The two hour season finale of Empire, a show I like to call "The Taraji P Henson Variety Hour," hits tonight and though Emmy nominee balloting is literally three months away (June 15th-26th) so there's plenty of time to weigh the options and discuss them, the Empire team is already working hard to win votes. Taraji P Henson & Terence Howard feel like likely players in the Drama races. I doubt Emmy will ignore the leads in a new primetime soap network drama this buzzy and popular. The 1980s were unquestionably the heyday of this genre of television (with Dallas, Dynasty, The Colbys, Knots Landing and Falcon Crest all popular) though it's probably worth noting that the actors within this genre have had an easier time landing nominations then their series have. Dallas and Dynasty, the two most popular shows of this genre in the history of television, were only up for the top prize three times between them. Why, you ask?
Emmy history and the historic Best Actress after the jump...
In the 1980s when the modern soap was at its most popular Television Academy was deep in the snare of three types of shows: cops, detectives, and hospitals (Hill Street Blues, Cagney & Lacey, Magnum P.I., Murder She Wrote, St Elsewhere, China Beach, were all huge with Emmy) only breaking that daisy chain by, uh, reinforcing it with a fourth link, the legal drama (L.A. Law, The Practice, Law & Order). For twenty years -- and this no exaggeration whatsoever -- it was hard to get arrested unless you were one of these four types of shows or you were an undeniably huge buzzy hit (like outlier thirtysomething). The soap began a long drawn out revival by way of youth aimed shows -Beverly Hills 90210, Melrose Place, and the entire CW network but it's never regained its previous immense popularity with adults unless it was disguised as comedy (Desperate Housewives) until Downton Abbey (it qualifies, don'cha think?) and Empire with a little Revenge as warm up I suppose though that show never quite broke out into a big deal; Madeline Stowe was game at least!
But we digress. Soaps have had trouble because they didn't fit into those four types of shows that Emmy dubs instantly respectable and therefore watches and often loves. In the Aughts, only through the hard work of HBO's zeitgeist rise and new Emmy rut The West Wing was this daisy chain broken for good... and even then only gradually.
SHOCKING HISTORY BUT TRUE
It wasn't until Emmy fell out of love with The Good Wife and Dexter that we finally broke this Emmy rut. 2012 & 2013 were the first consecutive Drama Series lineups without at least one representative of either cop, hospital, or legal dramas and often more than one of those since the 1960s if you can believe it when "spy/adventure" series and anthologies were closer to the norm. Can you believe it?
The 2012/2013 lineup was like so...
- Boardwalk Empire (2012) / House of Cards (2013)
- Breaking Bad
- Downton Abbey
- Game of Thrones
- Homeland
- Mad Men
True Detective spoiled the "what is this variety?" party last year, returning the cop drama to Emmy's exclusive club. (Emmy doesn't only get stuck in ruts with shows they can't let go of, they get stuck in entire genres.) The Emmy landscape has (thankfully) had more diversity of genre in the contemporary TV landscape. That's partially because there are so many more programs to choose from but their personality hasn't really changed all that much. That absolute devotion to procedurals has now shapeshifted to become absolute devotion to whatever HBO and other cable channels have on offer; networks be gone! So pray that HBO and Showtime don't decide that they really need to devote their resources to is more cop, hospital, and lawyer shows. Pray hard!
EMPIRE AND BEST ACTRESS
Some people think that the Emmy race for Drama Actress is going to be 50% African American this year which would be a real break from tradition. As with Oscar history, Best Actress is the Emmy category most resistant to African American actors. As with Oscar history, this has a lot to do with what types of movies/shows that the studios greenlight. With the huge triple success of Scandal, How To get Away With Murder and Empire we can safely expect this to change in the near future since Hollywood follows the money. TV is even more repetitive (and faster) than movies in trying to copycat its successes so expect a lot of greenlights for series starring alpha personalitied black women real soon. Nevertheless I don't expect that Best Drama Actress will feature Kerry/Taraji/Viola this year. My guess is that the Kerry Washington / Scandal party is running out of steam now that so many newer cable shows have fresh buzz and now that Viola's Slumming Procedural and The Taraji Variety Hour are where it's at for Network TV.
I'd break things down like so but I am no television expert so perhaps you'll want to chime in and reconfigure this ranked battle for the six nominations? When it comes to BEST ACTRESS (ANY VARIETY) I know you're all quite opinionated.
TWO SURE THINGS (?) - THE TRUE BATTLE
There's no precedence for a battle like this but then there's also never been a time when two of the most popular dramas on air were headlined by former African American Oscar nominated women. I'd be shocked if either were denied a nomination and I think one of them will win.
TIER 2 REIGNING QUEENS - CAN THEY STAY IN THE THRONE ROOM?
Julianne Marguiles and Claire Danes are the only women still on the air who've won this category in this decade and they've both won it twice, Marguiles' triumphs sandwiching two consecutives for Danes. But Homeland is less popular than it once was and Marguiles actually missed a nomination in one year of her show's run. Might one of them be snubbed to make room for newbies?
TIER 3 STILL POPULAR -BUT POPULAR ENOUGH?
Robin Wright (House of Cards), Michelle Dockery (Downton Abbey), and Kerry Washington (Scandal) were all nominated last year but if they were going to win, wouldn't they have done so already for more potent fresher seasons? Wright is the best thing about House of Cards but Season 3 hasn't thrilled people like the first two. Despite constant nominations Dockery is still weirdly underappreciated as the icy heiress of Downton Abbey but the show has seen better days, and unless they're in to her romantic indecisions and new bob a fourth consecutive nomination seems like a stretch. Kerry is also in danger of running out of steam.
TIER 4 FRESH FACE THREAT - SHE JUST WON THE GLOBE.
Ruth Wilson's Globe win for The Affair could mean she'll be disrupting this party with her Rashomon style double deliveries of he said / she said scene-work in Showtime's romantic mystery. But there's so much competition and the Globes love debut series more than any other awards entity does, so it's always a little hard to read general favor into their total embrace of a freshman series.
TIER 5 STEALTH ATTACK (?) - THEIR SHOWS ARE BACK SOON
Both Elisabeth Moss (Mad Men) and Lizzy Caplan (Masters of Sex) have been in the mix before but no one is talking about either of them. That could change as soon as their shows come back. Mad Men will conclude its run right before Emmy voting but the decision to split that last season could well doom any of its actors from picking up their last chance gold by cutting their final arcs off at midsection. But will Masters of Sex be back in time? It's 3rd Season has no official return date just a "soon" via Showtime. Unless it comes back by June, will anyone remember the long ago ended second season when it comes to voting?
TIER 6 - THE LONGSHOTS
Pictured: Tatiana Maslany (Orphan Black), Kerry Russell (The Americans), I Forget Her Name But She's Great (Outlander), Connie Britton (Nashville), Tea Leoni (Madame Secretary), Hayley Atwell (Agent Carter), Patricia Arquette (CSI:Cyber*), Eva Green (Penny Dreadful). Not pictured but could have been included: Felicity Huffman (American Crime), Vera Farmiga (Bates Motel).
Either they're former Emmy winners stuck in bad shows, former nominees in shows that aren't on the tip of the tongue, or great actresses doing stellar work in genre shows, Emmy being super-dumbly-resistant to the latter, pray real hard if you're rooting for any of these gals.
(Now that I've written all of this watch Emmy decide that Mariska Hargitay needs a 9th nomination for Law & Order: Special Victims Unit in its 123rd season just because.)
Thoughts? Dreams? Prayers? Soap Opera antics? How are you feeling reading all of this.
*I know this sounds ridiculous but remember when Emmy felt the need to give a trophy to Melissa McCarthy because of Bridesmaids which wasn't on television. That.