Before I tried to predict the Emmys I
tried to predict the Oscars, though strictly speaking that was a far more
detached method than I ever did the Emmys, mainly because I've never cared as
much about the latter as the former.
The main reason I began to consider it
was because I was watching the Golden Globes and the SAG Awards to see how they
would correspond with the Academy Awards within a few months and since both
film and television were always covered, I tended to note both. When I began my
professional career (from this point forward I'm going to say in 2016 which is
when I began writing at Medium) I was basically using three major awards show
as my standard going forward: The Golden Globes, The Critics Choice Awards (which
gave their first TV Awards in 2011) and the SAG Awards.
As you know I've used many other
awards shows going forward as part of my Emmy Watch series in recent years but
the first three have been the most significant. However there's always been a
bug in them, compared to the Oscars. The end of year award shows cover the
calendar year just past while the Emmys cover June 1st to the
following May 31st. For that reason in recent years some have
wondered if it made sense for the Emmys to move its own awards to the start of
the calendar year as well.
I've had personal objections to this
over the years but the most pertinent one would be I've never been entirely
sure if it would have much of an effect on the shows that have been nominated
and the awards they have given. As I've written numerous times the Emmys has
always been a very restrictive club where once you get nominated, it's
enough to get you nominated over and
over no matter how much the quality of your show or performance changes over time.
There have been some changes to this over the years to be sure but that's as
much the pattern today as it was in 2000. The only reason it has begun to
change so much in recent years have been factors that often have little to do
the nominations but the industry (the pandemic and work stoppages being the
most obvious ones). Even then it usually doesn't make much of a difference.
We see this in practice this very
year. The general consensus was that Season 3 of The Bear was drastically
inferior in quality to Season 2 but despite that it was still nominated for
Outstanding Comedy and all four leads from 2024 were nominated this year. The
fact that there were fewer overall nominations doesn't change the basic fact
that the Emmys were still determined to honor it no matter what. To a lesser
extent we saw this play out with the second season of The Last of Us. This
pattern played out most notably with the final season of Game of Thrones which
set a record for most Emmy nominations for a drama even though critics and fans
by and large hated the final season. There are exceptions – Squid Game was
completely shutout this year after being a phenomena in its first season – but that
is generally the tule.
That's also the reason I tend to prefer
the other awards shows nominees and winners most of the time, mainly
because for whatever reason they've never felt bound by the same old habits of
the Emmys voters. That doesn't mean I haven't learned certain things that each
awards show will do that the Emmys just won't.
I'm fully aware of the controversy the
Hollywood Foreign Press has been involved in during the last few years that
basically led to them being forced to give up the Golden Globes two years ago.
Regardless of that my opinion is that when the Golden Age of Television was at
its peak during the last twenty five years the Golden Globes was ahead of the
curve on the best television far more than the Emmys was during this same
period.
This was particularly true in drama
where it gave the grand prize to shows the Emmys never honored such as Six
Feet Under, The Shield and Boardwalk Empire as well as paying
tribute to actors and actress who never got their due in the Emmys for
their iconic roles. In the 2000s Hugh Laurie won twice for House, Ian McShane
won for Deadwood and Michael C. Hall won for Dexter. Even given
the high caliber of roles for actors during this period I was never thrilled that
they were never honored. In the 2010s Steve Buscemi would win for Boardwalk
Empire and Kevin Spacey would win for House of Cards. Their record
for actresses was less spectacular but they honor Rachel Griffiths for Six
Feet Under and Robin Wright for House of Cards as well. They also
recognized performances the Emmys never saw fit to even nominate: Chloe Sevigny
for Big Love in 2010, Katey Segal for Sons of Anarchy in 2011 and
Jeremy Irons for The Borgias in 2012.
Their record in Comedy/Musical was even
better overall, giving prizes to Desperate Housewives, Ugly Betty and Glee
(twice). And during the same period Julia Louis-Dreyfus was winning six consecutive
Emmys for Veep they never honored her once but instead honored such
luminaries as Amy Poehler for Parks & Rec and Tracee Ellis Ross for black-ish.
And showing a spirit of inclusion the Emmys never did they gave Gina
Rodriguez a trophy for Jane The Virgin and the follower year honored
Rachel Bloom for Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.
This spirit has always been present in
the shows they nominate as well. Where the Emmys was unwilling to let Showtime
win the grand prize until 2012 for Homeland (and that was the only one)
the Golden Globes was far friendlier. Weeds took outstanding Comedy
Series in 2006 and Homeland won back-to-back prizes for Best Drama in
2012 and 2013. It also gave The Affair the Best Drama prize in 2014 (the
Emmys would never even nominate it for the top prize.) The Golden Globes would
also let no less than ten different actors take prizes over the first two
decades of the century: Mary Louise-Parker for Weeds and then three
consecutive Golden Globes for leads in Best Comedy Series; Toni Collette in United
States of Tara in 2009; Edie Falco for Nurse Jackie in 2010 and
Laura Linney for The Big C in 2011. Don Cheadle won for House of Lies
in 2013 (I didn't say they were all good choices) and Matt Leblanc won for Episodes
in 2012. They were also generous in drama; in addition to Michael C. Hall
and Irons, they would recognize Claire Danes twice for Homeland, Damian
Lewis for the same show; John Lithgow for Dexter in 2010; Jon Voight for
Ray Donovan in 2014 and Ruth Wilson for The Affair in 2015. The
Emmys would recognize some of these but a lot of these shows and actors never
won and in some case were never nominated.
By the time I started covering these
awards shows professionally the Golden Globes had spent a lot of time giving me
false hope that shows and actors I loved would win or being nominated and then
year after year the Emmys would either not nominate the shows or if they did, still
give the awards to the same actors. This didn't mean the Globes didn't have blind
spots (they didn't nominate Breaking Bad or Bryan Cranston until the
fifth season of the show) but it was incredibly frustrating, nevertheless. This
pattern hasn't quite continued over the last decade but it has been known to
happen quite a bit. The biggest sign the Globes were ahead of the curve in
recent years came when in 2019 they gave the Best Drama prize to the final
seasons of The Americans and ignored Game of Thrones entirely.
(During its entire run on television Game of Thrones never won the Best
Drama prize once and I'm still totally fine with that.)
My biggest problem and the one the
Golden Globes need to correct has been that all of the supporting actor and
actress awards cover Drama, Comedy, Limited Series and TV Movie. Until very recently
(basically the last five years) that essentially meant the Supporting Acting
Awards would always be won by performers in either TV movies or Limited Series.
I never objected to the winners; merely the standards of who they were
competing against. It seemed like under the last year the HFPA was in charge
they were adapting: the supporting actor and actress awards were divided
between drama/comedy and limited series/tv movie for the first time. But in
2024 they were back to the old standard. I do hope they change.
By and large the Golden Globes have in
recent years either been a predictor of the Emmys to come (as they did for
Season 2 of Succession and Season 4 of The Crown) or honoring the
big winners of the previous year. The latter was in play this past January when
Shogun was the big winner for drama, Hacks the big winner for
Comedy, and Baby Reindeer the big winner for Limited Series. And while
many of the nominated shows and actors were recognized by the Emmys, quite a
few did fall by the wayside. Most notably was Day of the Jackal which
was nominated for Best Drama and Best Actor for Eddie Redmayne but was ignored in
both categories.
That said it did have a track record
with many of the major nominees in drama and comedy. It accurately predicted The Diplomat and Slow Horses would be
here, all five of the nominees that had current seasons for Best Comedy were
included by the Emmys and they did manage to get two of the nominees for Best
Limited Series down. (I really thought Disclaimer would be one of the
bigger nominees)
Moving on to the Critics Choice
nominations they've been around the shortest time of all the major awards show
but have been my favorite because they've historically been the most eclectic
and rewarding. For the first five years of their existence they actually aired
in the summer but then shifted to the winter in 2015 to pair up with the awards
they gave for film.) They continued to be a favorite because of their history
of ties which sadly have abated in recent years.
Historically they still march to their
own drummer when it comes to nominations with certain series and actors always
being able to get more love then others. (Walton Goggins was nominated for five
different shows before the current season of The White Lotus.) Nor
have they changed that much since moving to the end of the year; among their nominees
and winners have been The Americans and Better Call Saul for Best
Drama; Abbott Elementary for Best Comedy and when it comes to Best
Limited Series they will frequently march to their own drummer. (They did not
nominated The White Lotus in that category even though they gave the
supporting actor and actress prizes to that show.) They've also been far more
generous in their acting awards: Bob Odenkirk took three Best Actor
prizes from them for Better Call Saul; they honored Millie Bobby Brown
for Stranger Things and were the only awards group to honor Andrew Scott
for Fleabag and they'd given Jean Smart two acting prizes before she
starred in Hacks. (One for Season 2 for Fargo; one for Watchmen.)
They've made some mistakes over the
years to be sure: they nominated Watchmen as a drama series rather than
a limited series and this year Liev' Schreiber's win for The Perfect Couple in
Best Limited Series was completely out of left field. But I still give them
credit for recognizing the series and actors that might very well fall under
the radar and often being ahead of the curve. They were, after all, the first
group to give Cristin Milioti the Best Actress prize for her work in The
Penguin this year. And they rarely let controversy get in the way of
nominating the best shows: The English Teacher received a nomination for
Outstanding Comedy Series even after the controversy around Brian Jordan Alvarez.
They've often been more ahead the
curve then even other awards show. This was true last year when Matthew
MacFayden, having already won the Emmy and the Golden Globe for his work in Succession
was widely expected to take the Critics Choice Award for Best Supporting
Actor in a Drama. Instead it went to Billy Crudup for The Morning Show, the
second won he had won from then in four seasons. It was an augur: last September
he took his second Emmy. One sees a similar pattern in some of the awards they
gave this January. Kathy Bates upset Anna Sawai for her work in Matlock and
she is without doubt the frontrunner for Best Actress this year.
The Screen Actors Guild Awards have
always been harder to consider for reasons I've made clear repeatedly: there's
no differentiation between leads and supporting in the six major categories for
acting. Furthermore for much of the last twenty years it's been locked in the
same patterns as the Emmys have been, honoring the same actors and shows year
after year. Alec Baldwin won five consecutive Outstanding Actor in a Comedy
awards for 30 Rock, Modern Family won four consecutive Outstanding
Comedy Awards, Orange is the New Black won three straight …okay that's
not the worst example.
But in the last few years there have been
some signs that the SAG awards is capable of surprising. Sometimes it's not
always pleasant – I remember in 2020 when Marvelous Mrs. Maisel won the
prize for Best Comedic Ensemble they seemed very reluctant to accept, believing
Fleabag should have won. (It should have.) But it is willing to at least
allow room for variety even within the limited structure of these awards. This
was demonstrated particularly during the third and fourth season of Succession.
Both times the show was expected to sweep all three categories and each
time it 'only' won Best Dramatic Ensemble. In 2022 Lee Jung-Jae and Hoye-On won
Outstanding Actor and Actress for Squid Game; in 2024, Pedro Pascal won
for The Last of Us and Elizabeth Debicki won for The Crown. In
the latter case the winners were dumbstruck; Pascal was drunk and Debicki was
barefoot. This past September we got an even bigger shock when Hacks lost
Best Comedy ensemble to Only Murders in the Building. Even Selena Gomez was
stunned: "But we never win anything."
I still think it is incumbent on the
SAG awards to have Supporting Male and Female Actor for all television categories.
It actually astonishes me that they don't, considering they do for film. I don't know why Julia
Garner had to compete against Laura Linney in Ozark or Tony Shalhoub had
to win Best Male Actor in a Comedy where
he was clearly supporting in Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. This is a show about
actors after all; you'd think they'd want to honor more of them.
And if there's one thing I know about
all three of these awards shows is that they seem to have a way of recognizing
the cream and what is superficial. The best example came during the end-of-year
awards for 2019 when even though Euphoria had debuted the previous summer
not one of the end of year awards shows recognized it or Zendaya for any awards
at all. That's in large part why Zendaya's nomination for Best Lead Actress in
2020 – and her subsequent win – struck me as so shocking. The show had debuted
the previous summer where it should have gotten more recognition by the end-of-year
awards shows and to a group, they ignored it. As you know my feeling about that
series, I don't have to tell you that gave me a reason to like them all.
Furthermore Season 2, while it was met
with vast approval by the Emmys and so many other smaller award groups, the
majority of the other shows were left unimpressed. To be sure Zendaya did win
the Best Actress in a Drama from the Golden Globes and the Critics Choice
Awards in 2023, but it received no other nominations from the former and was only
nominated for Best Drama by the latter. The SAG awards did nominate Zendaya for
Outstanding Actress in a Drama in 2023 but she lost to Jennifer Coolidge for The
White Lotus.
It is the Emmys recognition of Euphoria
that perhaps demonstrates the difference between that group and all the
other awards shows I follow: they have never been inclined to follow HBO dramas
the same way the Emmys always will. So much of the era of Peak TV has been
centered on the dominance of HBO. And the majority of these awards shows will
recognize HBO but have room for other
networks. It's not just Showtime ; it's that they've been willing to recognize network
television in drama and comedy where the Emmys has essentially been shutting
them out for much of the last decade (particularly with the CW); but they're
willing to recognize cable networks such as Starz and even Lifetime and
Sundance (when they were showing original programming) Even with the Emmys overwhelming
recognition of streaming, these other awards shows have been willing to
recognize Peacock in a way the Emmys refuses too. They've been willing to nominate not just Day
of the Jackal, but Poker Face and Mrs. Davis in a way the
Emmys has refused to acknowledge.
Perhaps that's the real reason I don't
think the Emmys shouldn't be moved to January rather than September. The Emmys
has been making great strides to becoming more relevant over the last five or
six years in particular but that wouldn't matter if it couldn't break its
habits of recognizes the same networks and services over and over. If the Emmys
is going to keep saying that dramas like Euphoria and Ozark deserve awards instead of Will Trent and
Cruel Summer and does the
same for comedies like Silicon Valley and Girls instead of Cougar
Town and Ghosts and that limited
series like Gaslit will not get nominated and Pam & Tommy will,
changing where it airs won't make it more viewable. Other awards shows may have
less respect than the Emmys but they cast a bigger net and that's always going
to give them an edge in my book, even if it makes my job predicting the Emmys
harder. And trust me, it has.
Now we've dealt with what I've tried
to use as precursors to the Emmys. In the next article I will, as previously
promised, look at Gold Derby and see how they try to predict it.
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