Mr. Robot's Season 2: Leap forward, or sophomore slump?

by Lynn Lee

USA’s Mr. Robot wrapped its second season this past week, just after star Rami Malek landed his first Emmy for best lead actor in a drama.  The timing couldn’t be better: with the show already renewed for a third season, it should help maintain the buzz factor and maybe pick up more curious viewers.

And yet, among existing fans, season 2 has been remarkably divisive...

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Share Your Emmy (Drama) Ballots

We've already discussed our comedy ballots and though we've got a few more individual FYCs coming and are still trying to sample various new series we missed that others are rooting for before the nominations, let's talk Drama Series. Emmy is always loathe to change up its nominations so the actual nominees this year are likely to be the exact same as last year which means that you're looking at...

PREDICTIONS

Do you think GAME OF THRONES can repeat its win?

• Game of Thrones (Season 6 -- nominated for all previous seasons. 1 win for Season 5)
• Better Call Saul (Season 2 -- nominated last year, too)
• Downton Abbey (Season 6 -- nominated for all previous seasons. 1 win for Season 1 as "limited series")
• Homeland (Season 5 -- nominated for 3 of 4 previous seasons. 1 win for Season 1)
• House of Cards (Season 4 -- nominated for all previous seasons)
• Orange is the New Black  (Season 3 -- nominated for all previous seasons. though first was in "comedy")

Basically you're looking at the same lineup that's been going on for half a decade (since Better Call Saul just replaced its origin series Breaking Bad). But with Mad Men out of the picture there is exactly one slot free, which we assume will be taken by...

• Mr Robot (Season 1 -- since its won so much buzz, acclaim, and fandom in its debut season)

PREFERENCES

If I was in charge rare would be the series that was always nominated since nearly all series have some ebb and flow in terms of quality and there is (thankfully) so much quality competition out there. The only long-running television show of my entire life that I would have nominated every single year was Mad Men...

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'Critics Choice' Winners List & Oscar-Calling Post-Mortem

the night doubled as a live tribute to Amy SchumerDespite the disdain many members of the media, including some within the BFCA, seem to hold for the HFPA, the organization that runs the Golden Globes, everyone seems to want to be them. The Critics Choice Awards, now in their 21st year, have had trouble emerging from that institution's shadow.

Though the CCMAs had seemed to be on a slight upswing around the turn of the decade (the Meryl Streep years of Doubt and Julie & Julia seemed to go well in terms of media interest, comparatively at least), things have been since trending downward and went truly haywire this year.  In addition to the "never take us seriously!" self-sabotage to change a nominee lineup after nominations had been announced, there are the strange impulses that can only come from not trusting the voting body such as the need to give Amy Schumer a special prize in the year when she's already going to win a normal prize.

Meanwhile the continued expansion of categories over the past several years has created a clusterf*** that requires that very few of them be televised live. Which is a pity because if they were they might be worth discussing. Mad Max Fury Road won 9 prizes but it didn't even remotely emerge from the night feeling like a big winner since only one of the nine was televised! [More...]

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On Those Wacky TV Globe Wins

Manuel here. While there’s plenty to talk about in terms of the Globes, I figured I’d put my TV math cap on and talk about the most obvious takeaway from the Globes TV wins from last night: the HFPA loves its shiny new toys.

Freshman shows Mr Robot, Crazy Ex-girlfriend and Mozart in the Jungle all took home prizes. (That's especially significant in the case of Mr Robot since it was produced by "Anonymous Content" who were also behind The Revenant - it marks the first time in history an independent production company has won both the top movie and the top tv prize at the Globes) 

But I was curious: how prevalent is this shiny new toy notion? We know the Emmys loves their repeat winners but could it really be that the Globes love freshman shows that they then immediately forget thereafter?

I crunched some numbers on their top categories to find out.

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Golden Globe Nominations

"Previously on The Precursors..."  Gotham, Spirit, OFCS, NBR, NYFCC, LAFCA, BSFC, SAG

The shiny round fun began at 8:00 AM for the Globes annual film and television party with the nominees split, sometimes ungracefully, into Comedy/Musical and Drama categories. Except those pesky supporting actors! They have to share everything because who needs character actors (see also rampant category fraud every year plus SAG's unfortunate Ensemble rules) . America Ferrerra, Angela Bassett, Chloe Moretz and Dennis Quaid were on hand to read the nominations aloud.

Ready? Clicking on any of the names or titles will take you to previous articles about them. We are happy to report that director Todd Haynes' latest masterpiece (dude is a genius if you haven't heard) Carol led the nominations with 5 in total.

Full nomination list with commentary after the jump...

COMEDY/MUSICAL FILMS

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