Critics Choice TV Awards: Faceoff, Allison Janney, The Americans
Monday, June 1, 2015 at 12:00PM 
Charlize giving a "Genius" award to Seth McFarlane. The title disturbs both of them. After the laziest weekend of all time in TFE HQ, we must jump right back to deep conversations on all the entertainment thingies that matter and some that don't. Who's to say which is which but you? This week I watched a lot of mindless TV as I vegged out (I have no idea why my body/mind absolutely rejected my normal blog 24/7 routine) so let's go with that first and talk about the Critics Choice TV Wins. They're the Emmy-like sibling branch of the BFCA (I am not a member of the former, just the latter). Thankfully they don't try to predict the Emmys at all the way my branch tries to predict the Oscars (sigh). They're totally willing to get behind TV shows that haven't a prayer with Emmy (note their win for The Americans which The Emmys consistently ignore) . This doesn't mean they don't still make annoying choices but at least you can tell they're voting from their hearts.
Drama
Best Drama Series: The Americans (FX)
Best Actor in a Drama Series: Bob Odenkirk, Better Call Saul (AMC)
Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series: Jonathan Banks, Better Call Saul (AMC)
Best Supporting Actress in a Drama Series: Lorraine Toussaint, Orange Is the New Black (Netflix)
Best Guest Performer in a Drama Series: Sam Elliott, Justified (FX)
More winners and commentary after the jump...
Lynn is going to be so happy that The Americans won!
I don't wach Better Call Saul but the fact that the spinoff of the overrrewarded* Breaking Bad is now taking multiple prizes is horrific to me in the way that Frasier winning endless Emmys was post Cheers. Or the way whatever future spin-off of Modern Family winning prizes is going to be. Spread the wealth, people. Fanboyisms with awardage often leads to embarrassing hoarding of prizes and neglect at masterful work elsewhere.
(Yay for Lorraine Toussaint though who has her work cut out for her getting an Emmy nod given her overstuffed category but let's table that discussion for its own post since I have Things To Say About Supporting Actress. )
Alison Janney makes out with James Corden because... why not?Comedy
Best Comedy Series: Silicon Valley (HBO)
Best Actor in a Comedy Series: Jeffrey Tambor, Transparent (Amazon)
Best Actress in a Comedy Series: Amy Schumer, Inside Amy Schumer (Comedy Central)
Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series: Allison Janey, Mom (CBS)
Best Guest Performer in a Comedy Series: Bradley Whitford, Transparent (Amazon)
Transparent is genius and an original and we should cross our fingers that it does well at the Emmys too. Otherwise... I continue to be a bit mystified that enough people can still stomach laughtracks in 2015 for shows that use them to be regarded as awards-worthy (see Mom or, over at the Emmys, The Big Bang Theory). It's a little bit like giving the Visual FX Oscar going to a movie that uses rear projection for its driving scenes, and not in an ironic Mad Men kind of way. It's... From Another Time. That said Janney is a major actress in practically everything but she has won so many awards over the years (6 Emmys, 6 SAGs, 2 Drama Desks for her stage work, and various other minor citations from critics groups, and multiple Globe nominations) that it feels a little generous and Streepian all the same. Spread the wealth.
Telefilms & Miniseries
Best Movie Made for Television: Bessie (HBO)
Best Limited Series: Olive Kitteridge (HBO)
Best Actor in a Movie or Limited Series: David Oyelowo, Nightingale (HBO)
Best Actress in a Movie or Limited Series: Frances McDormand, Olive Kitteridge (HBO)
Best Supporting Actor in a Movie or Limited Series: Bill Murray, Olive Kitteridge (HBO)
Best Supporting Actress in a Movie or Limited Series: Sarah Paulson, American Horror Story: Freak Show (FX)
Best Reality Series: Shark Tank (ABC)
Best Reality Competition Series: Face Off (Syfy)
Best Reality Series Host: Cat Deeley, So You Think You Can Dance (FOX)
Nice to see Sarah Paulson pick up a prize for her hard working double-duty on Freak Show. She was easily best in show once you got past the shockingly great (and sexy) surprise of Finn Wittrock's breakout year in general and with "Dandy" especially. I only caught a few minutes as I was channel hopping. And those minutes were right around here. Queen Latifah looked disappointed to lose Best Actress (McDormand wasn't there which was hardly unexpected given her face at the Globes. Remember that?)
Because I was experiencing one of those vegging-out weekends I thought I'd try out Faceoff after seeing it win. Especially since I knew it would have something to do with the movies -- and sure enough three Oscar winning makeup artists were represented in the two episodes I watched. Yay, Oscar winning craftspeople. The premise was exciting but the execution was... just embarrassing.
Reality Competition Television has to be the most uncreative of all television genres, creatively bankrupt even. It's product from an assembly line with absolutely no attempts to make it a cut above. Every show is the same as every other no matter the network, producers, or subject matter, as if they're all cut by the same editors and scripted by the same writers and scored by the same composers. There is the generically pretty (usually blonde) hostess who talks like a robot. There's the Mini then the Maxi Challenges. The same process of elimination. The same discussing the tops and bottoms and sending them away during "deliberations". There's the same reverential introduction of guest stars with the same off camera coaching to the contestants who then know the whole persons career to the camera. There's the same replaying of exact scenes before and after commercial and the same cutting to on camera confessionals to explain what you've just seen exactly when you'd expect it every time. I'd argue that it's the single most artistically restrictive entertainment format on the planet right now and has been for years. I watched two episodes of Faceoff and I felt like I had seen both of them 1000s of times before (which is weird because I've never ever seen a show about makeup artists before and the subject matter sounded like it had great promise) and I will never watch another episode unless I am insanely insanely bored and can't find any of my DVDs.
Cat Deeley won Best Reality Host, and I hear only wonderful things about her from friends that watch that show but it still means nothing since RuPaul wasn't a nominee and frankly that's a little embarassing for this group given that some Reality hosts just get nominated for standing at their marks and saying the exact same lines every episode. Done. Collect your check.
RuPaul has her catchphrases too but they're so self aware they've practically become sentient and she has a wondrous comic habit of spinning them in subtle inflected and/or wildly affected ways just as you're feeling complacent about them. Plus she's about 1000 times funnier, more spontaneous, and more glamorous than her regularly nominated competition at the Emmys and here.
That awards bodies don't honor her ever is Shade so strong it's Perpetual Eclipse.
Randomness
Best Talk Show: The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (Comedy Central)
Best Animated Series: Archer (FX)
Critics’ Choice LOUIS XIII Genius Award: Seth MacFarlane
Most Exciting New Series: American Crime Story (FX), Aquarius (NBC), Blindspot (NBC), Minority Report (FOX), The Muppets (ABC), Scream Queens (FOX), Supergirl (CBS) and UnREAL (Lifetime)
Yay Archer.
But we should stop there. That final category. Eeep. The less said about "critics" giving prizes to shows they've never seen -- perhaps they should retitle the prize "most exciting new ad campaign!" or "my favorite publicist!" the better, you know?
* People who love Breaking Bad will say it deserved all of its prizes but....Fact: Nothing ever is the best at everything all the time, year in and Year out. All longform art has peaks and valleys or even if it's just peaks, other longform art may also be experiencing peaks at the same time and those must be considered, too. It just doesn't happen that something is the best all the time forever in everything. Never has happened. Never will. Even Mad Men, the greatest TV show of all time, (generally speaking), didn't deserve to win Best Series and all the directing and writing and costuming and acting prizes at the Emmys for every year of its existence. The fact that it won NONE of the acting or costuming prizes is just a stain on the Emmys forever. But anyway. Yeah. Spread the wealth. It's more generous, and also more artistically and critically and intellectually sensible.
Reader Comments (48)
I do sort of agree with you on Breaking Bad. I think part of what sparked the awards love is that it was a good show, with three wonderful performances at its centre, that managed to get more exciting (not necessarily the same as 'better') each year. It found ways to build, and created larger peaks even if I think it peaked overall as a show around Season 4. And Better Call Saul is a very different show to Breaking Bad, so I don't have a problem at all with the Jonathan Banks win, since he's really wonderful and shines in a very different way on the prequel show.
I think it's a bit condescending when you evoke "fanboyism" to explain away the praise for Breaking Bad. The show is arguably the only one in the history of TV to be that consistently excellent. Other masterful shows like The Sopranos, Mad Men, and even The Wire had peaks and valleys, whereas Breaking Bad never really fell off track. The only misstep in the entire series is that one episode called 'Fly.'
And Breaking Bad didn't win everything, as you suggest. It only started to be honored as the series went along, as opposed to Mad Men, which more or less swept in its first four seasons. Modern Family, on the other hand...
(Also, Better Call Saul is a great show, and it's not being rewarded because fanboys love Breaking Bad. You should watch it first before you judge!)
You forgot about Taraji winning Best Actress Drama Series!
Since Allison Janney does not have a single Oscar nomination to her name, you may as well cut her a little slack for being an awards magnet outside of them.
I'm not quite sure where all this "Breaking Bad wins everything" talk is coming from. While it's true that Bryan Cranston won four out of the six years the show was on at the Emmys, the show itself only won twice. That's certainly not any type of monopoly a la "Modern Family."
Breaking Bad was only 16 for 58 at the Emmys. Mad Men won Best Series four years in a row...until Breaking Bad took home the prize for its final two seasons. Mad Men itself took home 14 awards (so far) over its tenure after being nominated for more than 100.
In terms of Cranston, I think he was giving one of the best performances by an actor I've ever seen...period. To me, his awards were truly warranted.
Yay for Jeffrey Tambor and Amy Schumer! Both VERY deserving. I wish awards bodies would also recognize Amy Landecker for her work on Transparent but anything that show can get is great.
And also yay for Toussaint!
Love every single one of these winners (up to the Reality and MacFarlane ones, because I could not care less, and that stupid New Series thing). BRAVO!
"breaking bad" was awesome. that is all. and it didn't win as much as you make it sound. (cranston maybe)
yay toussaint, "the americans", taraji!
but kudrow should be winning all the awards. best performance on television.
Jeff & Joseph -- see, to me Jon Hamm was giving one of the best performances by an actor i'd ever seen on Mad Men but i know there is enough great quality on tv that winning 4 emmys would have been ridiculous for him -- even as an intense fanboy of that show i can admit that. I just can't excuse it for any single actor or any single show. It comes at too great a cost to acknowledging genius elsewhere. and Mad Men never swept anything. It has 4 best series prizes which is nice but it was never a sweeper, consistently missing in what should have been very easy gets (like a few acting emmys and a costume emmy here or there for starters.
sorry. i'm very touchy about this issue ;)
3rtful -- oops. did she? that wasn't in the press release from the CRITICS CHOICE - lol. I know because I copied and pasted the winners list. heh.
Yeah I agree with some of the other posters, I never understood the Breaking Bad hate in some many of the post here. It sounds like someone coming form the perceptive of someone never actually having seen the show. Spreading the wealth only works if its being spread to a show deserving of it.
And YAY for Taraji!
Marcelo -- not correct. It blocked so many important actors from receiving awards.
Bryan Cranston won Best Actor in 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2014.... thereby preventing Jon Hamm (Mad Men) and Michael C Hall (Dexter) from ever receiving Emmys for their classic characterizations... and very nearly preventing the same in regards to Kyle Chandler (FNL) !!!!
Aaron Paul won Emmys in supporting (and from the episodes I've seen at least that was a total leading role) in 2010, 2012, and 2014... thereby preventing classic supporting characterizations by John Slattery (mad men) and Mandy Patinkin (Homeland) and Josh Charles (The Good Wife) and Jim Carter (Downton Abbey) from ever receiving Emmys.
Anna Gunn only won twice which is less annoying but both times she beat Christina Hendricks (Mad Men) and Christine Baranski (The Good Wife) two women who've incredibly never won for what are by popular and critical consensus two of the best ongoing performances on television.
I just think the practice of rewarding the same performances over and over again is highly questionable and definitely gross. I hated it when I was young and I hate it now. I don't even love it when i love the actor (like Julia Louis-Dreyfus). Too bad none of today's actors have the balls to say (as some used to) 'that's enough. i'm taking myself out of the running' as Candice Bergen did for Murphy Brown in its last few years perhaps realizing that 5 statues was just ridiculous and she'd keep winning.
"I continue to be a bit mystified that enough people can still stomach laughtracks in 2015 for shows that use them to be regarded as awards-worthy"
I'm sorry Nat, love your blog, but the snobbery presented in this comment is not a pretty color on you. Are you really saying that the multi-camera format has an expiration date? That you can't experiment with that format anymore? That's exactly what Mom is doing, using the theatricality of the multi-camera format to present some pretty raw, dark material. Yes, all the Emmy love that Allison Janney gets might be overkill, but what she's doing on Mom is unprecedented, it's a performance you don't see very often on a multicamera show, funny yet very raw. Anna Farris should also be getting nominations for what she does on Mom (seriously Nat, watch the second season, it's where the show finds its voice).
Also, Cheers and Frasier were always very different shows (even if they share some of the same writing staff). You could tell whenever they brought a Cheers character into Frasier that the shows are very different (and even though I love Cheers, I think Frasier has aged better, so I really don't mind the fact that it dominated the Emmys).
NBG -- i have seen a handful of episodes of the show and never liked it (too nihilistic for me) but the "hate" at its awards run is not because I don't think it was good. Enough critics found it brilliant for me to realize it probably was (but just not for me). The hate comes from my total disdain for not spreading the wealth. Trust that I would have been annoyed if they gave Jon Hamm the Emmy every year for Don Draper even though I think it's genius work. Nobody needs 4 Emmys for the same performance. Especially when there are other people out there doing classic work.
I'm sorry. I had heard we were living in 'The Golden Age of Television'. I thought there was more than one show that was good out there. ;)Richter Scale -- my concern is not the format of performed before a live studio audience (i go to lots of theater which is a live art form), it's the laugh track. If you promise me that they are never goosing the laughs on the laugh track and that all laughter i hear is genuine and right where it took place during the show, then I will watch the show. But I've literally never seen a laugh track show that didn't amp up the laughs on unfunny lines or force them if a joke was a bomb. The worst shows actually pipe them in on setups for jokes, not even waiting for punchlines.
It may be snobbery but I consider it the high moral ground -- like ye olden times wars against Pan & Scan which I fought valiantly to anyone who would listen and which was eventually won sort of --at least to a degree. More and more laugh tracks are going the way of the dinosaur. If we could just replace the executives at CBS we might finally let it go extinct! (I like Janney & Farris both a lot in general so I was so sad when I heard that would be the format because I just can't watch those things).
if anna had never won it would have been terrible too.
and with her second award it was one of those 'undeniable' tapes.
also her awards had a special taste (for me at least), as her character was maligned by dumb fanboys of the show, who found skyler a 'bitch', 'fat', 'annoying', 'nagging', 'evil' etc, so I will never begrudge them.
I grant you cranston.
and to each their own, but "mad men" is nihilistic no? (or annoyingly so - in being too focused on don drapper, in my opinion)
I have long abandoned "mad men", but I'm rooting for january jones if she's nominated this year... another wonderful performance depicting an unfairly maligned character (not by reasonable people, sure, as there are several great defenses of betty online).
I can assure you Nat, Mom would not work without the format it's presented in (or at least it wouldn't feel as raw as it does). I really think you should watch the show, at least watch the second season of it (the first season, while very good, was still trying to figure out what kind of show it wanted to be, by the second season they choose to take these damaged characters seriously and run with it). Yes, there is a laugh track, and I can't promise that it's always genuine, but I think fi you can get past the laugh track you'll find some genuinely affecting moments and these two women make the most out of everything that's thrown at them. It's a show that takes addiction, self-destructive patterns, messy family relationships and the struggle to be better seriously, while still finding room for a few laughs. A little llike Roseanne when it was at its best, but this one dares to go darker...
"I don't wach Better Call Saul but the fact that the spinoff of the overrrewarded* Breaking Bad is now taking multiple prizes is horrific to me in the way that Frasier winning endless Emmys was post Cheers."
SING IT. Better Call Saul was so boring I couldn't even bother to finish it. You're not missing anything.
Yay for The Americans, Lorraine, Taraji and Tambor (one of the great tv actors).
The Americans!
I honestly think that January Jones is Mad Men's best hope of an Emmys acting win and I would dearly love for this to happen- not just because she deserves it (which she does, they all do) but for the glorious reactions that would ensue. Imagine!
It may be snobbery but I consider it the high moral ground -- like ye olden times wars against Pan & Scan which I fought valiantly to anyone who would listen and which was eventually won sort of --at least to a degree.
I wanted a laser disc player as a kid because I assumed every movie would be letter boxed.
Janney won her first four Emmys 11-15 years ago. And at the time, CJ Cregg didn't have fabulous competition as one of the best characters (and performances) on television. The "Mom" love might be too much but her performance on "Masters of Sex" was probably the most outstanding performance nominated in any category last year.
Janney elevates every film she touches and still can't get arrested by a movie awards group. So if she's reveling in riches on the TV circuit (for the first time in more than a decade!), I'm pretty sure there are better places to direct frustration than at her.
Who thinks to knock Allison Janney down a peg? Janney is a working actress who hustles and works tirelessly, making do with what the industry gives her. For ever "Mom" Emmy there are a dozen thankless supporting roles she'll never get proper credit for. I don't want to live in a world where Janney fatigue is a thing.
If Stockard Channing came back and won (literally) a couple of awards, would people start moaning about how it's "too much?"
Not particularly original choices, huh? The Americans won, and that's about it. The rest are mostly shows and performers who have been honored before by one of the big awards bodies (Emmys/Globes/Guilds), no?
And now a massive rant pro-Emmys and pro-Breaking Bad! :D
One thing to keep in mind is that the Emmys are not (or at least least were not, before recent rule changes) awarded by the entire Television Academy, but by appointed panels with limited members, and they voted based on episodic submission, not on the work as a whole.
That means that:
a) performers can essentially write themselves out of the competition by submitting poorly (see Robin Wright last year or Julianna Margulies on the first season of The Good Wife);
b) explosive work in a self-contained episode can sometimes override a overall body of work that isn't quite as impressive (Mariska Hargitay in L&O:SVU comes to mind, but the all time example is provably the Best Actress win for The Bionic Woman). Also, fireworks can easily beat quiet, understated work that develops slowly through an entire season. This is probably why Carrie Mathison and her hysterical ticks have two Emmys to show for, but stoic Saul has none. It probably also explains most of Mad Men acting losses. The only occasion in which episode submission strongly backed a win was likely Christina Hendricks' for The Other Woman, and she sadly lost to Maggie Smith, who benefited from dual submission (hers and Joanna Frogatt's) and from being Maggie Smith (everybody loves a dame!!!)
c) as the panels shift, the people voting each year are not the same, so they don't come to the ballot thinking "Hmmm, I have overrewarded Bryan Cranston, I should spread the wealth". They mostly sit down, watch the DVDs and vote. That's how you got the Merrit Weaver shockers. In their place, I would do the same. If I were a panelist and I get a dynamite submission like "Ozzymandias", I wouldn't care for two seconds how many times that man won before, I would cast my vote for Bryan Craston and clap and cry when he made his way to the podium.
Under the TV Academy rules, I find Cranston's wins pretty deserved (I would have awarded him 5 times, actually) and Anna Gunn's are pretty much unimpeachable, as her tapes had more range, more impact and more screentime (all signs of a stronger submission).
In fact, I think the Globes rewarding BB's final season to save face (they clearly had no particular fondness for the show) much more shameful than the Emmys appreciation for the show since way before it was the watercooler buzzed about sensation it became.
Really happy for Lorraine Toussaint! She's been fantastic for such a long time and has never really been recognized for it. I'd have given her the Oscar for her work in 'Middle of Nowhere.'
Yay for Taraji P. Henson! Hopefully, this is a sign of more awards to come because she deserves every single one.
If I were Queen Latifah, I wouldn't be nervous about what this means with respect to the Emmys because black actresses who headline HBO original movies win more than not:
Lynn Whitfield in The Josephine Baker Story
Alfre Woodard in Miss Evers' Boys
Halle Berry in Introducing Dorothy Dandridge
S. Epatha Merkerson in Lackawanna Blues
I see the argument. Shows and performances should be limited to 2 wins in a 4 or 5 year period I think. However, there is a difference to a show/actor doing the same old Schlick over and over and an actor/show that evolves over time. For example, Cranston in season 5 is giving a very different performance than the one he gave in season 1. With that said I don't really trust voters to make the distinction.
Better Call Saul is a great show. The first two episodes felt like Breaking Bad fan fiction, but after that the show settles into its own very distinctive groove and becomes a genuinely moving morality tale, with Odenkirk giving a riveting performance at the center of it all. The show also evolved in really interesting ways over its first season - the finale owed a lot more to Mad Men and the Sopranos than it does Breaking Bad, for example. I appreciate the argument against over rewarding individual shows, but those complaints are misplaced here.
As for Best Drama, The Americans, while very very good, never quite reaches greatness for me. I'd have gone with Hannibal or Rectify.
Seth MacFarlane is a genius! Family Guy and American Dad are just too brilliant to ignore. While some episodes of the former have gotten a bit stale, the jokes are still on target. The latter, however, I think keeps on improving as it goes and I can't get over how awesome Roger the alien is :)
And fucking Cookie won Best Actress over them uptight white bitches + Viola.
um, as far as I know it, The Big Bang Theory doesn't actually use laughtrack. They actually filmed the scenes in front of the audience.
McDormand and Jon Hamm MUST win the Emmys this year!
Ugh that "genius" award is so ironic and bizarre.
Carmen -- you would have given him even more than he won? I AM SO GLAD YOU AREN'T VOTING ;)
as for the panels and the judgement. I have always felt that the arguments about tape submissions were somewhat exaggerated. While it's true that choosing wisely can help you, voters do not vote in a vacuum and most people watch television and presumably have their favorite shows already. Hence the love for the same shows over and over again -- which you'd think could be weeded out by judging by episode (i.e. how the hell you going to watch a single episode of Parks & Recreation versus a single episode of I dont know Big Bang Theory and not prefer the former?
Hayden -- i am not trying to 'knock Janney down a peg' -- I called her a Major Actress (i mean she is *great* all the time -- but i am sticking to my thesis that it's Streepian and I prefer the spreading of wealth.(I am 100% behind her Masters of Sex win. Undeniable work)
I think the major sticking point is that you consider Cranston over-rewarded. While I agree that there were many other deserving performances, each time I do think Cranston was better. Also, keep in mind that Jon Hamm's best submission, "The Suitcase" was during a year where Breaking Bad was off the air. Four wins is pretty staggering in any category, and by that account we could also consider Mad Men over-rewarded for four straight series wins. As much as I want to agree with spreading the wealth, I also want to say honor what you truly thought was the "best" each year, which could be said for both landmark shows.
Either which way, let's just rejoice by the great winners the TV Critics Choice honored. Lorraine Toussaint! Silicon Valley and TJ Miller!!! On the drama side, 3/4 the winners were from new shows and the fourth was a new addition to an existing show. Great job honoring fresh faces.
Interesting to see if we could see a couple of these more long shot winners pop up as nominees at the Emmys.
I was sorry that Melanie Lynskey didn't receive Best Supporting Actress (I though she was lead actress). I know Janney is a formidable actress but has gotten a lot of awards. (I haven't seen her since the West Wing.) Well I certainly hope that ML will have much more time to gain awards.
Nat,
I agree and disagree with you on this topic....
I,too, find it ridiculous to award the same actor/actress for the same role each year on Tv
However, I disagree about movie roles... the actor plays different roles and if they are great in each, they should be rewarded. Thus, Streep, Hepburn (though not great in two of her wins ),
Nicholson are no problem for me. I don't think they are "hogging" the awards.
You act like Breaking Bad won every award in existence. It took until its final season before the Globes thought to recognize it with the top prize. The Emmys had a hard on for Bryan Cranston sure, but series? Only 2. "Mad Men" won 4 (and hopefully 5, fingers crossed!). It only won SAG ensemble once. Give "Better Call Saul" a proper chance before spouting out at the mouth ignorantly about it. Bob Odenkirk and especially Jonathan Banks were riveting this debut season and fully earned their Critics Choice awards, "Breaking Bad" fanboyism aside.
Since the Critics Choice Awards had Orange is the New Black in the comedy category last year and switched it inexplicably this year to drama JUST LIKE THE EMMYS, I'd say they're just as bad as the film critics in terms of wanting to predict/influence the major industry award (Oscars/Emmys).
A few things to add -
Attacking Nathaniel's valid points by pointing out that Mad Men (his favorite show) won 4 Emmys is childish and extremely fanboyish, essentially proving his point. Anyone who has followed his blog over the years knows that he has always advocated for spreading the wealth, even when it's things that are his favorites (Streep and Mad Men especially).
As for Breaking Bad, well, it had its moments. Ben1283 above said something that I consider very smart and correct about Breaking Bad, which is that it kept getting more exciting, or raising the stakes, but not necessarily getting better.
I'm very happy that the main trio from Breaking Bad all have Emmys, but I think they all deserved one and no more. I don't buy the argument about evolving characters deserving more Emmys. Quite frankly, very few of the characters changed at all over the course of the show. Their situations did, sure, but other than Skylar, I don't think their actual characterizations or portrayals did. Walt and Jessie are largely unchanged from the first season to the last.
Bryan Cranston essentially gave the exact same performance as Walt had the same character arc every single year. He did it very well, but there was no reason to give him all those Emmys.
However, Aaron Paul's final win angers me most, as he had very little to actually do in the final season, and he somehow beat Josh Charles and Peter Dinklange's remarkable tapes that year. I am not mad that Dinklage lost. He already has his deserved Emmy for Tyrion Lannister, but denying Josh Charles his final chance at winning for Will Gardner was just cruel.
This year at the Emmys, I think Mad Men deserves the win, but I am hoping for Game of Thrones. Over the course of the series, I think it has warranted itself a Best Drama Series win, and I think it's one of the final shows of the Golden Age of Television that has yet to win the top prize. And the last few episodes might even change my mind and convince me that it actually deserves to beat Mad Men.
I do think this is the year Jon Hamm finally wins - and I think he is also winning for Kimmy Schmidt - but it will be forever a shame that Elisabeth Moss and Christina Hendricks went (possibly) Emmy-less for their iconic characters.
Also, if True Detective aired during this eligibility period, they probably could have swept, no? Terrible timing for them.
That line from 'Archer' you gif'ed is hilarious.
I'm onboard with you that 'Breaking Bad' is overrewarded/overrated. I have heard/read so much in the past few years about how it is, hands down, no argument, the best show ever on television, and I find that conversation really limiting. It's good, but it depicted such a small portion of the human experience that for me it doesn't hold a candle to shows like 'Friday Night Lights', 'The Wire' or even 'Buffy' and 'Angel' that explored so many facets of humanity.
I am, however, glad that it brought us Bryan Cranston as a supporting player in 3-4 movies a year.
The points weren't valid. If you haven't even watched Better Call Saul and reducing its wins to "Breaking Bad fanboyism," I'm calling that shit out. Know your awards history. Next.
Pauline - Better Call Saul would have very few viewers and would not be anywhere near awards talk if it hadn't already had the built-in Breaking Bad fandom and pop culture phenomenon around it. I think that is the main point he's trying to make about this simply being a way to further reward Breaking Bad.
I love Bob Odenkirk and am happy he is getting attention, but I wish he would move on from this character. Jonathan Banks I never cared for as much. I find him too one note, but that episode we get the backstory on his son he was pretty great in - I have to admit.
First off, it wasn't a way to continue rewarding Breaking Bad. That's blatantly false. Better Call Saul is excellent and stands on its own beautifully and was rewarded accordingly. Viewership is another matter separate from this. The Breaking Bad hook was certainly there, but if the show was shit, you best believe no one would be acknowledging its worth. For every Frasier, you have a Joey too, boo.
And it's Paulie, not "Pauline" thx.
OMG Taraji AND Lorraine! And soo deserved! An embarrassment of riches. Truly.
And yeah, I really hope Queen Latifah wins the Emmy because as I said before, after winning the Globe and SAG award for Life Support, she lost the Emmy to Helen Mirren for another damn sequel of those prime suspect movies, or whatever it's called.
Aw, I LOVE Face Off. Primarily because it largely eschews the interpersonal workroom drama and focuses on the work. Which if you ask me is exactly what a reality competition show should do. Unfortunately, that does often mean that the strength of an episode is based on the strength of the finished pieces, and sometimes they are quite weak. But the best episodes are quite illuminating about how special effects make-up works and feature some truly jaw-dropping creations.
And honestly if there's any reality show host who I would award over RuPaul (and I'm not saying I would), it would be Cat Deeley. They're pretty much the only hosts out there that truly interact with the contestants and treat them like actual people. And Cat often comes across as a warmer person than RuPaul - if that's even possible! With both of them, it feels like you're watching a friend on TV, not a particularly well-made robot.
ALSO: Alison Janney is SUPER deserving of all the awards for Mom, which is a FAR stronger multi-cam sitcom than you'd expect, but calling it a supporting performance is ridiculous. Especially since this season she arguably got MORE screentime than Anna Faris, who I'm guessing they're saying is the "actual" lead.
Steve - Well said. And I completely agree with you about Aaron Paul. So many people become up in arms about Cranston's four wins, but I wonder if they are people who actually watched the entirety of the show. To me, Aaron Paul's three wins were far more egregious (though I agree that none of the actors should have won more than once). As you said, Paul should not have won for the last season, but his second win really irked me as well. He was not even the best supporting actor on his own show that year - Giancarlo Esposito was. It was also the year that Jared Harris was nominated for Lane Pryce's devastating season 5 arc on Mad Men. Either of those actors deserved to win over Paul. However, Paul's character was probably the heart of Breaking Bad - he was funny and somewhat cuddly and easy to like, whereas Esposito's evil Gus Fring and Harris's chilly Lane were not, and easy likability tends to be determinate when it comes to the Emmys. (See also their refusal to nominate Vincent Kartheiser.). For the same reason, I doubt we'll see Lorraine Toussaint accept a statue this year.
Interesting discussion here. I think Nathaniel has a point about shows being over-rewarded, I think Paulie has a point about Nathaniel attacking Better Call Saul without having watched it (reminds me of a student in my graduate seminar who attacked 'Zero Dark Thirty' for its position on torture without having seen it...embarrassing!), and Steve and Suzanne have an interesting point about Aaron Paul.
I think the problem with Nathaniel's initial argument is that he uses Breaking Bad as an example. It doesn't work because the vast majority of people believe it to be consistently excellent and worthy of its wins, and the only ones who don't are either fans of other shows or could never get into Breaking Bad in the first place because, as Nathaniel says, it's too "nihilistic." Modern Family, to me, is a better example. When you consider the great shows it's often up against (Veep, Girls, Louie, Silicon Valley, etc.), as well as the decline in quality of Modern Family over the seasons, it doesn't make sense for it to receive so much consistently Emmy love year after year. Breaking Bad, on the other hand, may have been in competition with other great shows throughout the years, but it never had a lapse in quality, so it's totally fair that it won the awards it did.
That's the main problem I have with Nathaniel's argument. To say that Breaking Bad is over-rewarded, you'd have to prove that somewhere along the line it declines in quality, and you'd have to also prove that the other shows it was nominated against during that particular season were better in quality, and I don't think you can.
There currently exists a vast world of television content that includes hundreds of networks and crosses various platforms. To reward any one performer or program multiple consecutive times over the course of the life of a series is to say that literally hundreds of other performers and shows never match or exceed their accomplishments, and statistically, that seems an impossible notion to support. Nathaniel may not have chosen the absolute best example with Breaking Bad, but I believe in his sentiments just the same. If any awards-giving body truly wants to reward what it considers the best, then its members must always actively seek out new and different content to ensure they're allowing everyone and everything a fair shot. Otherwise, they'll simply be giving repeat trophies to their favorite shows, which may not necessarily be the best. Plus, it make for extremely boring awards-showing viewing to hear "This is Joe Blow's fifth win in eight nominations." I changed the channel on the Emmys last year when that happened.
I think some of you are missing the larger point because of your Breaking Bad fandom (which only reinforced my feelings about how Breaking Bad fans just can't get any perspective on the golden age of television because their vision goes into one tunnel). .
I don't even care about Breaking Bad. It's a perfect example because of the supersized fandom. My overall point is what Troy says here -- there are literally HUNDREDS AND HUNDREDS of shows. It's artistically/statistically impossible (if you ask me) for the same thing to be the best in all categories in all years. I don't care what it is. I don't care if it's Mad Men. As I've said numerous times I don't think Jon Hamm or any of the Mad Men actors deserved 4 Emmys for Mad Men. But they've certainly deserved 1 !!!
giving the same prizes to the same people over and over again reeks of lack of imagination and lack of appreciation for the various things that art can do and prizing your own fandom above that.
"First off, it wasn't a way to continue rewarding Breaking Bad. That's blatantly false. Better Call Saul is excellent and stands on its own beautifully and was rewarded accordingly. Viewership is another matter separate from this. The Breaking Bad hook was certainly there, but if the show was shit, you best believe no one would be acknowledging its worth. For every Frasier, you have a Joey too, boo."
Correct.