On the face of
it, following the nominations for the MTV Movie and TV awards in regards to the
Emmys may seem as ridiculous as watching the People’s Choice Awards when it
comes to TV. This is much of the same package except apparently worse because
this is fundamentally youth oriented. And as we all know Emmy voters are many
things but ‘hip’ has not exactly been one of them.
The thing is, ever
since MTV expanded its awards into television six or seven years ago, every so
often they will find series that strike the zeitgeist. They were onboard with Schitt’s
Creek a year before the Emmys got wise. They have been more willing to give
recognition to Stranger Things than the Emmys have ever been willing to
do. (It is looking like Millie Bobby Brown will never get the Emmy she’s been owed
since 2017.) They have recognized series such as Ted Lasso and Only Murders
in the Building and for better or worse, they were clearly ahead of the
curve when it came to Euphoria. And hell, considering that they were
willing to recognize Kathryn Hahn for Wandavision and the Emmys weren’t,
they can be ahead of the curve.
So I figured it
was at least worth looking at the MTV TV nominations, partly because Euphoria
isn’t eligible this year and more importantly, there are several series
that fall in the sweet spot of genres that the Emmys are more than likely to recognize
this year with nominations if not awards. So I decided to take a look – and honestly,
I was impressed.
Stranger Things isn’t eligible
for any awards this year, and Wolf Pack is almost certain to be ignored.
The five other series recognized for Best Show; however, all have a very good
chance to be major contenders. Wednesday is almost certain to be a major
contender for Best Comedy; The White Lotus, The Last of Us and Yellowjackets
are all relatively certain nominees for Best Drama and Yellowstone looms
as a dark horse in the latter category. (The controversy surrounding its final
season may very well hurt its prospects.)
The Best
Performances in a Show all feature females. That said, I can’t really argue
with any of them. Jenna Ortega is certain to be nominated for Wednesday and
Christina Ricci is just as likely to be nominated for Yellowjackets. It
was a very crowded category that kept Selena Gomez for being nominated for only
Murders in the Building last year; I expect the Emmys to rectify. I’m
impressed that the voters thought Aubrey Plaza deserved to be recognized for The
White Lotus over Jennifer Coolidge; I hope the Emmys find room for both.
Riley Keough is a good choice for the likely Emmy-nominee for Limited Series Daisy
Jones and the Six (I’ll get to it trust me) Only Sadie Sink is ineligible,
and let’s be honest she should have been nominated last year. (Incidentally,
the HCA TV Awards gave Sink the Best Supporting Actress prize for Stranger
Things last year. Great minds think alike.)
Jenna Ortega and
Pedro Pascal were nominated for Best Hero (Pascal for The Last of Us) and
Diego Luna got nominated for Andor, which may very well contend for Emmy
nominations this year. The Best Kiss nominations featured contenders from Only
Murders in the Building, Daisy Jones and the Six, and The Last of Us (though
some voters complain its not the one they’d have chosen) Quinta Brunson was
nominated for best Comedic Performance for Abbott Elementary, meaning
Brunson truly has universal appeal. Bella Ramsey was nominated for Breakthrough
Performance for The Last of Us and Emma D’Arcy was as well for House
of The Dragon. Both of them are realistic possibilities for Best Actress
nominees in a Drama. Jennifer Coolidge was nominated for Most Frightened Performance
in The White Lotus and its kind of remarkable considering the other
nominees are all from horror movies. Simona
Tabasco and Beatrice Granno earned a nomination for their work as the sex
workers who ‘won’ The White Lotus as Best Duo, along with Pascal and
Ramsey for The Last for Us and Jenna Ortega and Thing for Wednesday. No
argument for any of them and I really think it’s a tragedy there’s no category
for Best Performance by a Body Part.
. Stranger
Things is the dominant nominee (it also received nominations for Best
Breakthrough Performance, Best Fight and Best Villain as well as Best Kick-Ass
Cast) Andor’s nomination for Best Fight looks likes it will get a lot of
technical nominations. The only major series nominated that is unlikely to get
any recognition is Netflix’s Outer Banks which to be fair I’d never heard
of until recently.
I gotta level
with you, this is decent work for a group of young voters. I expected them to
go overboard with House of Dragon and they did not. They gave a lot of love
to The White Lotus, which I wouldn’t have thought would be their kind of
show, and the fact that they were willing to recognize series with more layers
such as that and Daisy Jones is impressive. Obviously I would have been
happier if Yellowjackets had gotten more love, but I’m glad that they
recognized it at all. And they showed growth… the Star Wars show they
clearly loved was the superior Andor to The Mandalorian and Pedro
Pascal got the love he deserved for The Last of Us rather than that.
Sure they gave a lot of time and energy to Stranger Things which will
probably be the bigger winner but considering that its spent its entire Emmy
career basically being ignored except for technical awards rather than
everything else, it kind of deserves all the love it can get before it finally exits.
Don’t get me
wrong, when Euphoria eventually returns they’ll no doubt give it the
same excessive love they did last year and they’ll probably end up on board
with House of the Dragon going forward. But overall, the series that MTV
has nominated are solid choices that – may lightning strike me for saying this –
the Emmys could honestly do worse if they took them into consideration this
summer. They will for some of them to be sure – most of these series are of a
high enough quality that the Emmys would be going backwards not to recognize
them – but there’s an argument that the MTV generation might have a better finger
on the pulse of great television than the Emmys do. (Though I admit that has
always been a low bar in the best of years.)
I’ll resume this
article when the Television Critics Awards give their nominations sometime in
May. I’ll be curious to see where they are.
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