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| It's hard to complain about an Emmys that finally nominates Tatiana Maslany. |
Look, the Emmys are never going to “get it right.” You’re taking the opinions of thousands of
voters, many of whom don’t watch much television because they’re too busy
making it, throwing them into a blender and praying that something resembling
sanity comes out. There are always going
to be snubs. What was this year’s
outcries about The Americans and Jane the Virgin were the cries of The Wire before them.
The rending of garments and gnashing of teeth on Emmy
morning has only gotten worse in recent years as the number of shows has
proliferated. In the 1979-80 television
season there were only about eighty scripted shows aired on all of
television. This year? 240 scripted series submitted themselves in
the Outstanding Drama, Comedy, and Variety Sketch Series categories. There are three times as many scripted shows
on as there were thirty years ago and yet the number of Emmy slots has only
expanded from four or five to six. This
makes the competition all the more fierce and triples the likelihood that a
deserving actor or show is going to get left out.
My suggestion? Open
wide the gates. In the last several
years the television academy has expanded the Outstanding Series nominations
from five to six and now to seven. The acting
categories went from five to six in 2009 and occasionally have hit seven due to
ties. Hell, this year the comedy
supporting actress category has eight
nominees and I haven’t heard anybody complaining about it. All I’ve heard is how nice it is to see Gaby
Hoffman and Niecy Nash getting to join the other six actresses who are all
category regulars at this point.
So let’s open all of the acting categories up to eight
nominees. Sure, it’s still not going to
please everybody, and we’re as likely to get more repeat nominees like Jim
Parsons and Jon Voight as we are to get spurned newcomers like Keri Russell and
Matthew Rhys. But the Emmys are a
celebration of television and I’ve never heard complaint of too many people at
a great party.
That single suggestion aside, the Emmys are what they are
for another year and, at least in 2015, the nominations weren’t that bad. Sure, the academy has a few bizarre hang-ups
but, overall, every category has at least a few names worth rooting for. So let’s take a look at the good, the bad,
and the weird of the 2015 Emmy nominations.
Good – Nay,
great! Tatiana Maslany earns a
surprising first nomination for Lead Actress in a Drama. It would have been nicer had it come for a
season that didn’t still have four episodes sitting on my DVR, but no matter
how crazy Orphan Black has gotten in
the last couple of seasons, Maslany has been doing amazing work, so it’s nice
to see her finally get some recognition.
Bad – Jeff
freakin’ Daniels. I mean,
seriously? I watched every episode of The Newsroom and while I could
appreciate it for its Sorkiny goodness, not once did I ever turn on an episode
and think that Daniels was the best thing on it. He’s mostly just a white, male bloviator
lecturing the audience on all of the wrongs of the world. Then again, maybe that’s exactly what the
voters want to see.
Weird – Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt pulling in
three major nominations but none for Ellie Kemper. I mean, I like Titus Burgess and Jane
Krakowski, but that show lives on the specificity and believability of its
title character, so to see her left out is strange. And it’s not like the comedy lead actress
category was particularly strong to begin with.
If you’re going to give a nomination to Lily Tomlin for the far inferior
Netflix comedy Grace and Frankie, you
should find a way to get Kemper in there as well.
Good – The
overall diversity of this year’s nominees was a welcome sight, especially
compared with the blinding whiteness of the Oscar nominations. Six African-American actors and actresses
locked down lead nominations while ten actors of color drew supporting
nods. It would be nice to see some of
that diversity transfer to the Outstanding Series categories, where shows like Empire, black-ish, How to Get Away with Murder, and Fresh Off the Boat were all shut out, but this is a welcome
improvement, not least because it emphasizes the diversity of performances on
television, as opposed to the Best Actor Oscar nominations, which were mostly
just variations of “troubled white man overcomes adversity to do great things.”
Bad – The
continued presence of Downton Abbey. Look, I’ve watched every episode of Downton and have written about it quite
a bit. But this hasn’t been a great show
for a few years now. It’s a good show,
certainly, but not one of the seven best shows on television. And, while Jim Carter is perfectly fine, he’s
about the third or fourth best supporting actor on that show. Thankfully, we’ve only got one more year of
the series taking Emmy slots from (hopefully) more deserving shows.
Weird – The love
for Better Call Saul. Maybe this isn’t that weird. Saul
was a really good show, after all. But
for all the apprehension there was surrounding the idea of a Breaking Bad prequel, for the show to
land Emmy nods for Outstanding Series, Lead Actor, Supporting Actor, and
Writing (the fifth-most major nominations for any series), it’s just a little strange – great, but strange.
Good – The
splitting of Outstanding Variety Series into “Talk” and “Sketch” categories. The category was dominated for years by Saturday Night Live and an array of late
night talk shows. By splitting the
category in two we get some recognition for the Inside Amy Schumers, Key & Peeles, Drunk Historys, and Portlandias
of the world. More is almost always
better, and this provides a new venue for deserving shows.
Bad – No Nick
Offerman. Ron Swanson is one of the
iconic comedy characters of all time and yet we’re going to go seven years
without Nick Offerman receiving even so much as a nomination for the part. It really is a shame. It really is hard to think of a more
deserving actor to never receive an Emmy nomination.
Weird – The Stunt
Coordination nominees. I have nothing
against the nominees in this category, but to leave out shows like Banshee, Strike Back, or Arrow just seems crazy. I mean, just watch this scene from Banshee and tell me that this is not
some of the best stunt coordination of the year (and cinematography and makeup work and a host of other things). Or the Daredevil
one shot?
There was some amazing stunt work on television this
year. Unfortunately, most of it didn’t
get nominated.
Good – Manhattan, Halt and Catch Fire, and Daredevil
all being nominated for Main Title Design.
This is always a weird category that rarely makes sense, but these three
shows all had great opening credits and any would be worth of victory.
Bad – The Amazing Race. I loved The
Amazing Race. It was the only
reality show I watched for a very long time.
But in the last few years, the show seems to have lost the meaning of
“Race.” It’s now just a collection of
obstacles spread throughout the world.
Combined with a relatively lackluster collection of contestants this
past year, I just can’t support the show anymore in its run for Outstanding
Reality – Competition Program.
Weird – Alan
Menken somehow failing in his EGOT attempt.
He wrote thirty songs for Galavant
and somehow failed to get a single one nominated for Outstanding Music and
Lyrics. Granted, I don’t know that they
were particularly great songs, but it was surprising nonetheless. With Galavant’s
somewhat stunning renewal, however, he’ll get another shot next year.
Overall, it was a really good year for the Emmys. Sure, I can nitpick here and there, but there
are a lot of new faces and new shows, deserving names being nominated, and,
really, the only thing I would ask for would be “more” – more nominees spreading the love around to more television. It’s a vast and diverse world out there and
it’d be nice to see more of that represented.
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.
