With the return of television shows this September comes the return of the prestigious award show that honors them every year, the Emmy Awards. The Emmys celebrate the accomplishments of television with this fall marking the 65th broadcast, hosted by “How I Met Your Mother’s” Neil Patrick Harris. This year winners seemed to invoke more disappointment from audiences than cheers.

And why exactly did this happen? It would be a pointless argument to say that one actor is better than the other and even more pointless to say none of them truly deserved the award. There was a reason they were nominated to begin with, after all. The main issue of this year’s Emmy’s was the long-time question, who will win versus who should win. And in a surprising twist, who should win dominated this year. So what is the reason to be upset?

Putting it in the simplest terms, many awards shows are, to some arguable degree, a popularity contest. Star power, in many fans’ eyes, sometimes outweighs actual acting chops. But this isn’t a sufficient enough answer; all the nominees are fantastic at what they do. The next logical step is to examine the popularity of the show the actor is in. If a poll was taken right now asking people if they’ve heard of the shows “The Newsroom” and “Breaking Bad,” “Breaking Bad” would undoubtedly win.

Yet, in the biggest upset of the night, Jeff Daniels from “The Newsroom” won Lead Actor in a Drama Series. He beat out hopeful Bryan Cranston from “Breaking Bad” as well as other big names such as Jon Hamm from “Mad Men” and Kevin Spacey from “House of Cards.” Daniels’ win was in fact so outrageous to the public that Twitter exploded with livid tweets, one from TV critic Jace Lacob who wrote “It’s official: these Emmy Awards are taking place in an alternate universe.” “Breaking Bad” hopefuls were again let down when Bobby Cannavale from “Boardwalk Empire” snatched the gold for Supporting Actor in a Drama Series. Yet, while it may have failed in these acting categories, the show did pick up Best Supporting Actress in a Drama Series by Anna Gunn and the biggest award of the night, Best Drama Series.

It wasn’t just Daniels and Cannavale raising eyebrows, though. Other unexpected wins came from Merritt Wever for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy for her role in “Nurse Jackie,” and Tony Hale from “Veep,” winning Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy. The once invincible cast of “Modern Family” fell off their pedestal in the supporting actor/actress categories and “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart”’s 10-year reign in the Best Variety Series was ended by “The Colbert Report.”

If the Emmys failed to provide other forms of entertainment for the night, the twist and turns of the winners’ list was entertainment enough. It’s obvious the public didn’t agree with the results from sites like Facebook and Twitter.

The question remains: is the controversy caused by the public being swayed by the glamour of a popularity contest? Anyone who watches Daniels in action can’t deny the skill he displays as newscaster Will McAvoy, and similar arguments can be made for the other winners.

It seems that when who really should win beats out who will win, the world watching isn’t too thrilled.