I've Had A Wonderful Evening With Astra, But Last Night Wasn't It (The Show. The Awards Were Still Good.)

 

I’m aware my following has been slowly building in the past year or so but I’m not naïve to think its substantial. That said, if there are any of my readers who managed to find the Astra TV awards on YouTube last night based on my praise for it the past week and somehow sat through it I feel obliged to apologize and offer an explanation. It’s going to take a while, so bear with me.

The first HCA TV awards (as they were called then)  took place virtually. That was hardly surprising as it aired in August of 2021. Late Night shows were still airing without audiences and awards shows had essentially been virtual since the 2020 Oscars. (I think that year’s Oscars took place in a train station in Hollywood?) Live events didn’t occur until the Emmys the following month, so the presentations and acceptance speeches took place entirely on Zoom.

This didn’t trouble me because I was expecting little and got so much more than I hoped. As I mentioned repeated in my reaction to that article, my hands were sore from applause because of the winners that year, and that was what I cared about more. I was overjoyed that Jane Levy and Mary Steenburgen received awards for Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist (the series itself received a special award), thrilled to see Billy Porter and MJ Rodriguez win for Pose and my feet may have left the floor when Cruel Summer won Best Cable Drama. Most of the acceptance speeches were eloquent and charming; I saw Michael K. Williams take the Best Supporting Actor prize for Lovecraft Country (not knowing it would be the last time I saw him alive), saw Brett Goldstein give the first in what would be a series of foul-mouthed acceptance speeches for Ted Lasso and saw the first co-winners when Hannahs Einbinder and Waddingham shared Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy for Hacks and Ted Lasso respectively. I also got to see Kathryn Hahn give a delightful acceptance speech for Wandavision, watched as the producers expressed joy for winning Best Limited Series and overall enjoyed myself immensely. It was a great start, and I thought they might only improve from there.

The following year, the HCA divided its awards shows over two nights, one for Broadcast and Cable shows, the other night for Streaming. This was a necessity as they had added awards for Writing and Directing, which they had not had the year before. Both awards shows took place in a hotel room and while there were some key absences most of the attendees were there.

The Broadcast and Cable night was one of the best nights of the awards show season that year. Better Call Saul finally got the recognition it deserved, tying for Best Drama with Succession but winning awards for Bob Odenkirk, Giancarlo Esposito and Rhea Seehorn. Esposito had received an award for TV Icon that year as well, so it was a great night for them. Yellowjackets had a superb night as well, taking Best Actress in a Cable Drama for Melanie Lynskey (she was robbed by the Emmys that year!) and Best Director for the Pilot. And This Is Us finally got the recognition it never got from the Emmys when it took Best Broadcast Drama and Best Writing for ‘The Train’. The producers admitted they’d gotten use to never winning one of these kinds of awards so that was nice.

Comedy was just as rewarding as Quinta Brunson was the belle of the ball: taking no less than three prizes for Abbott Elementary and somehow getting more modest with each one. Barry took three prizes, and Bill Hader accepted his Best Actor Prize virtually while Henry Winkler was there. The cast of What We Do In the Shadows seemed surprised when they took the Best Comedy award. Most of the winners for The White Lotus were absent, but that’s to be expected: Mike White and Jennifer Coolidge were no doubt busy filming Season 2 and we all know Murray Bartlett was busy that year. I was grateful Sarah Paulson was there to take her Best Actress prize for her work on the unappreciated Impeachment installment of American Crime Story.

Streaming had more absentees. Almost none of the winners for Severance were present, but the writers and producers were there to make up for it. Lee Jung-Jae was not there to pick up his prize for Squid Game, nor was Sadie Sink in her upset win for Stranger Things. Martin Short and Selena Gomez were not there in person to accept their surprising wins for Only Murders in the Building, but both did accept virtually. Lucia Aniello was there to pick up both her wins for Hacks the first writing and directing prizes given for Comedy. Brett Goldstein was there to take his second straight supporting Actor prize for Ted Lasso and he was just as obscene in person as he’d been the last year. Amanda Seyfried accepting virtually for The Dropout as did Kaitlyn Dever for Dopesick. The rest of the cast and crew were there and Danny Strong had the high point of the night when he gave a call to arms arguing that government should try the Sackler family on federal charges.

All of this is to say my expectations were just as high going into last night as to what to expect. I did not expect to be frustrated in finding it the first place, disappointed as to what actually happened, and finally get so aggravated with the proceedings I stop watching it in the middle of the live stream and just deal with the winners.

There are, in hindsight, two separate elements that are to blame. One maybe the fact that the HCA went through some kind of controversy last summer that I was never able to learn the details of. All I know for sure is that by August they had rebranded themselves as the Hollywood Creative Alliance and now called their awards the ASTRA’s.

The other element is not a shock: the same labor stoppage that led to the postponement of the Emmys until January 15^th caused an indefinite postponement of the Astra’s which were scheduled to take place in August. However when the strike was finally resolved in October, the new leadership completely shot itself in the foot.

It would have been logical to air the awards show in November or December. Instead, they chose to air it January 8^th, the day after the Golden Globes. Considering that the lion’s share of the nominees were no doubt still recovering from the Globes and probably wouldn’t have been willing to dress up for an awards show on YouTube, it’s understandable they didn’t show it up. However, this should have been foreseeable to anyone in charge of the awards show when they did so.

Having committed a major sin, the Astra’s compounded it by deciding to give all its awards on the same night. Even the host admitted this was going to be a big problem going in. It would have made sense to at least try to do a virtual hookup that had been de rigeur during the pandemic years and something that had not been an issue for the HCA the last two years. I don’t think this occurred to anybody.

So the Astra’s were essentially broadcasting an awards show where practically nobody was there to accept the awards. This was bad enough, but the piece de resistance came late in the evening when in the midst of presenting a series of acting awards, either the presenters or the ASTRA’s kept screwing up which envelopes they were handing out to the presenters. Things eventually got so messy it made the mess that happened after the Oscars accidentally gave the Best Picture prize to La La Land seem tame by comparison. The only blessing is I’m relatively sure it didn’t have anywhere near the audience, and of course, most of the winners weren’t there to be humiliated in the first place.

It's hard not to see the entire experience as how not to do an awards show: it’s make Jo Koi’s work on The Golden Globes look like the model of professionalism and dignity by comparison.  I’m hoping that ASTRA takes this as a learning experience and when they give the awards in 2024, at the very least, try to give them a month before the Emmys or sometime before the awards shows in January. If they were trying to restore their reputation, this absolutely was the kind of thing that could have destroyed it. I don’t think it will because again, I doubt most people are aware of this awards show in the first place, much less the scandals surrounding it.

The irony is that for all of the mess that led to the disastrous awards, the actual winners reflected the good sense and eclectic nature that I had already come to expect under the old guard. I question the judgment of the decision as to the ceremony, but I don’t have any real problems with most of the awards that were given and I’m sincere. Because this was a different kind of awards show, I’m going to deal with the winners and how it might have an effect on the Emmys going forward – at least I hope so.

There’s no surprise that Abbott Elementary was the dominant force in Comedy, it took four prizes, including Best Broadcast Comedy, Best Actress for Quinta Brunson (her second consecutive win) Tyler James Williams for Best Supporting Actor, and Ayo Edebiri as Best Guest Actress. Just as Brunson was the belle of the ball in 2022, Edebiri was in 2024. In addition to much expected prize she got for The Bear for Best Supporting Actress in a Streaming Comedy (I’ll get back to that) she was also a co-winner for her Best Comedy Writing for What We Do In The Shadows. The ASTRA’s, even more than the Golden Globe last night, has put Edebiri on the map.

The other acting awards in comedy were a pleasant surprise: Utkarsh Ambedkar and Danielle Pinnock for Ghosts. Neither were nominated for Emmys this year, but their wins do demonstrate that the broadcast comedy series has a lot of life in it yet. And cable comedy did surprise as it went to the much beloved revival of Party Down. Even better, the producers were there to accept their awards and were delightful, hoping that they wouldn’t take it away before they gave their acceptance speech. Considering that it was the most nominated comedy series of the HCA and how much it is beloved by many,  this is another triumph for how critics sometimes get things write.

Streaming Comedy offered some surprises. As expected, Jeremy Allan White and Ayo Edebiri won for The Bear and it took the Best Director prize. But in a major shock, Best Streaming Comedy went to Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Rachel Brosnahan took the Best Actress prize. I didn’t object because Alex Borstein and Marin Hinkle were there, and both of their speeches were both humorous and self-deprecating. In accepting Best Actress, Borstein said she purposely weighed sixty pounds heavier than Brosnahan – “it’s the Lucy-Ethel rule” and Marin Hinkle said: “We have a rule on set that no one is allowed to go after Alex Borstein.” Hinkle gave a wonderful speech (I really wish she could have gotten a chance to give one for herself) and both of them went out of their way to praise the wondrous Amy Sherman-Palladino and the trail she’d blazed. I don’t think this will change how any awards show play out, but I’m glad the Astra’s recognized Maisel before it left.

I was also thrilled by the Supporting awards. Christina Ricci co-won Best Supporting Actress with Edebiri for her work on Wednesday, which she was robbed of a nomination for and I was hoping she take a prize tonight. I was also glad to see James Marsden prevail for his work on Jury Duty. Marsden and Williams have now likely moved up into the top contenders for Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy.

Now let’s move to Drama. Will Trent’s triumph was expected by me and I’m glad it happened. I actually think it will win more nominations and awards in the future. Succession did dominate the drama awards, taking Best Cable Drama, Sarah Snook and Matthew MacFayden duplicated their wins at the Golden Globes and Best Writing and Directing going to Connor’s Wedding. However, Best Actor in a Drama did not go to either Culkin as was expected or Bob Odenkirk. Instead it went to Pedro Pascal for The Last of Us. It’s clear there’s some momentum for The Last of Us; it dominated the Creative Arts Emmys this weekend (I’ll get to that in a future article) and there’s clearly a fair amount of love for it here. Nick Offerman did take the Best Guest Actor prize and it won two other technical awards. Could momentum be shifting towards the apocalypse?

And in the Jennifer Coolidge/Rhea Seehorn showdown for Best Supporting Actress the momentum, which was on Coolidge’s side for four months seems to be shifting to Seehorn. She took her second Best Supporting Actress prize in a Cable Drama. Indeed The White Lotus was skunked by the HCA (though to be fair, so were Yellowjackets and House of The Dragon). Perhaps the Critics are indicating that The White Lotus doesn’t fit that well in the drama category.

Streaming Drama was a huge shock. The winner for Best Drama – indeed the biggest winner of the night – was The Boys which took six awards, one more than Succession. Since The Boys was mostly ignored by the Emmys this year, this is more of a sign of the independent streak of the Astra, which I approve of. It would have been easy to give the grand prize to The Crown or The Diplomat; they didn’t. Indeed, there was a solid sci-fi bend to the Astra’s than many might approve of Star Trek: Picard was a big winner last night, taking Best Writing in a Streaming Drama and Jeri Ryan, co-winning Best Supporting Actress. The Boys took Best Streaming Drama, Directing and both male acting awards and I have to say on a personal level, I’m glad to see Jensen Ackles win something. Erik Kripke was also given an award for Icon, which he was modest about. It also says something that almost everybody connected with The Boys was present and shocked that the show did so well. That’s actually nice about most awards show.

However while none of these awards will have any effect on the Emmys, the female awards might. Keri Russell took Best Actress for The Diplomat and Elizabeth Debicki took her second Supporting Actress prize on consecutive nights. Debicki and Seehorn might well be coming for Coolidge. MacFayden and Snook still seem secure. Pascal can not be counted out now for Best Actor (he also took the Best Guest Actor in a Comedy for SNL)

Moving to Limited Series. For Broadcast/Cable the big winner was A Small Light which took three prizes, including Best Supporting Actor for Liev Schreiber. Michael Shannon and Jessica Chastain as I predicted won for George & Tammy, although Shannon had to share with Alexander Skarsgard for Documentary Now which surprisingly took Best Writing. I expect Hannah Waddingham’s win for Tom Jones was because no one could decide which woman in White House Plumbers to honor, which is fair.

There were fewer surprises in streaming. Beef took Best Limited Series, Direction and Best Actress for Ali Wong. Steven Yeun lost Best Actor to Evan Peters for Dahmer which isn’t entirely surprising: I thought it would come down to one or the other. The Supporting Acting awards were no shockers: Paul Walter Hauser and Niecy Nash-Betts are on their way to Emmys next week. Weird won Best TV Movie, though I was delighted that Weird Al seemed shocked when he actually won Best Writing. “This is supposed to be a parody of movies that win awards, not a movie that actually wins awards” he said in his acceptance speech.

The lion’s share of the technical awards were not given but there were some that I’m glad about. Jeopardy Masters did win Best Game Show; Black Lady Sketch Show did win Best Sketch Comedy show and casting went to some inspired choices. It would have been easy for Best Comedy to go to Abbott Elementary or The Bear; instead it went to Ghosts. It would have been easy to give it for Best Drama to Succession or The White Lotus; instead it went to The Boys. And it would have been easing to give it in Best Limited Series to give it to Dahmer or Beef; instead it went to Weird.

So yes, the Astra Awards ceremony was a mess from start to finish. The actual awards, much like the Golden Globes choices, were either good or often inspired. Sometimes you wish that those who judge awards show would actually pay attention to the caliber of the awards given and not the ceremony. We know going in that every awards show we watch will be long, self-important, messy and ridiculous. I’ve been watching them for thirty years and I can count on one hand the number of major awards shows that have this nature. Seriously if you’re watching the Oscars or the Emmys for humility or entertainment, I truly question your judgment. And when it comes to the caliber of the awards given, I admit looking for the correct recipient almost never happens. But the lesser awards shows like these will give you satisfaction that they are getting things right.

Tomorrow I’ll start on the Critics Choice Awards predictions for TV. Hmm. I just realized it airs the night before the Emmys. There could be some notable absentees their too. Oh well.