My Emmy Ballot: Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama

Tatiana Maslany should own this category for "Orphan Black"

The Emmy nominations will be announced tomorrow and we’re down to our last acting category and it’s somewhat fitting that we should end with the category that typically sees the most change every year: Lead Actress in a Drama.  It’s actually kind of amazing how many different women have gotten recognition in this category over the years.  Lead Actress in a Drama has had ten different winners since 2000 and no woman has won more than two trophies.  Twelve different women have been nominated in the last three years.  Even traditional stalwarts often have had trouble maintaining nominations in recent years.  Mariska Hargitay had earned eight consecutive nominations and a win before being shut out the last two years.  Julianna Marguiles won in 2011 but wasn’t nominated in 2013.  There has been a lot of turnover in this category recently and last year’s surprise nominees could mean the same for 2014.

A couple of caveats before we start.  First, I’m working from the actual Emmy Performer Ballot, so I can’t move somebody from lead to supporting (Woody Harrelson), nor can I call True Detective a miniseries or Orange Is the New Black a drama, nor can I nominate somebody who didn’t submit themselves (like Alan Cumming in The Good Wife).  Also, I’m only including actors from shows I watch regularly, so if your favorites from House of Cards, Parenthood, The Good Wife, or Scandal aren’t here, that’s why.

My 2013 Choices:

Claire Danes (Homeland)

Tatiana Maslany (Orphan Black)

Elisabeth Moss (Mad Men)

Piper Perabo (Covert Affairs)

Keri Russell (The Americans)

Katheryn Winnick (Vikings)

Actual 2013 Nominees:

Connie Britton (Nashville)

Claire Danes (Homeland) – 2013 Emmy Winner

Michelle Dockery (Downton Abbey)

Vera Farmiga (Bates Motel)

Elisabeth Moss (Mad Men)

Kerry Washington (Scandal)

Robin Wright (House of Cards)

The first thing to note about last year’s nominees is that there were seven of them.  There is a quirk in the nominating process that allows for a seventh nominee if the person is within a certain percentage of the sixth place nominee, so while it’s possible we could see seven again next year, it’s unlikely.  That already leaves us with one fewer spot to deal with and only one clear favorite to return.  Despite my rantings about Homeland in previous Emmy articles, Claire Danes is a lock.  It’s the biggest role on the show and she’s consistently given the most to do, even if her good performance is in service of crappy storylines.  Britton, Farmiga, and Washington were all somewhat surprising nominations last year and could easily stay or go.  Dockery and Moss are both great actresses on shows with fading cultural profiles.  And, while Wright will likely return, the mantle of “Prestige Netflix Series” may be shifting from House of Cards to Orange Is the New Black. 

Not only were there a lot of new actresses and surprising actresses nominated last year, there are a number of women with great performances looking to replace them.  Lizzy Caplan was amazing in Masters of Sex last fall.  Julianna Marguiles seems certain to return after a strong year for The Good Wife.  Then there are critical favorites like Tatiana Maslany and Keri Russell who might be able to score nominations after increasing cultural discussion around their strong sophomore seasons.  This category is wide open and it feels like anybody could win.

I’m going to start with the actress who probably has the least chance of scoring a nomination, Sleepy Hollow’s Nicole Beharie.  Sleepy Hollow was the surprise hit of the fall, succeeding both commercially and critically and most of that success was thanks to the wonderful relationship between Beharie’s detective Abbie Mills and Tom Mison’s Ichabod Crane.  The show itself was a rather straightforward supernatural drama, but the relationship at the center held everything together.  I couldn’t find a spot for Mison in my Lead Actor piece, but Beharie has no problems earning a nomination here.

My favorite new show of 2013 was Masters of Sex and Lizzy Caplan was the best part of that show.  It’s still far too uncommon to see a career-minded, socially liberated woman on television, so to have this woman in a show set in the 1950s and 1960s is all the more strange.  Caplan seems born for this part, sliding effortlessly into the role.  She’s capable of playing the harried mother, the ambitious student, and the Siren.  This feels like the kind of role that is built to earn Emmy nominations and Caplan is more than up to the task.

I’ve been down on Downton Abbey recently, but one of the highlights of last season was Michelle Dockery’s Lady Mary and her attempts to enter the world of men, overseeing and maintaining the estate in the wake of her husband’s death.  It was a slow build and she was still burdened with a potential love triangle late in the season, but Lady Mary and Dockery were at their best when allowed to think and act for themselves.  I may have a soft spot for women seeking power in a man’s world (as this list no doubt shows), but Dockery plays that part well.  Were she not burdened with all of the love stuff, which she appears bored with at this point, I’d consider this performance even more highly.

My wife made the perfect argument for Orphan Black’s Tatiana Maslany during an episode a few weeks ago when she remarked, “I just forget that they’re all the same person.”  That’s really what separates Maslany from the rest of the actresses here.  While Orphan Black may not have been as good of a show in its second season as it was in its first, Maslany may have been better.  It’s not just that she plays five different regular characters, but that she’s capable of distinguishing between all of them in actions and mannerisms beyond even the hair and wardrobe.  And then you have scenes like in the second season premiere where she’s playing Sarah pretending to be Cosima and you can see the subtle differences she adds to distinguish the performances.  It really is a tour de force unlike anything television has ever seen.

Just as I was amazed that Jon Hamm could go this long without an Emmy win, it’s becoming more and more likely that the same fate will befall Elisabeth Moss.  She’s been nominated five times (six if you count her miniseries nomination for Top of the Lake) and been denied every time.  The first half of Mad Men’s seventh season had many more great moments for Peggy, whether she was being despicable (and a complete ass on Valentine’s Day with her secretary’s flowers), loving (watching TV with Julio), or horrified (receiving Ginsberg’s nipple).  The truth is, no Mad Men actor has yet received an Emmy award, a fact that becomes more unbelievable every year.

My final nomination would go to Keri Russell, who put on a stellar performance in the second season of The Americans.  As with Hannibal, The Americans made a huge leap in its second year, transitioning from great drama to must watch television.  What makes the show remarkable is the way it handles its central marriage and family.  The back-and-forth of the Jennings’s relationship took a backseat in the second season as their relationship became stronger.  But that deepening relationship began to cause other problems with their work lives, culminating in the stunning and almost horrifying scene when Elizabeth asks Phillip’s alter ego Clark into bed.  I doubt many Emmy voters even know The Americans exists, but they really should.

Others meriting consideration: Claire Danes, Diane Kruger

Previously: Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy, Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy, Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama, Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama, Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy, Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy, Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama

So those are my Emmy choices.  Agree?  Disagree?  Let me know 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.

My Emmy Ballot: Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama

Anna Gunn left it all on the field in the final season of "Breaking Bad"

Supporting Actress in a Drama is not a category that has been particularly deep for me in recent years simply because a lot of the best performances are coming from shows I don’t watch – namely, The Good Wife and Parenthood.  But this year I feel like the nominations pool is stacked.  Not only did a pair of dramas make The Leap in their sophomore seasons (The Americans and Hannibal), but two Game of Thrones actresses finally submitted themselves after sitting out last year, and two other dramas with great supporting female performances made their debuts (Masters of Sex and True Detective).  While not quite as deep as the Supporting Actor pool, there are a lot of great actresses worthy of consideration here.

A couple of caveats before we start.  First, I’m working from the actual Emmy Performer Ballot, so I can’t move somebody from lead to supporting (Woody Harrelson), nor can I call True Detective a miniseries or Orange Is the New Black a drama, nor can I nominate somebody who didn’t submit themselves (like Alan Cumming in The Good Wife).  Also, I’m only including actors from shows I watch regularly, so if your favorites from House of Cards, Parenthood, The Good Wife, or Scandal aren’t here, that’s why.

My 2013 Choices:

Jennifer Carpenter (Dexter)

Emilia Clarke (Game of Thrones)

Anna Gunn (Breaking Bad)

January Jones (Mad Men)

Kelly MacDonald (Boardwalk Empire)

Olivia Munn (The Newsroom)

Actual 2013 Nominees:

Morena Baccarin (Homeland)

Christine Baranski (The Good Wife)

Emilia Clarke (Game of Thrones)

Anna Gunn (Breaking Bad) – 2013 Emmy Winner

Christina Hendricks (Mad Men)

Maggie Smith (Downton Abbey)

Not to spoil anything, but there will be only one actress carrying over from my 2013 nominees to this year.  It’s hard to blame the actresses, though.  For starters, four of my 2014 nominees weren’t eligible last year and would likely have taken a few spots if they were.  Secondly, several of them kind of got hosed by their shows.  Dexter took a nosedive in its final season, completely ruining all of the good things they’d done with Jennifer Carpenter’s character in season seven.  January Jones was in all of three episodes of Mad Men’s truncated season.  And Kelly MacDonald was similarly slighted by Boardwalk.  With less to do and a number of strong challengers entering the ring, there just isn’t the room for good actresses on bad shows or good actresses in nothing parts.

As for the actresses who were nominated last year, it’s difficult to see Baccarin coming back because a) she was barely in this past season and b) it was kind of terrible.  I feel like Maggie Smith has kind of run her course as the Dowager Countess and it will be interesting to see if Mad Men still has any voter affection or if people are just done with it.  Anna Gunn will return for certain and there’s no reason why Clark and Baranski wouldn’t as well.  This feels like the most wide open race, however, because with the exception of Anna Gunn, I could see a number of actresses filling the other three spots.

Hannibal was one of several dramas to take huge leaps in their second seasons this spring and a big beneficiary of that leap was Caroline Dhavernas.  She didn’t always get the best storylines (the whole Hannibal/Will/Alana pseudo-love triangle was iffy at best), but she was a strong presence throughout the season.  It’s never easy playing the dupe and the last one to know, but Dhavernas never made Alana stupid.  She was hoodwinked, yes, like everybody was by Lecter, but she was still a powerful woman capable of carrying herself among powerful men.

Speaking of powerful women, one of my favorite shows this fall was one in which the men mostly played second fiddle: Masters of Sex.  And while she wasn’t always the most powerful, Caitlin Fitzgerald’s Libby Masters was perhaps the most complex.  Playing the wife of a male lead in a drama like this can be a difficult task, as Anna Gunn, Edie Falco, and a host of other women can attest.  It’s easy for some viewers to see her as the shrill wife who is trying to prevent her hero (or anti-hero) husband from accomplishing his goals.  But Fitzgerald brings such life to Libby that it’s difficult not to root for her even when she’s not acting like the perfect wife.

Last year’s winner Anna Gunn is the front-runner to win again this year and it’s easy to see why.  In Breaking Bad’s final episodes, Skyler is finally forced to reckon with the devastation that Walter’s operation has caused and in which she, at times, was a reluctant participant.  It’s a difficult piece to watch as everything collapses and Skyler desperately tries to hold her family together, and Gunn plays it perfectly.  The character of Skyler received a great deal of criticism from certain segments of the Bad fanbase (mainly young, male viewers who just wanted to see Walter kick ass), but Gunn remained stalwart through it all.  I would be stunned to see anybody else take home the trophy this year.

It is true that True Detective didn’t care nearly as much about its female characters as it did about its male leads Rust Cohle and Marty Hart and if Michelle Monaghan had submitted herself as a lead, I don’t think she would have done enough to earn a nomination.  But as a supporting actress, she certainly left her mark on the show.  I could argue for a nomination for her solely based on the scene in which Maggie seduces Rust but throughout the series’ short run, she was phenomenal.  There’s something of a trend with the last three actresses I’ve discussed (and really one more on this list), in which they could easily be seen as the overbearing wives of their stories’ heroes.  But because these actresses are so good at what they do, they manage to bring depth and heart to what could otherwise be thankless roles.

Maisie Williams would have earned a nomination from me last year for her work as Arya Stark on Game of Thrones had she submitted herself in the first place.  Unfortunately she didn’t, but she’s in the running this year and might have an even better case for season four than she did for the third.  The symbiotic yet antagonistic relationship between Arya and The Hound as they continued to search for both her family and somebody to pay him often brought levity to an otherwise dark show.  But even beyond the humor, the relationship those two developed was one of the deepest, most thoughtful and considered on the entire show, and it was sad to see it end.  Even if we won’t have Arya and The Hound together anymore, we’ll always have Arya’s laugh at the utter absurdity of her life.

I had Natalie Dormer in this final spot for the longest time,* but ultimately realized that I was giving it to her more out of wanting to have recognized her work in the third season of Game of Thrones than for what she did this season.  So after a long deliberation I decided to go with Katheryn Winnick instead.  I nominated Winnick in the Lead Actress category last year, but she stepped down to Supporting Actress for 2014, which makes sense given her decreased screen time.  But even as her character essentially became the Betty Draper of Vikings, Winnick continued to show why Lagertha could never be a kept woman.  Constantly surrounded by men who underestimate her capabilities, Winnick imbues Lagertha with a quiet strength that always keeps her a part of the action, even when her character is sidelined from the main story for much of the season.

*Figuratively speaking, anyway.  Literally speaking, this list is alphabetical, not ordered by personal preference. 

Others meriting consideration: Betsy Brandt, Emilia Clarke, Christina Hendricks, Annet Mahendru, Ivana Milicevic, Olivia Munn, Emily Bett Rickards, Holly Taylor

Previously: Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy, Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy, Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama

So those are my Emmy choices.  Agree?  Disagree?  Let me know 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.

Masters of Sex Review: "All Together Now" and "Love and Marriage" - Sex and Love

Beau Bridges makes an indecent proposal (though not the one you think) in "Masters of Sex"

Sorry for the tardiness of this review.  Blogger has been having issues for me for the last few days.  Hence, also, the temporary change in template.

“It’s a curious thing.  I’ve always felt different from other women.  Most women, they want love when they sleep with a man.  But I’ve always been able to separate sex from love.”

I know it’s meant to be Virginia’s thesis statement, but if ever there was a single line to describe a complicated personal drama like Masters of Sex, it is this line.  Every character is navigating the difficult world of sex and love, learning that one doesn’t necessarily lead to the other, nor can the two necessarily be found together.  But when they are, man do sparks fly.

I know this is fundamentally a series about William Masters and Virginia Johnson, but the stars these past two weeks have easily been Beau Bridges and Allison Janney as Provost Scully and his wife Margaret.  These two obviously love each other deeply but the ugly truth is that he’s just not physically attracted to her.  He’s gay.  It’s not his fault, though he definitely hopes to change it, but it just doesn’t change the fact that the likelihood of the Scullys having a functional sexual relationship is close to nil.  What makes it all the more heartbreaking is that each has managed to find a sexual partner with whom they can’t share love. 

Dr. Langham offers Margaret a lot in terms of her sexual awakening, but he seems completely incapable of love.  As his conversation with his therapist* demonstrates, Langham views women as sexual objects to be had and conquered.  There is no way he can provide her with anything she needs outside of sex.  Likewise, Barton’s self-loathing leaves him unable to believe that he can love Dale who, despite their financial relationship, clearly has developed feelings for the Provost.  Sex and love don’t necessarily need to come together, but it’s clearly impossible for these two (and others on this show) to have fulfilling relationships with only one.

* Played by Alan Ruck in a “blink and you’ll miss it” moment.

The most fascinating aspect of the separation between sex and love is how problematic it makes Masters’s and Johnson’s research.  They are all about quantifying the body’s response to sex.  How much time does the subject spend in this phase or that phase?  What is the likelihood of achieving orgasm in any given sexual position?  These are questions that science, especially the science of the time, could answer.  Love, attraction, and their effects on the body were (and still are in many cases) complete mysteries incapable even of being tested.

And so it is that, initially, Masters’s and Johnson’s “work” is extremely clinical.  Their sex is not what we would typically define as “sexy” because it’s fraught with complicated, unanswered questions of intention.  Is Masters only “getting some work in” (my new favorite euphemism for sex) because he’s not having sex with his wife?  Is Virginia being coerced into a sexual relationship because of their relationship as employer and employee?  Is she using Bill to receive preferential treatment (and a promotion) because of their now sexual relationship?  This show is a 21^st century HR rep’s worst nightmare. 

Those questions aren’t hidden from Masters and Johnson, which is why it takes resolving most of them for their sex to become “sexy.”  And even then, I wonder how much Masters is attracted to Johnson and how much of his attraction comes from the work.  Clearly, Virginia is falling for Bill.  But I don’t know that he’s actually reciprocating those feelings.  What Bill loves most is his work and I don’t think he has enough love left to truly devote it to another person.  Sure, he can offer a bit to his wife and maybe a bit to Virginia.  But it’s no accident that in the final scene of “Love and Marriage,” Bill isn’t aroused by the woman wearing a bathrobe with whom he’s just had sex, but by the intravaginal film footage that he and Johnson are the first people in the world to see. 

Virginia may be able to separate sex from love, but it’s clear that Masters of Sex views the two as, if not necessarily intertwined, then at least symbiotic, serving not just to complement but to enhance the other.  It’s fascinating to watch these people try to find that symbiosis in their relationships.

A couple of spare thoughts –

The way this show deals with sex and nudity is mind-blowing to me.  I’ve never before seen a show use sex as a narrative and character device the way Masters of Sex does.  Just watch the two sex scenes between Bill and Virginia at the beginning and end of “All Together Now.”  The first is cold and clinical while the second is downright hot.  This tells a story that goes so far beyond these two scenes, but shows how their emotional relationships (and the resolving of the aforementioned troubling questions) freed them to experience a deeper level of passion. 

There’s also Margaret and Barton’s scene in her bedroom.  Her nudity in that scene shows so much vulnerability (not to mention her instinct to cover up in front of her husband) and the fact that Barton doesn’t look anywhere but her eyes tells her all she needs to know about his attraction to her or, more fittingly, his lack of attraction.  It is really a beautiful scene that actually requires nudity to be as powerful as it is, as opposed to a scene in which nudity is included just to titillate. 

While most of the couples in the story are struggling to find a combination of sex and love, Haas seems to have gotten it in spades.  He seems a little reluctant to embrace those new feelings, but I genuinely like where he’s headed with Vivian.

I want to isolate Finn Wittrock for his marvelous work in that final scene with Barton.  There are so many great actors on this show that it can be easy for one with such a relatively small part to get lost.  But his delivery of that parting shot was amazing.

Masters and Johnson had a complicated relationship with homosexuality and conversion therapy, though it didn’t come until later in their careers.  I like that they’re dealing with it now, though, because it’s an interesting aspect to their story and wouldn’t the show to get canceled before they can deal with it (relax, the show has already been renewed for next season).

There’s so much other great material in these two episodes that I just can’t get to (Libby’s pregnancy, her African-American ad hoc dance instructor, Dr. DePaul’s cervical cancer, and Bill’s attempts to sabotage Virginia’s education just to name a few).  I’m hoping that these storylines will stick around so that I can discuss them in more detail later.

“There’s only one person who gets to be sickened by me and that’s me.  Everybody else can go fuck themselves.”

So thoughts?  Comments?  Just want to tell me that my blog sucks?  Let me know in the comments or on Twitter @TyTalksTV