The Emmy Awards are the big deal for U.S. TV shows. They’re a combination of politics and popularity, voted by the industry, which can sometimes lead to some unusual selections. Here’s a partial list of this year’s winners:
- Game Change – mini series or TV movie, actress in mini series or TV movie (Julianne Moore), directing in a mini series or TV movie, writing in a mini series or TV movie
- Homeland – drama series, actor in a drama series (Damian Lewis), actress in a drama series (Claire Danes), writing in a drama series
- Modern Family – comedy series, supporting actor in a comedy series (Eric Stonestreet), supporting actress in a comedy series (Julie Bowen), directing in a comedy series
- Daily Show -variety series, writing in a variety series
- Kennedy Center Honors – variety special
- Undercover Boss – reality program
- Amazing Race – reality competition
- Veep – actress in a comedy series (Julia Louis-Dreyfuss)
- Two and a Half Men – actor in a comedy series (Jon Cryer)(and the whole world says WTF?)
- Breaking Bad – supporting actor in a drama series (Aaron Paul)
- Downton Abbey – supporting actress in a drama series (Maggie Smith)
- Hatfields and McCoys – actor in mini series or TV movie (Kevin Costner), supporting actor in mini series or TV movie (Tom Berenger)
- American Horror Story – supporting actress in mini series or TV movie (Jessica Lange)
- Dancing With the Stars – reality host (Tom Bergeron)
- Boardwalk Empire – directing in a drama series
- Saturday Night Live – directing in a variety series
- Tony Awards – directing in a variety special, writing in a variety special (tie?)
- Louie – writing in a comedy series
- Louis C.K. Live at the Beacon Theater – writing in a variety special (tie? it won something for writing, not sure which category)
Immediately noted – no awards for Game of Thrones (2 nominations) or Mad Men (9 nominations). Breaking Bad shut out from the major categories (6 nominations, 1 win). Homeland is the new king, Modern Family retains its crown.
But how do you explain comedy series best actor Jon Cryer over Alec Baldwin, Jim Parsons, Louis C.K., Don Cheadle, Larry David? Okay, Larry David for acting is a stretch. Parsons and Big Bang Theory have been going on for way too long. Almost no one liked Cheadle’s House of Lies series. Louis C.K. is probably seen as not “acting” and besides he won two writing awards. Cryer’s award is perhaps the industry saying Fuck You! to Charlie Sheen?
And Louis C.K. wins a writing award for a TV special that was really initially distributed only on the internet but then picked up by a cable TV network.
Out of the 30 awards listed above, roughly 2/3rds went to cable networks.
Award shows – funny things aren’t they. As much as I like Game of Thrones, series two was nowhere near as compelling or tight as series one. Homeland is the fresh meat and both Danes and Lewis brought amazing emotional intensity to their parts.
The best supporting actor in a drama series category was amazing. Each of those actors deserved an award!
While I get the appeal of Game Change to the folks who would have voted for the Emmy winners, I was disappointed Hemingway & Gellhorn didn’t get recognition. I suspect in five to ten years time we’ll be wondering why the latter didn’t get more recognition.
Fernando, never would have tagged you as someone who watches so much TV!
+1 with GoT series 2 not being (anywhere close to) a match for series 1.
Breaking Bad season 5.1 is supposed to be excellent. If it is even close to the brilliant season 4, then I’m in for a treat!
Spike – it’s an odd thing. We have no cable or tv connection at home, so in a sense we don’t have “TV.” So I only watch shows on DVD or through Apple TV. So I can squeeze an hour of TV in 2-3 times a week and still not effect the other things in life.
Also, I travel a lot and on flights, long bus rides etc, I prefer to watch tv shows to movies these days. Especially so on the iPad, which feels more suited to watching TV than film, for me at least.
For movie watching on planes, my preference is my laptop – aside from the larger screen, I don’t have to do format conversions on the files (I had problems with VLC on my iPad) and I can fit a whole lot more stuff without sacrificing other things on the iPad’s smaller storage space.