive with emotion,” Bisset explained to reporters backstage. “I get there quickly. Sometimes it’s better not to get there so quickly — emotion freaks people out.”

Times staff writers Amy Kaufman and Chris Lee contributed to this report.