FYC: "Counterpart"
Team Experience will be sharing FYCs as the Television Academy votes on Emmy nominations over the next two weeks. Here's Abe Fried-Tanzer...
Last year, Counterpart won exactly the number of Emmy Awards it was nominated for – one. Its Main Title Design victory, while deserved, is hardly indicative of its tremendous quality. Starz has struggled generally to find a footing in the non-technical categories, earning only Best Limited Series mentions in the past decade, for The Pillars of the Earth and The White Queen. Golden Globes enthusiasm for Outlander, Boss, and Blunt Talk didn’t translate to Emmy love, and so there’s little hope that Counterpart, which was cancelled back in February by Starz, will break through in the way it should this year.
Season two represented the opposite of a sophomore slump for this sci-fi political thriller. The ideas presented in season one were expanded upon and the show transformed into something completely different. What initially began as a showcase of an incredible two-handed performance from Oscar winner J.K. Simmons as the same man from two different worlds turned into so much more, with his two starring characters shying away from the spotlight as other players came into focus...