traveling detective show “Life on Mars” picked up its second International Emmy for best drama series, leading a British sweep of seven of the 10 awards handed out Monday night at a ceremony that also honored “Law & Order” creator Dick Wolf. Sam Waterston, who plays prosecutor Jack McCoy, presented the special International Emmy Founders Award to Wolf, thanking his boss for bringing “order into my life” by giving him steady employment for nearly 15 years. “Dick Wolf's franchises show a side of America to the rest of the world that we can be proud of, of a country where we resolve conflicts through a justice system that never quits trying to be both just and fair,” Waterston said. He was joined onstage at the New York Hilton by co-star Linus Roache, as well as Dann Florek, Tamara Tunie and Michaela McManus from “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.” “Law & Order and its spinoffs – in the original US and locally franchised versions – have been sold to almost 300 television territories around the world. Earlier this year, deals were inked to make locally produced “Law & Order” versions in Britain, France and Russia. Britain's David Suchet received the best actor Emmy for the TV film “Maxwell” about the final months of corrupt media tycoon Robert Maxwell's life. Best actress honors went to Lucy Cohu for the true-life drama “Forgiven” about a suburban housewife who reports her husband to authorities for sexually abusing their daughter and later decides to rebuild their lives together. “The I.T. Crowd,” which centers on the world of socially-awkward information technology geeks working for a British corporation, won in the comedy category. “Life on Mars,” whose US version premiered on the ABC network this fall, also won the Emmy for best drama series for its first season in 2006. The other British winners included “Strictly Bolshoi (arts programming), the story of the first Englishman, choreographer Christopher Wheeldon, to create an original work for Moscow's famed Bolshoi Ballet; the animated “Shaun the Sheep” (children & young people), and “The Beckoning Silence” (documentary) recounting a mountaineer's failed battle for survival in the Swiss Alps. Meanwhile, Jordanian television producers were on Tuesday celebrating the kingdom's first ever International Emmy Award for a 2007 series on a love story during Israel's 2002 incursion into a West Bank city. “Al-Igtiyah” (The Invasion) won Emmy's new telenovela category, with producer Talal Awamleh accepting the award in New York on Monday night. “It's a very well-done and successful work,” Yasser Qbeilat of Jordan's Arab Telemedia Productions, which is owned by Awamleh, said. “As a private production company, it was a big challenge to produce such a work.” The winners of what are known as the Oscars of the television industry were selected from among 40 nominees of 16 countries competing for 10 International Emmy categories, excluding US productions. The series on the Israeli incursion into the Palestinian city of Jenin was shot on location in Syria, with Jordanian, Syrian and Palestinian actors, Qbeilat said. Lebanon's LBC satellite TV was the only station to broadcast Al-Igtiyah in 2007 during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, a popular time for television viewing in the region. “All other networks decided to ignore the series because of sensitivities related to Israel,” said a production industry source, who estimated the cost of the series at more than $3 million dollars.
