John Adams the president may be the Founding Father that everyone forgets, but John Adams the miniseries was the darling of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association at the 66th annual Golden Globes. The HBO miniseries continued its awards rampage that began at the Emmys in September by capturing all four honors it was up for: the best movie or miniseries, the lead acting awards for movies and miniseries, and the supporting actor award for the whole of television.

30 Rock pulled off a sweep of its own, winning the award for top comedy and for its stars Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin. The honors illustrate again that 30 Rock may be the last show on one of the traditional Big Four networks capable of making this kind of statement at an awards show. Fey's category, best lead actress in a comedy or musical, was the only television category where most of the nominees came from the old line networks.

Tom Wilkinson, who made the most of his relatively brief role as Ben Franklin, was the first John Adams winner of the night, thanking the producers "for making this job one of the most enjoyable and rewarding of my life." Tom Hanks, one of the producers of John Adams, accepted the Globe for best movie or miniseries, and was relatively restrained (in fact, may have had the shortest speech of the evening), thanking HBO, which has been the home for three of his miniseries.

Laura Linney, who had been nominated for three Globes previously for her film work, became a first-time winner thanks to her role as Abigail Adams. After all that buildup for John Adams, it would have been surprising and more than a little embarrassing if the actor who played the title role did not also win, and thus Paul Giamatti was also honored. "This was a hell of a job, this little costume drama we put on," Giamatti gushed from the podium.

HBO had three additional winners in non-Adams categories. In a mild surprise, Gabriel Byrne, who was not in attendance, won the best dramatic actor Globe as the psychiatrist in In Treatment; it will be interesting to see if award show attention will bring new viewers to this quirky show, which didn't quite catch on in its first season. Laura Dern missed out on the Emmy for playing Katharine Harris in the political drama Recount, but took home the Globe. The "Miss Golden Globe" of 1982 thanked parents Diane Ladd and Bruce Dern, and gave a shout-out to those who voted for change in November.

The Golden Globes have a history of inexplicable honors that the HFPA has spent years trying to live down. The best actress in a drama category is a sign that they still have a ways to go. Melissa George, easily the weakest actor on In Treatment, received a nomination; and Anna Paquin, never one of my favorites, won the award for her role in True Blood, a performance that even fans of the show are divided about. Given that it was Paquin's first significant award win since taking home an Oscar at age eleven, she should be applauded for the relative restraint of her acceptance speech on a night when numerous winners rambled irritatingly on.

The winners for 30 Rock all made their marks from the podium. Best actor in a comedy Baldwin attempted to dispel those tabloid rumors of discord by thanking co-star and show creator Fey profusely, and told an unsuccessful joke about having once given a juice box to Rumer Willis, who was serving as Miss Golden Globe. Best actress in a comedy Fey, continuing to indulge her newly glam image, said that she has developed a method of keeping a level head: "If you ever start to feel too good about yourself, they have this thing called the internet."

After last year's hopelessly dumb Globes press conference made necessary by the writers' strike, the glamor of the event was back, as was the champagne. A few winners and presenters showed tentative signs of tipsiness, but it was left to Tracy Morgan to provide the night's most anarchic moment when 30 Rock was named best comedy. Instead of Fey speaking for the show, Morgan stepped to the mike from among the crowd of dignitaries onstage, and pulled off the difficult trick of simultaneously appearing less drunk than he typically does and more drunk than anyone else in the room. "Tina Fey and I had an agreement that if Barack Obama won, I would speak for the show from now on," said Morgan/Tracy Jordan. "I am the face of post-racial America -- deal with it, Cate Blanchett!"

While actors Jon Hamm and January Jones were unsuccessful in their Globe bids, Mad Men was considered a heavy favorite to win the award for best drama, and so it did. Showrunner Matthew Weiner, who is sticking with Mad Men after all following a few weeks of uncertainty, was pleased to be able to recycle a portion of the speech he was unable to make last year, when the series also won the Globe. "They like new things, and they embraced this show immediately," Weiner said of the HFPA.

Who was the big loser of the night? It's hard to ignore the performance of CBS, which had only one nominee, Neil Patrick Harris's supporting performance on How I Met Your Mother (Harris had been on Saturday Night Live only hours before). That was the first trophy of the evening, so by 8:10 p.m., CBS had the night off. Of course, the network is still Number One by a wide margin, which is not a bad consolation prize.

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