Back to the Island Emmys Edition: How Did The Emmys Do By Lost? One Critic (and Fan's) Opinion

 

 

When Lost debuted in September of 2004 the Golden Age of TV was in full bloom. When it left the airwaves in May of 2010 it was well into its second, equally brilliant phase.

When the series began HBO was essentially still the Big Dog with The Sopranos, Six Feet Under and Deadwood regularly making visits while The West Wing was in its final two Sorkin-less seasons and 24 was still at its peak. With each new season it seemed both new networks and new dramas were coming out to prove that they wanted to enter the world of Peak TV, most prominently AMC but also Showtime, FX and the networks were still putting their best foot forward with such standouts as Friday Night Lights, House and The Good Wife.  I saw the majority of those shows when they were airing and I've seen quite a few of them since multiple times and they are everything we say they are and more.

During this same period I took the Emmys more personally then I do now. Much of this was due to the fact I was in my twenties and far more in the fan stage of my TV viewing then the critic I am today. I'm not saying I took the Emmys as the be all and end all of great TV – their attitude to shows such as Homicide and Buffy The Vampire Slayer had made it very clear to me where their blind spots were even then -  but I did rise and fall with the nominations and winners more than I do today. (And by today I basically mean within the last six or seven years at the earliest.)

It's only now I realize just how hard it must have been for the Emmy voters to make the decisions they did for nominating so many of these dramas, much less picking winners. More to the point until the mid-2000s the Emmy judges had tied at least one hand behind their backs because the nomination list in every category was capped at five no matter how good every performance or show was. They wouldn't begin to expand the nominees in every category for good until the end of the 2000s and they've still been toying with the rules every few years, never quite settling on a formula that makes everyone happy. (They never will, of course, but I respect the Academy for trying.)

As I wrote in a previous article Lost did incredibly well under these circumstances receiving 53 nominations and 12 awards over its six seasons. And while I'm not the kind of person who Monday morning quarterbacks any awards show I have wondered if there had the rules of today or other factors is it possible the Emmys would have done better by Lost? Or with hindsight are there nominees in major categories that look bad for the Emmys and that nominees from Lost would have made better?

At this point being an authority not just on the Emmys but having seen most of the nominees and winners during this period I think I can make some speculation. So what this article will due will look at the Emmys during the period Lost was on their air and argue how right the Emmys did by Lost, whether they could have done better and if so where? I'll try to limit my rulings based solely on that show, but I'll also give context by dealing with the series and actors who were nominated.

 

2005 Season 1 Lost (Nominees capped at five per category

Here obviously I have no notes as Lost deservedly won Best Drama over a strong field: Seasons 4 of 24 and Six Feet Under, Season 6 of The West Wing and Season 2 of Deadwood. 

Now do I slightly bare a grudge that Terry O'Quinn should have won a Best Supporting Actor Emmy for 'Walkabout' instead of William Shatner. Yes but it did work out for O'Quinn. The show deservedly won Best Director  for its groundbreaking 'Pilot' still considered one of the greatest episodes in TV history. It was nominated for its Pilot and Walkabout but lost to House but I'll be honest that year it should have gone to The Wire for Middle Ground (R.I.P Stringer Bell).

That said I do think the Emmys made a bad judgment by nominating and giving Best Supporting Actress to Blythe Danner for Showtime's Huff.  Had they expanded it to six nominees and they'd been willing to give a nomination to Lost I would have nominated Evangeline Lilly. I wouldn't have given her the prize: that should have gone to CCH Pounder for The Shield but Lilly was ignored by the actors branch for too long. Still they got it right by Lost.

 

2006: Lost Season 2  (Nominees capped at 5 PER category)

Twenty years later I'm still scratching my head about almost everything the Emmys did this year. The Shield was completely skunked in every category, especially Forest Whitaker for Best Supporting Actor.  They gave The West Wing too many nominations for its final season and not enough for Six Feet Under which was nominated for many major acting awards but not Best Drama. House was nominated for Best Drama; Hugh Laurie wasn't nominated. Grey's Anatomy got more writing nominations then The Sopranos.

The only reason I've never bitched is despite all of these mistakes the Emmys got it right when they gave Best Drama to 24 for its fifth season, not just its finest hour but one of the greatest seasons any show has had in television history.  I'm actually glad in hindsight Lost wasn't nominated for Best Drama because then I would have to root for one against the other and I didn't want to have too.

That being said having seen all of the seasons of the nominated shows Lost was as good as the final season of The West Wing and the second season of Grey's Anatomy and superior to Season 2 of House.  (I can't be objective about The Sopranos so I won't talk.)  Lost did receive nine nominations and three of them were pretty big deals: 'The 23 Psalm was nominated for Best Teleplay and 'Live Together, Die Alone' was nominated for Best Director and Henry Ian Cusick received a nomination for Best Guest Actor in a Drama.

I do believe that the nominations for Oliver Platt and Blythe Danner for Huff were still the wrong call. The following year the acting nominations would be extended to six and if I had by choice for which two actors I would have nominated in those categories I would have selected Michelle Rodriguez for Best Supporting Actress and Terry O'Quinn for Best Supporting Actor. Both gave the standout performances of Season 2 in my opinion.

 

2007 Lost Season 3 (Nominees capped at 5 for Drama; six for supporting actor for Drama that year)

 

How much you think Lost deserved to be nominated that year depends on your opinion of Season 3 overall. It's clear the first half did much to the erode many of the fandom's faith. That being said having seen all of the nominated shows (save Heroes) I think Season 3 was equal to those of House and Grey's Anatomy and slightly better than Boston Legal. That the latter two were ABC dramas and Lost was as well might have been a factor: perhaps the Emmys didn't want one network to dominate the nominations.

Otherwise the Emmys did pretty well by Lost nominating the iconic 'Through the Looking Glass' for teleplay and directing and giving nominations for Supporting Actor to Michael Emerson and Terry O'Quinn, with the latter deservedly winning the Emmy for it. That said I'm still irritated that Elizabeth Mitchell, who made Season 3 shine as Juliet wasn't nominated even though three actress from Grey's Anatomy and Rachel Griffiths for Brothers & Sisters were. I liked Griffiths and Brothers and Sisters but Mitchell deserved it over her no question.

 

2008 Season 4: drama and comedy at six, acting at five

Jack shouts "We have to go back!" at the end of Season 3. And the Emmy judges listened and nominated Lost for Best Drama.  I'm not sure which feat is more remarkable: even in 2008 'the rules' were that if you fell off the list of Emmy nominees for any reason you weren't invited back. I'd seen it play out for The X-Files, Law & Order and 24. And yet for some reason I can't fathom, after a two-year absence, Lost was nominated for Best Drama and stayed there until the end of its run.

The Emmys were right to nominate alongside the breathtaking first seasons of Mad Men and Damages as well as Season 2 of Dexter. Boston Legal and House were there; we hadn't yet realized how great a drama Breaking Bad was. They nominated Michael Emerson for Best Supporting Actor.

And yet for the only time its run it was ignored for directing or writing.  To be clear they screwed the pooch by not nominated the landmark episode 'The Constant' for writing or directing – though to be fair those nominations were still capped at 5. I've seen all the episodes that were nominated and trust me 'There's No Place Like Home' or 'The Constant absolutely should have been nominated for directing over Boston Legal that year. To be fair they nominated the former for editing and the latter for cinematography and musical score and they did give sound mixing to Meet Kevin Johnson.

I'd also have given a nomination for Best Supporting Actress to Yunjun Kim for her outstanding work in the Season finale. I saw four of the five performances all of which were from other ABC dramas and trust me Kim's in that episode is her best in an incredible run. From the moment she spots Jin on the freighter and starts screaming for them to go back to her hysterical scream of anguish when it explodes to the way she just goes dead in the final half-hour is an astonishing work of acting by anyone.

 

2009 Season 5 (all nominees for drama and acting at 6)

Lost received 5 nominations and I really don't have any notes. Sure it is one of the greatest seasons in TV history by the estimate of some (the argument is made in Back to the Island) But the same could be said for Seasons 2 of Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Season 3 of Dexter and Big Love (nominated for the first and only time). They nominated 'The Incident' for Best Teleplay, the only nominee that wasn’t one from Mad Men. Michael Emerson won his only Emmy for Lost against a field that included previous winners William Shatner and Christian Clemenson for Boston Legal, Aaron Paul, who'd win three other times for Breaking Bad and William Hurt for his incredible work in Season 2 of Damages.

Now I do think Matthew Fox should have been nominated for Best Actor in a Drama ahead of Simon Baker for The Mentalist but honestly I'd have put Kiefer Sutherland in 24 ahead of both of them. I do think Elizabeth Mitchell should have put in ahead of Sandra Oh and Chandra Wilson for Grey's Anatomy: Season 5 was where the wheels came off the bus creatively. (The Emmys agreed; the show has never been nominated for any major awards in all the years since.)

 

2010 Season 6 (all nominees in drama and acting at six)

No notes. I'm serious. The Emmys nominated the final season of Lost for 12 Emmys the most since its first season. That's remarkable in itself before you consider just how well the Emmys absolutely did across the board in this category.

In Drama its up against Breaking Bad, Mad Men and Dexter all at the height of their powers. The Good Wife was nominated for Best Drama. True Blood…well nobody's perfect.

Matthew Fox nominated for Best Actor against Bryan Cranston, Kyle Chandler, Michael C. Hall, Jon Hamm and Hugh Laurie. How lucky he must have felt.

Terry O'Quinn and Michael Emerson up against John Slattery for Mad Men, Andre Braugher for Men of A Certain Age, and Martin Short for Damages. Aaron Paul must have felt like he had no chance before he won his first Emmy.

The series finale was nominated for directing and writing which it deserved to be. (If you're going to nominate Made in America for The Sopranos the Emmys could handle a controversial series finale.) Elizabeth Mitchell finally got nominated for her work as Best Guest Actress in a Drama.

To be clear I don't think there's a single note I have (with perhaps the exception of True Blood) for any of the nominees in drama or comedy  anywhere  either at the time or in hindsight. That was maybe the first year I was covering the Emmys where I could say that with honesty. So to argue that Nestor Carbonell deserved a nomination for Ab Aeterno or the rest of the cast is the definition of petty. The Emmys got it right and that applies to Lost in its final season.

 

I should mention all of these choices for acting nominees are my personal preference before I get the inevitable backlash from Losties. I could have made arguments for any of these seasons for Josh Holloway or Jorge Garcia, later ones for Jeremy Davies and Emilie De Ravin (her work in Season 6 was a revelation) and really the entire cast.

The thing is I keep coming to the same question: Where would I put them? If you've seen any of the series I've listed among the nominees and winners during this epic period of excellent television you know that some of the greatest performance in lead and supporting were competing every year. Just because the Emmys was, in hindsight, correct 85 to 90 percent of the time with its track record in nominees doesn't mean that there weren't a lot of creative forces who kept ending up on the short end during this period. It's the inevitable record of any awards show that some of your favorites will be left out every year; the voters must have been in agony every time they chose some and left 'others' out.

So at least when it came to one of my favorite shows of all time the Emmys was right more often then not. I can't say that with a lot of other shows…but as my readers know I'll be dealing with those issues very soon.