A number of winners take a swipe at President Donald Trump in their speeches

The dystopian vision of The Handmaid’s Tale, the deeply cynical Washington comedy Veep and the ever-topical ‘Saturday Night Live’ won top series honours Sunday in an Emmy Awards ceremony that took almost non-stop aim at President Donald Trump in awards and speeches.

“Go home, get to work, we have a lot of things to fight for,” producer Bruce Miller said in accepting the best drama trophy for A Handmaid’s Tale, which also won best drama writing and directing awards and a best actress trophy for Elisabeth Moss. A beaming Margaret Atwood, the Canadian author whose 1985 novel is the show’s source, was onstage.

Sterling K. Brown, whose role in This Is Us earned him the top drama series actor trophy, paid tribute to the last African-American man to win in the category, Andre Braugher in 1998 for his role as a police detective in Homicide — Life on the Street.

“Nineteen years ago, Detective Frank Pemberton held this joint,” Mr. Brown, hoisting his Emmy and calling it his “supreme honour” to follow Braugher. He was good-natured as the orchestra cut into his speech, but it seemed a glaring misstep on a night in which the TV academy revelled in signs of the industry’s increasing diversity.

Ms. Moss captured her first Emmy and thanked her mother in a speech that was peppered with expletives, while Ann Dowd won supporting actress honours for A Handmaid’s Tale. Donald Glover won the best comedy actor for Atlanta, which he created and which carries his distinctive voice, while Julia Louis-Dreyfus was honoured for a sixth time for her role as a self-absorbed politician in Veep, named best comedy for the third time.

Smartly free-wheeling

The ceremony was also smartly free-wheeling under Mr. Colbert’s sure hand, including a taped bit in which the nude comedian carefully shown seated and from the back was being “reprogrammed” by Westworld star and nominee Jeffrey Wright to correct a glitch in the host mechanism.

‘Saturday Night Live’ triumphed for a season of skewering Mr. Trump. “I remember the first time we won this award,” creator Lorne Michaels said in accepting the show’s trophy for best variety sketch series. “It was after our first season in 1976. And I remember thinking ... there would never be another season as crazy, as unpredictable, as frightening, as exhausting, or as exhilarating. Turns out I was wrong.”

Riz Ahmed was honoured as best limited series actor for “The Night Of.”

Lena Waithe became the first African-American woman to win an Emmy for comedy series writing, for Master of None, sharing the award with series co-creator Aziz Ansari, who is of Indian heritage. “The things that make us different, those are superpowers,” Ms. Waithe said. “Thank you for embracing a little Indian boy from South Carolina and a little queer black girl from the south side of Chicago,” she said, basking in a standing ovation from the theatre audience.