Emmy Nom Aftermath Finale: Happy Thoughts

We'll return to the Emmys at a later date (the gap between their nominations and their ceremony is enormous) but for now, one last Emmy post. To end on a happy note I asked Team Experience two final questions:

1. What's your single favorite acting nomination?
2. What's your favorite non-acting nomination?

Our answers follow and yours should, too.

FAVORITE ACTING NOMINATION

Margaret de Larios: I honest-to-god pinched myself when I saw that Constance Zimmer was nominated for UnREAL. The Emmys have been so predictably blind to the sensational programming coming out of the CW these days, it was easy to believe that they would similarly ignore product from the notorious schlock-factory that is Lifetime...

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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 FYC: Ten Nominees?

Emmy nomination voting begins Monday. For the next week or two we'll be sharing FYCs of some kind. Here's Daniel...

If you haven’t had a chance yet to read Debra Birnbaum’s shake-up Emmys proposal in Variety, I highly recommend you do. Her argument seems tailor made for feedback from passionate awards watchers (i.e. TFE readers) who have cultivated reams of opinions for how various awards bodies do business, nomination-wise, in an ever-changing marketplace of taste and broader appeal. Living in this age of television where high quality programs are on an infinity loop, she wonders whether the Emmys should consider expanding their Outstanding Drama and Comedy Series categories to ten nominees.

Sound familiar?

While there’s a certain integrity in maintaining a tradition of exclusive acclaim – after all, not every deserving piece of art can statistically make the cut – one wonders how a taboo-busting, conversation-elevating, and surprising comedy like the aptly named Broad City can so consistently take bong hits off the zeitgeist without seeing a few gold men women along the way. That aren’t hallucinations, mind you. Same goes for The Americans, which has been uniformly accepted by critics as one of the all-time greats and yet fails time and time again to nudge out a longstanding favorite like Downton Abbey. The Emmys notoriously pick their favorites and bitterly cling to them so could this be an inclusive measure to better reflect populist and critical tastes?

On the flipside, for every District 9 or A Serious Man, there’s a Blind Side amongst expanded groups. On the movie side, AMPAS has struggled to find clarity on this issue – abandoning the hard ten for a jostle between seven and nine. That's made some yearn for a time when five was fine. There's no guarantee that bigger sized envelopes equal 'pushing the envelope' in awards selections. After expanding their roster to seven nominees last year, perhaps the Emmys are better served to wait and see how their fresh shuffle deals in the long game. As Birnbaum touches upon, mainstays like Mad Men and Nurse Jackie have ended their runs and opened up space for new nominees. And, yet, the juggernaut that is Modern Family journeys on unchecked, save a Veep.

Should the Emmys take a page from the 2009-2010 Oscar playbook and expand their nominations in hopes of new players? Or will their fresh groceries go stale? How do you adjust an influx of quality with such limited quantity? 

TCA Awards and "The Fosters"

Here's a little 'In Your Face, Emmys!' news. The Television Critics Association has handed out its awards and all three of its big winners (Empire, The Americans, and Inside Amy Schumer) are NOT actually nominated for the Emmy top categories of Best Drama and Best Comedy. (To be fair, Inside Amy Schumer is not eligible for the Comedy category at the Emmys because it competes in variety series. But still...)

Program of the Year: Empire (Fox)

Drama: The Americans (FX)

Comedy: Inside Amy Schumer (Comedy Central)

New Program: Better Call Saul (AMC)

Individual Achievement in Drama: Jon Hamm, Mad Men (AMC)

Individual Achievement in Comedy: Amy Schumer, Inside Amy Schumer (Comedy Central)

News and Information: Last Week Tonight With John Oliver (HBO)

Reality Programming: The Chair (Starz)

Youth Programming: The Fosters (ABC Family)

Movies, Miniseries and Specials: The Jinx: The Life And Deaths Of Robert Durst (HBO)

Career Achievement Award: James L. Brooks

Heritage Award: Late Show/Late Night With David Letterman (CBS)

It's also worth noting that only one of its winners also won the same category last year (The Fosters for "Youth Programming"). Let that be another reminder that Emmy needs a quality control Executive Committee type panel since their top categories are usually unmoveable from year to year as if nothing ever changes on TV when we all know it is quite an evolving artform. 

This news provides the perfect opportunity to talk about The Fosters. Do any of you watch it? It's my guilty pleasure. I say "guilty" because even though I admire much of it, enough of it embarrasses me to feel guilt. At heart it's a weirdly overemphatic treacly progressive lesbian utopia series painted with way too broad strokes but it's also damn addictive and a super warm family drama with moments of incredible charm, organic humor, and even insight. It works.

Everyone says this is the golden age of television but I personally think the opinion is overstated. Certainly it's the golden age of premiere channel television but one genre of TV that I think is still leagues behind 1990s television is the regular people/family drama genre. Certainly none of them approach the amazing quality of 1990s shows like My So Called Life or Once & Again. And that's largely because today's family dramas are really obsessed with DRAMA in all caps -- is it the desperation from knowing their are 500+ more channels you could flip to? --  and feel the need to have every character have some major life crises or decision in each 45 minute episode. I call this The Brothers & Sisters Efect. That show became more and more unwatchable each season despite so many winning elements. It wasn't content to dramatize the fascinating details of basic human interaction and family role dynamics. Instead, it always had to be Life or Death in each episode. The Fosters has the same exact problem. You'll be really into some simple conflict that is beautifully truthful and then they'll gild the lily by constantly returning to deeply aggravating storylines (the less said about the incest storyline the better but the writer's room relies on it so much over two seasons now that you'd think they think it's the best thing they've ever come up with when it's actually the worst) or throwing up some ridiculous gotcha! "danger" like shootings or car accidents. 

TV @ the Movies: "The Americans"

NEW SERIES! Since our eyes always flash and a smile spreads when a movie is referenced on a tv show we're watching, we've decided to make it a habit to share these cross-platform romances with you. Whenever we see one worth discussing, we'll share it. To kick things off, here's Andrew binge-watching The Americans...

The Americans follows the machinations of two KGB spies living in the US posing as Americans in the early 1980s during The Cold War. Like Mad Men (the genesis of The Film Experience’s TV at the Movies love affair), the show does some impressive things when playing with the period, while never going overboard. Key cultural references from television to film to music (a significant scene was set to Yaz’s “Only You”. Remember Yaz?)

This movie moment from “Stingers” (S3E10, a series best from the show) is too good to pass up...

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