** We interrupt this blog post to say SERIOUSLY? No nomination for Tatiana Maslany?**
Moving on, I am going to start negative and end on a positive, because in spite of my abject anger in some areas, there was good news in the sea of Emmy Nominations.
THE BAD
Most Egregious Snub
Hands down Tatiana Maslany being passed over for even a nomination is just ridiculous. They made room for 7 BEST ACTRESS NOMINATIONS and yet somehow, Maslany wasn't recognized for creating 7 unique characters in one series. Not only should she have been nominated, she should have won. Entertainment Weekly had a great theory stating had Orphan Black been on Netflix or HBO she would have likely been nominated. Regardless it's appalling.
Enough Already
The Emmys have a bad habit of nominating shows past their expiration date. Mad Men had an AWFUL season and that is coming from its most loyal fans. You can recognize actors good work in bad seasons, but to nominate shows (especially when there was a plethora of other shows to chose from) under the theory of 'but we always have' is just insulting. This is the type of move that makes me believe the nominating committee doesn't actually watch television or read the news in their own industry. Mad Men had no business being there over the likes of The Good Wife, The Americans or The Walking Dead.
Period Costumes does not equal Best anything (except maybe best costumes)
Let me start by saying, I love Downton Abbey. Eat it up like candy, but British accents and castles does not a great series make. They had a very uneven season and best drama is a suspect nomination. I would also say Hugh Bonneville and Michelle Dockery were overreach nominations. They both had stellar season 2 performances, but to not have Timothy Olyphant or Matthew Rhys in the lead actor category was a miss in my opinion.
** Speaking of Olyphant and Rhys, I'd like to take a moment to say to the Television Academy that nominating the brilliant Margo Martindale does not offer you a hall pass to snub the lead actors on the shows she's featured on. First Olyphant two years ago with Justified, now The Americans. Just because it's F/X doesn't mean the work isn't stellar. Just sayin'.**
How do you solve a problem like The Game of Thrones
Look, I get it. The show is dark, bloody and gratuitous. It also possesses a cast of thousands making it very difficult to keep all the storylines straight, let alone what actors belong to which House. That said, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau's performance transformed a key character in this season's narrative. Jamie Lanister is a long way from the man who threw the young Stark boy out a window in season 1. Coster-Waldau did it with an exquisite honest performance that possessed nuance and strength. To overlook his acting is upsetting. The only thing worse than that is completely missing the boat that was Michelle Fairley. Mainly because there won't be another opportunity to nominate her for the fantastically complex and morally flawed work she did as Lady Stark.
PERHAPS THERE IS HOPE FOR THE ACADEMY YET
I am not all piss and vinegar. There were some nominations and shifts that made me very happy. Here's my list of things that the academy did right this morning.
1) All the love for Louie C.K. was both exciting and refreshing to see. While it may not be everyone's cup of tea, Louie is a smart, well conceived and written show. To see him break through big gives me some margin of hope for the future of TV comedy.
2) Julia Louis-Dreyfus surpassed Lucille Ball with her Veep nomination for most ever. Couldn't have happened to a better comedic actress.
3) While I remain singularly irrationally irrate about Tatiana Maslany's absence from the lead actress category. Vera Farmiga and Robin Wright's nominations are solid consolation.
4) The entire slate of nominess for guest actor and actress in a drama: soup to nuts. Are there other people I would have like to see on those lists? Yes. But what makes these two slates great is I don't know who I would bounce out of the category to make room for someone else.
Outstanding Guest Actor In A Drama Series
The Good Wife • Nathan Lane as Clarke Hayden
The Good Wife • Nathan Lane as Clarke Hayden
The Good Wife • Michael J. Fox as Louis Canning
Homeland • Rupert Friend as Peter Quinn
Mad Men • Robert Morse as Bertram Cooper
Mad Men • Harry Hamlin as Jim Cutler
Scandal • Dan Bucatinsky as James Novack
Outstanding Guest Actress In A Drama Series
The Americans • Margo Martindale as Claudia
The Americans • Margo Martindale as Claudia
Game Of Thrones • Diana Rigg as Olenna Tyrell
The Good Wife • Carrie Preston as Elsbeth Tascioni
Mad Men • Linda Cardellini as Sylvia Rosen
The Newsroom • Jane Fonda as Leona Lansing
Shameless • Joan Cusack as Sheila Jackson
5) Jeff Daniels nomination makes me happy and I don't even like Newsroom. He's one of those actors that people forget how good he really is because he's been around forever.
6) I am always thrilled when people have the good sense to recognize Margo Martindale's work. She is a treasure and makes anything she is in better by simply showing up.
7) Morena Baccarin and Mandy Patinkin's nominations for truly strong work in Homeland. I had many problems with Homeland's second season, it's acting was not among them.
8) I get a special giddy over the idea of Jason Bateman, Don Cheadle and Matt LeBlanc all sharing space in the same category. That is all.
9) Top of Lake and Elizabeth Moss's great work in it are worth everyone's time. Perhaps the Emmy nods will encourage more people to check it out. If you're a Mad Men fan it will prove just how good an actor Moss truly is.
We all have our pet favorites for TV shows, but I think this covers 90% of my emotional catharsis. I don't watch nearly enough on the comedy side to be too opinionated, but I think I can safely say Modern Family is the Mad Men of comedy. On that note, where does your Emmy anger lie?
No comments:
Post a Comment