For those of you
who have been following my blog for a while, you are very aware of how I follow
the leadup to the Emmys with breathless anticipation. Well, sit tight loyal readers cause the next
couple of months are going to be going from zero to ninety in a few weeks.
Now that the
labor stoppage in Hollywood is finally over and we know the Emmys will be
coming for certain next month, I am ready to resume the play by play for every
awards show. The one benefit of these strikes was that I was able to get caught
up on quite a few of the series that were nominated in all of the major
categories I cover and can therefore talk about them with a certain greater
level of certainty that I wouldn’t have been able to do had it happened in
September as scheduled. (Thanks I guess, various guilds.) Starting tomorrow I
will begin that coverage on a regular basis.
In addition as
those of you know, next week my two other favorite awards shows the troubled
Golden Globes and the always incredible Critics Choice will give their
nominations for the year just past. How they will be covering this year given
how few new shows there have been the past five months remains to be seen but
both groups have been able to adapt to this over the years and I look forward
to seeing what happens. And the HCA has
finally announced that it will be airing its awards for this year on January 8th
of 2024, so I will go into great detail on that group of awards perhaps with
the most pleasure. (This January will be the winter of my content.) Of course
though I’m never satisfied with them long term, I will also cover the SAG
awards for TV when they come out.
But to start
this up, I will begin with covering an awards group that I missed. In my last
post in this series way back in July I covered the nominations for the TV
critics awards. In the aftermath of the strike I did not know when they would
take place and I wasn’t sure they would happen until last month. So I was
surprised to find out that in fact, they had taken place in August.
Once I got over
the fact I dropped the ball I actually looked at the results and while some of
them were not surprising, many of them were very pleasing.
For one I was
overjoyed to see that the winner for individual achievement in Drama was not
one of the men from Succession but Rhea Seehorn for Better Call Saul.
Will this mean she finally gets the Emmy she deserves next month? I can
only hope. It did not surprise me nor upset me that Succession took the
prize for Best Drama (for the third time) and won Program of the Year. I have
realized its brilliance and I’m fine with it, if not overjoyed
Similarly I was
delighted to see The Bear take both Best New Program and Best Comedy
Series, both of which it more than likely earned. (I’m not convinced it can
triumph over Abbott Elementary next month.) And I was overjoyed to see
Natasha Lyonne take home the prize for Best Achievement in Comedy an award she
has been long overdue since the first season of Russian Doll. This might improve her chances at the Emmys
against Quinta Brunson, the heavy favorite.
Having gotten
the chance to see it, I fully appreciate the decision to give Jury Duty the
prize for Best Achievement in Reality Programming, where it is frankly a better
fit than Best Comedy. I also think the TCA
made the absolutely right call by giving Beef the prize for Outstanding Achievement in a
Movie, Miniseries or Special. And I’m actually okay with Ms. Marvel taking
the trophy for Outstanding Achievement in Family programming. Perhaps we should
not be shocked that I Think You Should Leave With Tim Robinson repeated
as Best Variety Sketch Show as it did last year.
Overall, I’m satisfied
with most of the winners: Seehorn would have been my first choice in Drama and
of the seven nominees for Best New Show the only one I would have preferred over
The Bear was Poker Face. Beef was by far the best choice among
the six nominated miniseries and while I would have preferred Abbott
Elementary or Barry for Best Comedy, The Bear was at their
level. I would have preferred Better
Call Saul and Yellowjackets over Succession in Outstanding Drama
and Saul and Abbott for Program of the Year, but I can’t pretend Succession
isn’t a worthy choice anymore. I
And its worth
noting the TCA record with nominations was fairly good in comparison with the
Emmys. Six of their eight nominees ended up in Best Drama and The Crown and
House of The Dragon didn’t make the bells ring the way they were
predicted. Abbott, The Bear, Barry (and if you want to count it) Jury
Duty all made it here and honestly Poker Face probably would have
been a better choice than Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. (The other three
choices were bound to show up.) I really wish someone other than my fellow
critics could acknowledge how great Reservation Dogs is. As for Limited
Series: they were right about Beef, Fleishman and Daisy Jones as
their choices and despite my thoughts on Dahmer, I still think Black
Bird and The Patient should have been nominated in its stead. No Love and Death, but you can’t have
everything.
Well that’s it
for this group. Tomorrow I will get started with my Emmy recommendations in
earnest. Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a busy couple of months.
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