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David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Emmy Nods

Emmy nods are weird for me almost every year.

Unlike the Oscars, most of the shows involved continue to compete for a number of years. Once certain shows have ascended to “part of the awards family,” they seem to slot in without fail. And the shows that don’t leap into the slot or two that become available each Emmy season almost never recover. Even with six nominees in most categories, this doesn’t leave room for anything very interesting to happen.

The tricky part is, however, that I tend to like all of the nominees too much to wish them ill.

Of the six Outstanding Comedy Series nominees, I watch five. I like all five… scratch that, I kind of love all five. And clearly, there is a huge audience for The Big Bang Theory, amongst voters and civilians. But is there really no place at the Emmys for shows like Raising Hope or Suburgatory? Or in the drama category, will The Walking Dead or Fringe ever be part of the Emmy conversation is any way?

There are glimmers of hope for some shows, like Louie, which failed to get a Best Comedy nod, but got a lot of other stuff. Or New Girl, with 2 of the ensemble of 5 nominated.

But Modern Family, 30 Rock, and The Big Bang Theory own comedy slots. The fact that there was a season of curb Your Enthusiasm to nominate pretty much guaranteed it a slot. And the voters added the excellent Girls and the also excellent Veep to the mix. Out this year are The Office, Glee, and Parks & Rec, which surely was seen as one of the likely-to-be-repeated-annually nominees.

See… this is why it’s weird… I don’t really think the “locked-in” shows don’t deserve to be there. And I don’t think the new entries don’t deserve to be there. It just feels, somehow, like there’s not much room for embracing the new shows that really need and equally deserve the love.

The idea that John Noble may get through the entire series of Fringe without ever being nominated for playing Walter Bishop on Fringe, one of those rare forever TV characters, drives me nuts. The idea that Greg Garcia’s crazy funny mixture of blue collar comedy and white collar irony in Raising Hope and the amazing performances that come with it (led by Garret Dillahunt and Martha Plimpton) may never get a little love while not being the poster child for “this year’s comedy” kinda sucks. And though I am not a Community person, I have seen the intense passion that its fanbase has… and aside from a writing nod, no room for the show at the inn. Ditto for Nick Offerman, who is a fan deity and an Emmy not-even-a-bridesmaid again.

And terrific as Mad Men is, is the show that pays for Mad Men, The Walking Dead, really just a prosthetic make-up show… or is it just too entertaining for too many people to be a nominee, what with Mad Men and the great Breaking Bad filling AMC’s quota of nominations?

But again… it’s not like anyone is sneaking in without earning it. With things all over the map on The Office and Glee kinda jumping the shark last season, their “snubs” don’t seem unreasonable. There was change. Drama turned over half of its slots too, though the return of Breaking Bad and the endlessly awarded Downtown Abbey seemed inevitable, leaving Homeland as the only real breakthrough… which was also pretty inevitable.

That’s the rub.

Television is really quite good right now.

Maybe the Emmys need to go to a Top Ten. People complain about it with the Oscars, but the reason I like it for Oscar is that it allows smaller films that have no chance to win to at least get the benefit of the competition.

Does it diminish the value of winning? No. Winning is winning. Does it make it less of a feat to be nominated? Yes. But much more than the movies, television is a business of habit. I’d love to see a few more habits encouraged.

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16 Responses to “Emmy Nods”

  1. etguild2 says:

    WALKING DEAD had a very uneven year, though the promos for season 3 look amazing. FRINGE? Too many haters out there.

    I agree about series’ slotting in automatically. MODERN FAMILY, BIG BANG, 30 ROCK and to a lesser extent MAD MEN were clearly coasting this season and got in anyway.

    Biggest snubs to me: JUSTIFIED for Best Drama, and COMMUNITY for best comedy.

  2. Joe Leydon says:

    Glad to see all the love for Hatfields & McCoys.

  3. Paul D/Stella says:

    I liked the most of the first and last installments of Hatfields & McCoys, but the midsection was really flabby and dull. Too much focus on uninteresting side characters. Costner and Paxton were offscreen for way too long in much of the second installment. Overall it was pretty good but far from great.

    Justified and Olyphant got hosed again, as did Ron Swanson.

  4. anghus says:

    How Nick Offerman did not get nominated is beyond crazy.

    The Walking Dead is one of those popular shows that even dedicated fans openly critcize. It’s one of the few shows you hear people say they love and then will say “but yeah, they’ve been on the farm for fuckivg ever”

    It’s a weird phenomenon because its one those shows that seems to have built a fan base on the potential of what it could become. I dropped out the first half of season two that featured a kid being shot and dying in bed for what felt like six episodes. The Walking Dead is a show with soap opera pacing and writing. There’s some good performances, bit nothing deserving of accolades.

    I mean, if you’re going to award mediocre product based on mainstrwam popularity, why not nominate The Big Bang Theory…

    …oh wait.

  5. Razzie Ray says:

    I finally started watching Raising Hope, and that show is a gem. Particulalry Dillahunt and Plimpton. He had this one line when he sneaks up on someone in there car, “Hey don’t panic it’s me. You’re ex-boyfriend’s, temporary maid’s husband.” I know Plimpton got a nod last year.

    But, true to DP’s words. Everyone one bitches about the Oscars, but the Emmy’s are head-scratchingly safe even when all say we’re in a clear golden-age of television. How many years did Tony Shaloub win? But, as DP says, who doesn’t love Tony Shaloub? I do!

    And on what PLANET should Boardwalk Empire and Buscemi be on that list? And Curb. LOVED Curb. And that’s a deliberate past tense, the last three seasons have been pretty weak.

  6. movieman says:

    Like most of America, I love “Modern Family,” but “Parks and Rec” really is the best network sitcom airing right now. (No “Best Comedy” nod for “Louie” is just plain dumb. It’s the new “Curb:” when are the Emmy voters going to figure that out?)
    And how can you nominate Buscemi but not Michael Pitt?
    My happiest Emmy surprises were the richly deserved nominations for “Girls” (three for Dunham alone).
    You go, “Girls”!

  7. cadavra says:

    God, I hope Bates and Smart win as a giant F-U to NBC.

  8. J says:

    Whoa, et, ‘Mad Men’ was coasting? It had, up until perhaps a just-okay final episode, probably the best season of its run (up there with season two) and arguably one of the top-tier seasons of any drama, ever. Some of that’s because, along the lines of David’s suggestion, it is so completely inhabited — it knows itself very well, and its observation of its characters and situations are pitch-perfect. But making it feel so effortless while offering up structural surprises and incidental joys is hard work.

    That Emmy nominees own and don’t rent their spots has been the rule for a long time — Picket Fences, anyone? — but some shows and performers definitely keep up with the mortgage payments.

    I gave up on The Walking Dead four eps into the first season because the writing was awful and conceptually it wasn’t doing anything for me beyond cobbling together bits of every zombie film I’ve ever seen; I never heard anything suggesting it ever improved. I gave Fringe a whole season and a half to see if it could ever capably get through an episode without farting its way through a half-dozen plotholes, never did; maybe it got better when it jumped universes (and I hope it did), but for me it was never worth watching, nevermind begging for a nomination… though I agree John Noble always seemed like he deserved some sort of official attention.

    I join the chorus of outrage re: Ron Swanson, but maybe there can be an SAG-style full-ensemble award introduced that can cover Parks & Rec’s dedication to the creation of a whole town of amiable nutballs. (Though I guess Emmy would just take the opportunity to re-reward Modern Family, there.)

  9. palmtree says:

    Biggest snub has to be Louie, which has really transcended a comedy show…maybe that’s why people are so ambivalent about it.

    And speaking of AMC, what about The Killing? I know some people started hating the red herrings, but it’s still a really well-acted show. No nominations at all?

  10. Yancy Skancy says:

    Paul: Olyphant did get nominated last year. I think JUSTIFIED, which I love, was hurt by having a season that was merely good after the brilliance of season 2.

    The snubbing of LOUIE for Best Comedy Series borders on the inexplicable. Let’s see, his acting, writing, directing and editing were worthy of nods, but the show itself just somehow comes up a bit short. Weird. They clearly love him (he got two more nods for his LIVE AT THE BEACON special, so I guess it’s just some quirk of the process. Did anyone else match CK’s total of six personal nominations?

    And I’m with J; no way MAD MEN was coasting this season.

  11. Paul D/Stella says:

    But Olyphant has been snubbed before, even if he did get a nomination last year. I strongly disagree that this season was merely good. It was great. Mags and Martindale set the bar extremely high. Everyone working on the show knew that. McDonough and Williamson were outstanding and every episode was enormously entertaining. This season was nearly as good as last season.

    Mad Men, on the other hand, was painfully mediocre this season. Some episodes were phenomenal and some of the best the show has done. Others got sidetracked and focused on boring side characters. The one with Kinsey and his attempts to write an episode of Star Trek was as bad as Mad Men gets.

    Kinnaman is awesome on The Killing but he’s up against stiff competition and hurt by how bad the show he’s on is. The Walking Dead was terrible. To say they spent too much time on the farm is the understatement of the century.

  12. Don R. Lewis says:

    MAD MEN this season was bar none the finest television program ever. EVER. It had everything and didn’t put a pretty bow on it.

    And…
    As much as I love LOUIE, I dunno that’s it’s really a comedy. Or at least not a safe bet comedy. It’s sort of all over the map but has comedic elements. Maybe that hurt it, nominations wise?

  13. movieman says:

    Totally agree w/ every poster who thought the peerless “Mad Men” was its usual brilliant self.
    There are moments–hell, images alone–from this season that still haunt and disturb me.
    I don’t think there’s ever been a television show (whether network or basic/premium cable) that I’ve been as excited at the prospect of watching (it) week after week…or at least as long as AMC allows each season to run.

  14. greg says:

    David is right.. 3 or 4 in each category is a lock.. kinda boring emmys

  15. Yancy Skancy says:

    McDonough and Williamson were fine, especially the former, but I think they were hampered by the conception of their characters. Quarles got way less interesting to me once he turned out to be more a less a plain old nut job, and Williamson could only get so much mileage out of the folksy delivery and constant hog butchering.

    The big problem in the Supporting Actor Drama category is the embarrassment of eligible riches. I only watch about ten drama series, and had no trouble putting together a list of 20 very worthy nominees. Hell, you could have a strong field of five from BREAKING BAD alone:

    Jonathan Banks (Breaking Bad)
    Jere Burns (Justified)
    Mehcad Brooks (Necessary Roughness)
    Ryan Cartwright (Alphas)
    Dabney Coleman (Boardwalk Empire)
    Giancarlo Esposito (Breaking Bad)
    Walton Goggins (Justified)
    Jared Harris (Mad Men)
    Rick Hoffman (Suits)
    Jack Huston (Boardwalk Empire)
    Vincent Kartheiser (Mad Men)
    Anton Lesser (The Hour)
    Gabriel Mann (Revenge)
    Neal McDonough (Justified)
    Bob Odenkirk (Breaking Bad)
    Dean Norris (Breaking Bad)
    Aaron Paul (Breaking Bad)
    Nick Searcy (Justified)
    Michael Shannon (Boardwalk Empire)
    John Slattery (Mad Men)

    I think Jere Burns probably would’ve been submitted for the Guest Actor category, and Anton Lesser for Supporting Actor in a Mini-Series or Movie, but you get the idea.

  16. Aaron says:

    why has Walter Bishop been embraced as such an amazing character? He mumbles and makes comments about milkshakes and jello…I really wanted to love Fringe…but it never happened.

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