Complete Emmy Nominations

by Nathaniel R and Christopher James

JB Smoove and Melissa Fumero (who will soon be costarring in a Netflix show called Blockbuster) announced the Emmy nominations this morning. They started with a brief "bit" where they held JB's Emmy like it was a crying fragile infant before getting down to swift business with the headline categories (they did not announce supporting categories live just leads and series. True to the Television Academy's form, it was mostly a case of their old favourites landing in big categories even if the season or show in question wasn't as heralded as usual (hi Killing Eve in the acting categories or Sarah Paulson breaking through the super-stacked Best Actress Limited Series category for a performance nobody had talked about for months).

One of the most interesting things about the nominations was that recency bias paid off in the series categories but did NOT pay off in Limited Series where almost all of the nominees came from the fall/winter... as if the voters just couldn't sift through the spring/summer glut of programming. We'll review several categories at length over the next two months (the Emmys are on September 12th) but after the jump the  nomination list with a few comments and how well we did on our predictions...

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Dorian Awards TV Nods: Lots of love for "Hacks", "Heartstopper", and "Somebody Somewhere"

by Nathaniel R

How fab was that lesbian cruise episode of "Hacks"?

Shortly on the heels of the annual TCA nominations as Emmy voters are a-voting, come the 14th annual Dorian Awards TV honors. These nominations come from the The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics, also referred to as GALECA which was the acronym for an earlier name (the name changes are very confusing especially since the signature prize, "The Dorian Awards" doesn't match either of them!). The organization is made up of 385 queer professional critics and journalists covering film and television. A few of those 385 write stuff right here at The Film Experience.

HBO led the nominations with three shows, two comedies (Somebody Somewhere and Hacks) and one drama (Euphoria)...

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The line between Emmys and Oscars for "Movies" is still quite blurry. What to do?

Perusing the TV Movie Emmy ballots, it's easy to be reminded that streaming movies are always a either/or prospects in terms of awards. Sometimes they're submitted for the Emmys and sometimes Oscars. It's not always clear which it will be since TV and Movies stopped feeling so separate as artforms once streaming upended screen entertainment. Sometimes movies are designed as theatrical features, premiere at film festivals and be bought by a streamer (remember Bad Education?) and try for Emmys. It's difficult to know which is which these days unless you're constantly on the phone with publicists but those decisions can be reversed or made later in some cases. Oscar is requiring theatrical releases again for eligibility purposes but that's easy for major corporations to work around by "four-walling" theaters without any publicity for a week to hedge awards bets. Netflix bought a couple of movie theaters almost specifically for this purpose.

Long story short here are Emmy eligible movies that people (including sometimes myself) might have previously mistaken for movie-movies for various reasons... 

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TCA Nominations 2022 + Notes about This Award in General

by Nathaniel R

Quinta Brunson in "Abbott Elementary" © ABC

The Television Critics Association have announced their nominees for the past year of television, aiming straight towards being "influencers" since they announced the day Emmy voting began (yesterday). ABC's wonderful hit sitcom Abbott Elementary led the nominations with five while Better Call Saul, Yellowjackets and Severance were not far behind with 4 citations each. 

Generally speaking this organization continues to have good taste though we have two gripes with them that we'll share after the jump. Here's what they loved this year in their 11 categories...

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FYC: The Network Sitcom Makes a Comeback

By Christopher James

ABC's breakout hit "Abbott Elementary" isn't the only network success this season.

When was the last time anxiously awaited new weekly episodes of a network TV comedy? It’s been nearly a generation since comedies like Roseanne, Friends and Seinfeld ruled the airways. It’s even been a decade since critical darlings like The Office, 30 Rock and Parks and Recreation amassed their devout followings. Ratings for network TV comedies have continued to dwindle while critics and the Television Academy lost interest. In the past 10 years, only five shows have been nominated for Outstanding Comedy Series at the Emmys: 30 Rock, The Big Bang Theory, Modern Family, black-ish and The Good Place. In short, the writing was on the wall that the network sitcom was dead.

Everybody loves a comeback, though...

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