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| I will continue using this image for my Emmy nominations post until Tatiana Maslany is nominated. |
A lot of people are lamenting today that the Emmy awards are
continuing to nominate the same people.
To a certain extent, that’s true, but this year’s Emmy nominations
actually managed to reflect the increasing number of great new shows on
television. Orange Is the New Black and True
Detective each snagged a dozen nominations while Fargo, competing in the less competitive miniseries categories,
brought home 18. Meanwhile, some
long-time mainstays saw their numbers start to dwindle. Modern
Family, which prior to this year had never received fewer than five acting
nominations and twice six, earned only three.
Likewise, Mad Men, which has
generally received three or four acting nominations, two or three writing
nominations, and a directing nod each year, saw only two actors called for lead
and supporting categories and, for the first time, earned no nominations for
writing or directing.
Change is coming, if slowly.
The only disappointing aspect is how few nominations went to actors and
shows that are past their freshman years but have never been nominated
before. Of the 60 major nominations
(Series, Lead, and Supporting), only two went to actors or actresses who had
been eligible before but had not been nominated: Lena Headey and Kate McKinnon
picked up their first nominations for Game
of Thrones and Saturday Night Live,
respectively. Every show that was
nominated for Outstanding Series was either a new show or was nominated last
year.
They say that the easiest way to earn an Emmy nomination is
to have been nominated before and that certainly played out this year. Even of the actors nominated from first-year
shows, four had been nominated previously for other roles (Woody Harrelson,
Allison Janney, Jon Voight, and Andre Braugher) while a fifth was Matthew
McConaughey. All in all, 48 actors and
actresses were nominated between the lead and supporting categories and only five
– Taylor Schilling, Kate Mulgrew, Lizzy Caplan, Headey, and McKinnon – had not
previously been nominated for either an Emmy or an Oscar.
The ignorance of new potential nominees from established series was
particularly egregious this year when there were so many shows making big leaps
from their first seasons to their second.
The Americans and Hannibal had tremendous sophomore runs but
earned as many nominations combined (one) as Revolution. Orphan Black's Tatiana Maslany
was denied again, despite putting on one of the best performances on television
for the second consecutive year.
Some have contributed these snubs to a hatred by the Emmy
voters of genre television, but that doesn’t explain the twenty nominations for
Game of Thrones, the seventeen for American Horror Story, or previous
recognition for Lost or True Blood. Hell, just this year Almost Human, Da Vinci’s
Demons, Grimm, The 100, Agents of SHIELD, Once Upon a Time, The Originals, Revolution,
Sleepy Hollow, True Blood, Vikings, and The
Walking Dead all received technical nominations. That those great series keep getting ignored
is not due to their genre, but something else entirely.
Ultimately, the 2014 Emmys are pretty much what you would
expect them to be. There’s a nominal nod
to some of the tremendous new shows that debuted this past season and an overabundance
of past nominees. We always hope for the
results to change, but the more things change…
With those general thoughts out of the way, let’s take a
look at some of the good, the bad, and the WTF of this year’s Emmy nominations:
Bad – Complacency
in the big money drama categories. True Detective, Harrelson, and
McConaughey were always locks, but the only other new nominee was Masters of Sex’s Lizzy Caplan. She’s extremely deserving, but where were
Matthew Rhys, Keri Russell, Michael Sheen, or any number of other deserving actors?
Good – The
descending of Modern Family. I like Modern
Family well enough, but in its first four seasons it has averaged 5.5
supporting actor/actress nominees every year.
This year, it’s down to three, with only Julie Bowen, Ed O’Neill, and
Jesse Tyler Ferguson scoring nods. That
opened up several spots for great performances from the likes of Andre Braugher
and Kate Mulgrew, among others.
WTF? – No drama directing
nomination for Rian Johnson. Even
creator Vince Gilligan has acknowledged that “Ozymandias” was “the best episode
[of Breaking Bad] we ever have had or
ever will have.” While writer Moira
Walley-Beckett was nominated for her role, Johnson was snubbed. The competition was fierce in the category
(including Neil Marshall’s work in “The Watchers on the Wall” and Cary Fukunaga’s
epic tracking shot in True Detective),
but you really can’t tell me that David Evans’s episode of Downton Abbey or Carl Franklin’s work on House of Cards were better than “Ozymandias.”
Good (nay Great!)
– Three guest actress nominations for Orange
Is the New Black. Laverne Cox, Uzo
Aduba, and Natasha Lyonne all scored nominations for OItNB, bringing the show’s acting total to five nods. They’ll have fierce competition from Tina
Fey, Melissa McCarthy, and Joan Cusack, but I really hope one of them comes out
on top (and I dare anybody to vote against Laverne Cox after watching “Lesbian
Request Denied”).
WTF? – Inexplicable
guest actor/actress nominations. Robert
Morse is in the opening credits of Mad
Men and appeared in more episodes than January Jones, Kiernan Shipka, and
Jessica Paré, all of whom submitted as supporting actresses, and yet he’s a
guest actor? On the other end of the spectrum,
Kate Mara and Margo Martindale are in all of about two minutes of the second
seasons of House of Cards and The Americans and somehow manage to get
nominations?
Good – Lots of
nominations for Fargo. Fargo was
great. You should watch it.
WTF? – Alison Tolman
as a supporting actress. Tolman was
probably on screen more in Fargo than
any other actor, certainly more than Billy Bob Thornton, yet she submitted herself
as a supporting actress. In theory, this
could have been to protect herself from stronger competition, but she ends up
going up against Frances Conroy, Kathy Bates, Angela Bassett, Ellen Burstyn,
and Julia Roberts, who have, combined between them, 24 Emmy nominations and
three wins, 23 Golden Globe nominations and eight wins, and 14 Oscar
nominations and three wins. It’s a
murderer’s row of actresses and the relatively unknown Tolman should beat them
all.
Good –
Breakthrough in the variety writing category.
Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series is a category that has been
dominated by late night shows in recent years.
Last year Portlandia managed a
nomination, but this year it, Inside Amy
Schumer, and Key & Peele all
scored nominations. The trophy will
still likely go to The Daily Show with
Jon Stewart or The Colbert Report,
as it has for ten of the last eleven years, but it’s nice to see the sketch
comedy series get more recognition.
Bad – No cinematography
nomination for Hannibal. Hannibal
is the most beautifully shot on television.
Full stop. It is art. To deny Hannibal
a nomination for Outstanding Cinematography seems insane.
WTF? – Six shows earned
nominations for Outstanding Stunt Coordination for a Drama Series, Miniseries,
or Movie. Five of those shows were Grimm, Hawaii Five-0, Revolution, The Blacklist, and True Blood. Not on that
list? The three shows with the best stunts
on television: Arrow, Banshee, and Strike Back. Hannibal’s
cinematography omission “seems” insane.
Ignoring Arrow, Banshee, and Strike Back for stunt coordination is insane.
So those are my thoughts on the 2014 Emmy nominations. Register your agreements or disagreements in
the comments or on Twitter @TyTalksTV.
Tyler Williams is a
professional librarian and an amateur television critic. You can reach him at TyTalksTV AT gmail DOT
com or on Twitter @TyTalksTV.
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