Emmy Nods 2014: Full List, First Impressions

The Emmy nominations have been announced for your viewing pleasure... unless your favorites were snubbed in which case here's the list to enrage you. Cable continues to ruthlessly dominate making things very hard for network shows - even hits like Scandal and The Good Wife. And Emmy proved again, as they often do, that they are very slow to change, largely embracing the same performers / shows they've always embraced as if they're only ever voting on the entirety of a show and not its current season.

I know people are very upset about Tatiana Maslany's ongoing snub for Orphan Black. She basically embarrasses every critic that's ever over-used the word "chameleon" to describe an actor; we should've saved the word for her. But this is not remotely surprising in any sense and I'm confused as to why so many people thought it might happen. The show is...  

a) ...not on a prestigious network like HBO
b) ...a genre show and awards bodies from Oscar to Emmy only deign to honor those when they're insanely popular and never just because they're great or an actor is great on them.
c) ...filled with actors (including Tatiana) who are not well known in Hollywood.
d) ...not as good as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Battlestar Galactica and those genre shows were egregiously snubbed for YEARS despite endless enraged fanbases and critical pleas

BUT ON TO THE NOMINEES...

COMEDY

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True to the End? A Final Season in Bon Temps

Here's Adam on a show that probably should have ended a couple of years ago but finally has its eviction notice -Editor

It’s been seven years and we’re finally (almost) to the end. I don’t know how many people of you have stuck with True Blood from the beginning. Nathaniel bolted during the show's nadir (season 5) though he's silently returned since. But if you’re anything like me, you believe that season six was, as much as it could be, a return to form, a reminder or the series glory days. 

As I plowed through the first three episodes of this seventh and final season, I could not help but feel that it has all been a prolonged set up to something better... or perhaps 'trimming down' to something better more aptly explains it. While no episode has been an absolute knock out, you can feel season 7 trying desperately to become the show it once was before it meets the true death. 

Lets start at the beginning of the end... 

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Batman & Superman: The Complete Series & Body-ody-ody

na na na na na na na na ♬ ♬ ♬

Warner Bros has announced that all 120 Episodes of the camp 60s Batman series are coming to DVD and Blu-Ray for the first time in November. This is awesome news (so many stars were in that show) but what about consumer choices? May I please order Batman: The Incomplete Series with only the Batgirl & Catwoman episodes at a discounted price? That's how I watched the show as a child. If the Batgirl cutout above didn't come swinging into frame during that nananananana theme song (as she did in episodes in which she appeared) I sometimes just turned off the TV and ran outside to play. True story!

My preferred Catwoman FWIW was Julie Newmar.... though as an adult my appreciation for Eartha Kitt in other venues rose dramatically so I'm curious if I would like her rendition of Catwoman more now?

Anyway it's all remastered. Look at how much the colors pop!

 

In other superhero news, the first still of Henry Cavill as Superman from The Incredibly True Adventures of Two Heroes in Love: Batman vs. Superman has been released. He stands erect, ready for any threat beyond the Kryptonite of Amy Adams' sheer indifference (Love her but my god that was terrible casting. Newsflash Hollywood: no actor is right for everything... even when they're at their most popular)

I just hope Henry Cavill's trainer has concentrated on his lower body a little more this year. I know we were all supposed to drool over the body-ody-ody in round one but I found it weirdly and displeasingly top heavy, like at any moment he might fall over from the girth of that Super Torso atop those Only Human legs.  

Eli Wallach (1915-2014)

The great character actor Eli Wallach didn't quite make it to his centennial, dying at 98½ but at least he lived long enough to get an Honorary Oscar a few years back. The Academy honored him for "a lifetime's worth of indelible screen characters" even though they'd never nominated him.

I'm sure AMPAS didn't mean to include "Mr Freeze" on the Batman TV series as one of those characters but that's the one that's indelible for me. Is that wrong? When I was a child that show was always on through the magic of syndication. But Mr. Freeze was recast frequently (curiously enough two other Oscar favorites also played the chilly bad guy: three time nominee Otto Preminger and Oscar winner George Sanders). They rarely showed episodes in order so the memories of the faces get all jumbled up. 

He made a lot of career noise with his onscreen debut in Baby Doll (1956) for which he was Golden Globe nominated. But several fine characters and classics would follow like The Magnificent Seven, The Misfits, How the West Was Won, The Moon Spinners, The Good the Bad and the Ugly and The Godfather Pt. III.

What do you remember most about this actor?

TV 'Critics Choice' Winners

Allison Janney wins twiceThe TV critics really rolled out the red carpet for Ryan Murphy who took the non-competitive "Genius" award while two of his shows (American Horror Story: Coven and The Normal Heart) won prizes. Alison Janney also got the deluxe treatment winning supporting actress for "Mom" and guest actress for "Masters of Sex," both first season series, at this still fairly green awards show.

The new organization, an off shoot of the BFCA, mostly stuck with their favorites from last year repeating several wins like Tatiana Maslany from Orphan Black and almost everything Breaking Bad. Bryan Cranston had to step aside for Matthew McConaughey in True Detective, though. We knew that was coming and the Emmys will (probably) follow suit. Everybody in Hollywood loves a winner (a phenom we've previously discussed) so when you're winning no one wants to break your streak.

I suppose I should really watch Orphan Black. I've seen the first 4 episodes and found Maslany technically scarily gifted but the the show and supporting characters I enjoyed much much much less so. Does it improve?

The complete list of winners is after the jump....

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