Emmy Noms 2016: Drama / MiniSeries, First Impressions

Emmy Awards will be held on Sept 20th this yearPreviously: The Comedy Nominations
Related: Snubs & Perplexities

On the Outs: The big news emerging from this Emmy nomination morning is that Orange is the New Black's 3rd season did not go over well with Emmy voters falling from all the major categories but it did receive a casting nomination. The Good Wife also didn't get a particularly warm nomination send off in its final season with only a handful of minor nominations.

Suddenly In: After years of pressuring the Academy, television critics finally got their beloved "The Americans" in the running in most of the big categories. Perhaps it was the title? Everything "American" did well... "The Americans", "American Crime", American Crime Story" etcetera.

Still In: Most everything they previously loved but particularly Game of Thrones which I believe is now the most nominated show in the history of the Emmys with 106 nominations from its six seasons. It's won 26 Emmys already. 

Still Out: The Leftovers was snubbed again. Two brilliant, challenging, original, and very different seasons and not a single nomination even in technical categories in either year. For shame, Emmy voters, for shame.

The nominees with brief commentary... 

DRAMA

Outstanding Drama Series
"Americans" (1st nomination. 4th season)
"Better Call Saul" (2nd season. 2nd nomination)
"Downton Abbey" (6th season. 6th nomination... though the first was in another category)
"Game of Thrones" (6th season. 6th nomination)
"Homeland" (5th season. 4th nomination)
"House of Cards" (4th season. 4th nomination)
"Mr Robot" (1st season. 1st nomination)

Similarity to Last Year: 5/7 They had to make one change with Mad Men gone so in goes Mr Robot, the most buzzed about freshman series. But the other change was voluntary: they dumped Orange is the New Black (3rd season) for The Americans (4th season). It's wonderful to see The Americans finally get its due but why couldn't it have dumped one of the long in the tooth shows that really don't deserve automatic placement each year?

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Emmy Noms 2016: Comedy, First Impressions

Related: Drama Nominations
Related: Snubs & Perplexities 

The 68th annual Emmy nominations have been announced. As usual the Academy of Television couldn't bring themselves to switch it up much, only making changes in categories where they were forced to do so (like Comedy Actress). 

COMEDY NOMINATIONS

Kimmy Schmidt was nominated again but without two of its funniest players: Anna Camp (Guest) and Jane Krakowski (Supporting)

Outstanding Comedy Series
"Black•ish" (1st nom, 2nd season)
"Master of None" (1st nom, 1st season)
"Modern Family" (7th season, 7th nom - 5 previous wins) 
"Silicon Valley" (2nd season, 2nd nom)
"Transparent" (2nd season, 2nd nom)
"Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt" (2nd season, 2nd nom)
"Veep" (5th season, 5th nom, 1 previous win)

Similarities to last year:  4/6 With both Louie and Parks & Recreation ineligible this year, Emmy voters were forced to make two changes to their series lineup. That's all they made...

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Links

Guardian the kids of the controversial Oscar nominated documentary Jesus Camp 10 years later - how are they doing and how do they remember their evangelical childhoods?
ESPN's Bodies issue is out. Check out the gallery. The human body is really so beautiful. But I realize we're not supposed to acknowledge that because people are so angry about the profile at...
Vanity Fair on Margot Robbie. Which is... Honestly I can't see anything wrong with it. Almost every good celebrity profile talks about what the star looks like, and what their big screen appeal is. It's not especially salacious as these things go. I'm stunned that it offended so many people. But me...
Nathaniel... I don't want to live in a world where we cant celebrate movie star beauty
Playbill Kristin Chenoweth doing a reading of proposed Best Little Whorehouse in Texas for the stage? Oh god oh god let this Broadway musical happen. Amen.
Dear Cast & Crew Dear Harry Nilsson -- (great letter re: A Bigger Splash)
EW Five Nights in Maine poster and trailer. Apparently this premiered at TIFF last year. I don't remember reading about it but Dianne Wiest, Rosie Perez, and David Oyelowo are all in it!
Vanity Fair Hive A.I. isn't just all the rage in movies and on television. It's an investor obsession, too.
Twitter Apparently some dumb people launched a petition to have Jesse Williams fired from Grey's Anatomy due to his BET Humanitarian Awards speech 

Look at This!

Production has begun on Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool which stars Annette Bening as Oscar winner Gloria Grahame in her final days. Jamie Bell is The Bening's leading man. We hope The Bening is making one last sustained run at winning that Best Actress trophy that's eluded her. Momentum counts for a lot in Oscar races so if it doesn't happen this year for 20th Century Women, maybe it'll happen next year for this biopic of sorts? Though actors win Oscars all the time for playing real life people, the only star who has won an Oscar for playing an Oscar winner is Cate Blanchett as Katharine Hepburn in The Aviator (2004).

Random Emmy Thought
By now you've probably heard that the 7th/8th Game of Thrones season will start shooting later than usual due to weather issues. Different websites have different wording on this news. Sometimes it sounds like just the slightest delay and not worth reporting but for the clickbait traffic. Other articles suggest that this will delay the premiere until late Summer instead of GoT's traditional late spring early summer airing. If the latter take is true that means we'll actually have an Emmy free year of Game of Thrones in 2017. That would be a welcome relief for those of us who hate to see the same shows dominating year after year. Unfortunately they're also splitting GoT into two more super short seasons with only 13 or so more episodes left before the series finale. It worked for Breaking Bad and Mad Men in terms of Emmy statuettes though it was bad for interrupting the natural flow of storytelling arcs (at least with Mad Men - I can't speak to how it affected Breaking Bad). At any rate I stand by my proclamation that these split final seasons are anti-audience and nothing more than a cynical cash grab for advertising dollars, extended media attention, and double the awards that a show should be eligible to receive. It's gross. I wish Emmys would rule against 6 or 7 episodes counting as a full season. There really ought to be some standards and "season" by its very name suggests a few months of time. Six episodes is not a few months of story -- it's barely more than one!

Emmy Ballots Due: Which old fav would you sacrifice for a newbie?

Emmy nomination balloting ends today for the 68th annual Emmy Awards. Cross your fingers that we actually get a few shakeups this year. Yes, cross your fingers even if you love all 10 of the shows that are normally swimming in nominations. Why? Well, the Emmys really should reflect how competitive television is and not suggest that there have only been 10ish good shows on the air for the past half decade plus.

Comment Party! On that note please do tell us in the comments which 3 of your old favorites that you still love you'd be willing to sacrifice for 3 who have not been recognized. Make your Sophie's Choice in the comments and let us all pray that Emmy voters do the same. Nobody deserves 5+ nominations for the same thing when that means someone else can't even get ONE for something arguably just as good! The catch is that you can't ditch someone you don't love or think is unworthy who is always nominated. I'll go first as truly painful as this is:

I'd be willing to trade Michelle Dockery on Downton Abbey (who I totally think is the MVP of that entire series (if you blend all seasons together - otherwise there are different MVPs each year as there are for most quality shows) for Shiri Appleby's deep-digging as ambitious self-destructive Rachel on UnReal; Hell, I'd even be willing to trade Taraji P Henson (my preferred winner last year for Empire) if it meant I could have Eva Green's genre genius in Penny Dreadful in the mix (my winner this year). I'd even be willing to trade my beloved Titus Burggess on Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (who I thought should have easily stormed to the win last year) if we could give a chance to another delusional show-stealer like Jamie Cavill in Jane the Virgin (who should have been Titus' main competition last year) or another outspoken gay like Noah Galvin from The Real O'Neals both because he's brilliant on his show and to stick it to ABC for even threatening to cancel that gem. (Yes, I know they think Noah is entitled and 'difficult' and yadda yadda yadda but they would never think of threatening and publicly humiliating a straight actor who was the MVP of a similarly acclaimed show.)

I expect zero nominations for THE REAL O'NEALS but I legit think it deserves multiple nods

The point is that many previously nominated shows and people are still deserving but it makes so much more sense to spread the wealth each year. If you don't spread the wealth it sends two messages ... 1) That you're not paying attention to what's eligible or even what happened on your favorite show that year and merely voting based on loyalty to your "favorites" and...  2) That TV's 'golden age' is really just a clever PR campaign for 10 shows and history won't mark it as anything particularly special. 

ICYMI Our Emmy Balloting Pieces
SHOWS: Emmy Drama Ballots |  Emmy Comedy Ballots | Girls | The People vs OJ Simpson; PERFORMANCES: Amy Landecker in "Transparent" | Donna Lynn Champlin "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend" | Eva Green & Helen McRory in "Penny Dreadful" |  Constance Zimmer "UnREAL" | Boyd Holbrook "Narcos" | Noah Galvin "The Real O'Neals" | Gillian Jacobs "Love" | Riley Keough "The Girlfriend Experience" | Jeremy Allen White "Shameless" ; MISCELLANIA: "Mr Robot" leads TCA Nominations | Ten Nominees? | More TV MVPs (earlier in the season)

Emmy FYC: The Actresses of "Penny Dreadful"

Our Emmy FYC series concludes with Nathaniel's final plea for Penny Dreadful...

When Penny Dreadful aired its surprise series, not season, finale a week ago, the event felt as dark to fans as Vanessa Ive's increasingly fatalistic worldview. In its 3 short seasons the series grew quickly from a gimmicky concept -- all your favorite monster myths thrown together! --  with rich visual panache (Season 1) to a complex, increasingly focused, and confidently disturbing drama (Season 2) to a rushed and scattershot but even more thematically daring and superbly acted grande finale (Season 3). By the Season 2 premiere it had become abundantly clear that the blood-pumping heart of this gothic universe, belonged to its haunted, dangerous, three-dimensional women...

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