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The Emmy Awards ran into a buzzsaw Sunday night otherwise known as the National Football League.

The predictable results of this faceoff included a 19 percent dip in ratings, and a national audience of only 13 million people, the show’s second lowest figure. The Fox telecast actually did hit a record law mark in their coveted 18-49 demographic, something not even the presence of Ryan Seacrest could prevent.

But there was one piece of good news that came out of this otherwise dismal production for those of us who love Westerns. The genre that few people in Hollywood seem interested in presenting swept all the available awards, with the superb specials Broken Trail and Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee taking the Best Mini-Series and Best Made For Television categories.

Even better were the victories of Robert Duvall and Thomas Haden Church as Best Actor and Best Supporting Actors in a Mini-Series. Amazingly, this marked Duvall’s first Emmy, as he somehow failed to win previously for Lonesome Dove. The American Movie Classics channel garnered its best ratings ever for multiple showings of this drama.

These wins follow on the heels of the updated version of 3:10 to Yuma topping the box office for its first week out. While you can see the contemporary trappings all over this version, the acting of Russell Crowe and Christian Bale, plus a wonderful guest stint from Peter Fonda, makes it well worth seeing.

While it will be a surprise if the film gets the kind of Oscar attention Clint Eastwood received with Unforgiven, at least it has thus far done reasonably well fiscally, which is really all that matters to much of the current studio bunch anyhow.

Yet despite the success of these ventures, nowhere in the array of time travelers, vampires, swinging singles and high-flying adventurers are any westerns scheduled for the new television season now in bloom.

There hasn’t been any western on the networks since 2002, when Joss Whedon merged bits of that genre with sci-fi and created Firefly, a show that Fox moved around multiple times before prematurely canning. Even though Deadwood was highly praised and became a cult and critical favorite, HBO thus far hasn’t even seen fit to give it a decent climax. USA got some initial attention for the show Peacemakers, but then quickly pulled it at the start of a second season. CBS did bring back Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman for one updated movie, but otherwise, it’s been the cable outlets who’ve kept things alive with special productions and mini-series.

TNT’s elaborate and excellent Into The West a couple of years ago seemed a good starting point for more western productions, but that hasn’t proven the case. No one expects a return to 1959, when there were 26 westerns on prime-time television, but surely among all the procedural, reality and quirky things available, there should be room for at least one or two westerns. Like the private eye drama, it seems westerns are so identified with the past networks feel modern audiences won’t watch them, at least in terms of the demographic breakdowns they desire.

Yet as anyone familiar with television knows, it only takes one hit to turn the tide. Little House on the Praire and Kung Fu triggered a mild ‘70s resurgence, while Dr. Quinn ran for six seasons on CBS in the ‘90s, winning multiple awards in the process.

Perhaps when some of the new crop inevitably fails, rather than trying yet another absurd premise, a crack production team will turn to the western and utilize its classic strengths (great storytelling possibilities, rich characterizations, moral dilemmas) while updating it for this century (more diverse casting).

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