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2014 Emmy Nominations. (1 Viewer)

mattCR

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No support for Maslaney. The Good Wife gets no series nomination William H Macy gets a deserved nomination.
 

Quentin

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I'm not much a fan of the Emmy's. Don't watch the show either.

One of the chief pre-requisites to getting a nomination seems to be previously winning/nominated (I know, it is illogical).

But, yeah, Maslany snubbed again and no love for Hannibal or The Americans - two shows I thought had two of the best seasons of many a show in a long time. Meh.
 

TravisR

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Good: The Best Actor in a Drama category should be a 6 way tie because they're all awesome. Since it's a show and performance that deserves a wider audience, I'm glad that Lizzy Caplan got a nomination for Masters Of Sex.

Sorta good: With the notable exceptions (Tatina Maslany is taking the best actors to acting school and the cast of The Killing especially Peter Sarsgaard were great), most of the acting nominees are actually pretty good.

Griping: What's with all the shows cheating categories to get a nomination? Not to knock these shows (by and large, I enjoy them) but Netflix shows aren't TV shows so they shouldn't be nominated for Emmys, I wouldn't consider American Horror Story to be a mini-series and Treme definitely isn't a mini-series.

I'm surprised by how well Downton Abbey did considering the backlash that the show got this year.

The Americans, The Killing and Masters Of Sex all got boned by lesser or unqualified series.
 

Malcolm R

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Since Breaking Bad had its final season, it'll win most everything it's nominated for. Other nominees in those categories may as well concede now.

Netflix series are just as legitimate as anything on HBO or any other subscription/pay service.
 

TravisR

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Scott Hanson said:
They're not?
I talked about it in the Orphan Black thread but since they don't air on a network or run on a cable channel, they're not TV series. That certainly doesn't mean that they're bad (if House Of Cards was on TV, I'd have no problem with its nomination) but they're web series.
 

ScottH

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TravisR said:
I talked about it in the Orphan Black thread but since they don't air on a network or run on a cable channel, they're not TV series. That certainly doesn't mean that they're bad (if House Of Cards was on TV, I'd have no problem with its nomination) but they're web series.
Yeah I don't know about that. I see your point, but in this day and age I don't think you should differentiate that. Eventually everything will be "web series". For what it's worth, none of the official nomination categories indicate "television". And even the emmy.com site defines the awards as "The Emmy Awards recognize excellence within various areas of television and emerging media."
 

mattCR

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The only ones that bother me that way are shows that by American definition are clearly miniseries that get into the main categories. All that aside, very glad for Masters of Sex, but Downton Abbey was outright awful this last year and deserved nothing.
 

Matt Hough

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I thought Downton Abbey was quite good and had no problem with its nomination. I thought it had a better season that Mad Men which was the nomination that angered me. The Good Wife should have been in that slot.

I also feel bad for series actors who get crowded out of the acting categories by cable performers in shows that don't require nearly the same level of time commitment. Cases in point: James Spader and Jonny Lee Miller in their respective shows which film 22 episodes and their performances are equal to anything that Hamm or Daniels bring to the table.
 

Adam Lenhardt

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Once again, an Emmy Awards without a Tatiana Maslany nomination is an an Emmy Awards without credibility.I do think it's correct to allow Netflix shows to compete. I watch all of my Netflix programming on my TV, and I would guess that so do most people. Most internet-enabled televisions and Blu-Ray players provide Netflix streaming capability. To me, it doesn't matter which cable brings the content to my television screen.
 

TravisR

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Scott Hanson said:
Yeah I don't know about that. I see your point, but in this day and age I don't think you should differentiate that. Eventually everything will be "web series". For what it's worth, none of the official nomination categories indicate "television". And even the emmy.com site defines the awards as "The Emmy Awards recognize excellence within various areas of television and emerging media."
You make a good point and unlike many groups in the entertainment industry, the Emmys seem to be embracing the future and technology rather than racing to catch up once it's too late but if it was up to me, those shows would be honored in a web awards ceremony. If they were nominated for web awards, think how funny it would be to see Spacey or Wright at an awards show seated next to a guy who is nominated for taking a cell phone video of his cat playing a piano.


mattCR said:
...Downton Abbey was outright awful this last year and deserved nothing.
I feel bad knocking a show that I know many people love but, given its hype and critical praise, I don't think Downton Abbey really slipped this year because I don't think it was ever that great.
 

Josh Steinberg

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Following Travis's point in the Orphan Black thread, I made a couple points in agreeing with him there that I wanted to mention again, maybe write a little better this time. I think I agree with him that Netflix shows, while often high in quality, shouldn't qualify as TV shows. None of what I'm about to say is a knock on Netflix itself or the quality of the shows or anything like that -- just a question of whether or not it's fair to lump them in the same category as traditional TV.

If someone made a full season of a show, and released it straight to Blu-ray with no television airings, would it be eligible for an Emmy? Probably not. That's essentially what happens with Netflix. The way those shows are produced and distributed are so different from what we normally think of as television, that it doesn't seem fair to either Netflix or traditional shows to have them competing against each other. (I also question if it's fair that an eight or ten episode cable show can compete directly with a 22 episode network show. It would seem that eight episodes produced on the same budget as 22 episodes, without any restrictions on content, and the ability to run long or short, gives an unfair advantage when you put them in the same category.)

When a show is on a TV network or cable network, the way the show is created, and how it impacts the audience, can be very different from how a Netflix released-all-at-once show impacts its audience. Audience interaction with a show can be a huge part of the development of that show, and the way a show unspools over time can really affect how an audience relates to it. You lose some of that with the Netflix model, and I think it can be a substantial loss. Some ways that the two models are vastly different are:

- Regular TV shows air over a period of time, so the audience doesn't get it all at once. (Yes, of course, we binge watch on DVD or reruns on Netflix, but the original airing is played out over time.) People eagerly wait from week to week (or chose not to wait). A show gets a moment in the pop culture spotlight that plays out over time, and that spotlight can grow as the show develops. As an example, take something like the final season of Breaking Bad -- it aired on Sunday nights, and on Monday mornings, everyone was talking about it. You could see reviews and recaps of it online and in the newspapers, people at work would be buzzing about it, friends would want to talk about it, and there would be predictions and guesses for what would happen next. Compare that to the premiere of "House Of Cards" season two this year. There was a brief moment of buzz leading up to the premiere and until maybe a week after it debuted, and then it was over. Because it was all released at once, there was no period of sustained cultural involvement. You couldn't really discuss it piece by piece. It was more of a giant movie in multiple parts than an actual TV show, it seems like it was meant to be digested as a whole, not to be watched over time.

- Television shows being made over time has led to shows embracing changes that might not have been apparent in a vacuum. I can think of three kinds of examples of how a show changed because it got to play out over time, because there was audience feedback on a weekly basis, and because the showrunners had more time to react to how their show was playing out than they would have if all episodes were written and directed at the same time. One example is of a show promoting a guest actor to a lead because of audience response, and because they've realized that they like how a certain actor or character is fitting with the show. An example of this is Ben Linus (Michael Emerson) in "Lost" -- the actor was hired to appear in three episodes as a guest star, but the crew and the audience really took to the character, and he developed into a leading role for the remainder of the series. That kind of change can't happen if the entire thing is in the can before it's shown to anyone.

- On the flip side of that, sometimes showrunners realize a character isn't necessary to the plot, or that the actor isn't working out, or some combination of both. When "The West Wing" launched, Moira Kelly played a lead character called "Mandy" and she was (besides Martin Sheen) probably the one of the biggest names on the show at the time. But her character added nothing to the plot, and it was a thankless role for the actress. While everyone else on the show seemed to have clearly designed roles and responsibilities, there was nothing for Mandy to do. Mandy was finally dumped from the show, and no one's ever missed her. Meanwhile, a little role of a supporting character's assistant (Donna, played by Janel Maloney), only a few lines early on, expanded because the showrunners loved both the actress and the chemistry she had with Bradley Whitford (playing Josh Liman). When Moira Kelly was dropped, this allowed for Janel Maloney to be promoted to a series regular, and the show was much better for it. This kind of adjustment also couldn't be made if the entire show was shot and edited before a single frame was viewed by an audience.

- Sometimes entire plotlines are dropped because they're not working with an audience, or because the audience has figured out the mystery far sooner than the showrunners anticipated, or because the showrunners realized the story they intended to tell wasn't as interesting as they thought it was. For the series "Fringe" the original concept was not to definitely portray that there was an alternate/parallel universe until many years after the show began. But the audience picked up on these hints and was interested. Meanwhile, the story they had originally planned on telling, about the lead character's dead ex-partner/lover who betrayed her, wasn't terribly interesting, and felt besides the point. So the dead ex-partner was dropped, and the alternate universe was teased and finally revealed by the end of the first season. This led to us getting both some fantastic storylines, as well as some fantastic character moments, that wouldn't have happened if the show had proceeded on its original course. Had all the episodes been shot and released at once, the showrunners wouldn't have realized that people didn't care about the dead boyfriend and that their alternate universe hints weren't so subtle that it would take years to figure out.

There are many other examples of things like this happening. The other one that comes to mind, and seems timely with the Emmy nominations coming out today, is the case of Aaron Paul in Breaking Bad. The original plan was for his character to die within the first ten episodes, early in Walt's journey from teacher to meth kingpin. But the audience loved how Bryan Cranston (Walt) and Aaron Paul (Jesse) played together, and the showrunners knew they had something special, so they changed their storyline to allow Aaron Paul to continue on the show... and the dynamic of Walt and Jesse really defined a lot of what the show was and came to be. Wouldn't have been as good of a show without Jesse.

Television is a unique medium. And what I love about television is how a story plays out over time, how we come to love characters as we see them grow and change (or not grow, and not change) over time. The best television is so much more than simply a very long movie. Netflix's model of releasing a series all at once deprives the audience and culture of having a collective experience drawn out over time, and it deprives the showrunners of the audience feedback, as well as the trial and error and development time, that makes some truly great shows shine. It doesn't seem fair to me to say a Netflix show is the same as a television show, when how the program is conceived and made, and how the audience consumes it on its first run, are so different. That's not to say that the Netflix shows have no merit, are terrible, not worth watching, or anything of the sort -- but in my mind, are they the same as a TV show? Not quite. Now, if Netflix released their shows with a premiere date and a once-weekly episode, then I might change my mind. I think my objection to Netflix shows counting with regular shows is as much about how they are released as it is about the platform itself, maybe even more about the release schedule.

At the least, I think the Emmys should have a different category for shows developed and presented exclusively online, especially if they're released all at once and not over time. I would hate to see the Netflix model completely replace TV as we know it.
 

Josh Steinberg

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Also, I agree with Travis' gripe about how some networks are manipulating the categories their shows appear in.

I wouldn't call "American Horror Story" a mini-series either. While it has a different story each year with different characters, the cast by and large is the same, and the behind-the-scenes talent is the same. It's very much a regular series to me.

On the flip side, I don't know if I'd consider "True Detective" a regular series (which it was nominated as). It's only eight episodes, and it was announced before it even began that it was a closed story, and that the principle cast was only going to participate in this one season. The behind-the-scenes talent is changing for the next season as well. It felt very much like a mini-series to me. And it doesn't seem fair to anyone that Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson will be competing against actors who have spent years developing and refining a character. The entire series was written before it was shot, I believe -- they didn't have to spend years interpreting a character that was gradually revealed to them, they didn't have to develop something that other writers then went and refined based on their performances. They came in, read a script, and gave a performance as if it were a movie, and then moved on when it was complete. It was phenomenal work, but I don't think it's fair to anyone for it to be competing with people who have lived some of these parts for years.
 

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^ My feeling is that if the show is planned to go longer than one season (whether another season would have new characters and plot or not), it's a series rather than a mini-series. In other words, True Detective is where it's supposed to be but American Horror Story isn't.

I still want to know how HBO got Treme in as a mini-series. I couldn't be happier that the show got some Emmy recognition but it's in its fourth year so how, other than it was only 5 episodes, could it be seen as a mini-series?
 

joshEH

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Poor Jon Hamm. He's going to wrap up Mad Men without a single Emmy to show for his portrayal of Don Draper, and I just can't believe it. Then again, Steve Carell never won, either.

Losing to Cranston, okay. That's doable. Same with losing to Kyle Chandler, who absolutely deserved his. This year, he's going to lose to McConaghey, and how could anyone who watched TD argue with that? (At least Fred Armisen finally landed a nomination for Portlandia.)

I will now console myself by imagining the possible clips that can be used for Andre Braugher.
 

JohnMor

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In my opinion, American Horror Story is definitely a mini-series. It's completely recreated each season with a new setting, time period, characters and plot. The production designers, set decorators, costume designers, hairdressers, etc. create an entirely new world each season, unlike a continuing series that does so basically just once and then has standing sets, many existing costumes and characters' looks that are already established and carry over each season. It would be completely unrealistic to compare those two different levels of work. Not to mention that the actors play different characters each year, so you can't compare their work to people who play the same character for multiple years. And how do you compare writing that is mapped out in advance with a beginning, middle and end to an ongoing series where they have to keep the audience engaged without ever knowing the exact long-term outcome? It's two completely different ballgames.

I'm VERY happy that the three shows I watched this year led the nods to be the top three most nominated. And two of them on FX. Very impressive for that network.
 

Matt Hough

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JohnMor said:
I'm VERY happy that the three shows I watched this year led the nods to be the top three most nominated. And two if them on FX. Very impressive for that network.
Archer got a Best Animated Series nomination, too. Another FX show.
 

Neil Middlemiss

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I think there were some stunning snubs this year (more so than usual). Having said that, I was quite proud of the representation of Brits in this year's list of nominees (Martin Freeman, Benedict Cumberbatch, Sherlock, Luther, Downton Abby, etc.).

But America has some good stuff too :)
 

Matt Hough

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Neil Middlemiss said:
I think there were some stunning snubs this year (more so than usual). Having said that, I was quite proud of the representation of Brits in this year's list of nominees (Martin Freeman, Benedict Cumberbatch, Sherlock, Luther, Downton Abby, etc.).

But America has some good stuff too :)
Yes, very pleased about the number of nominations for the Sherlock episode "His Last Vow," unquestionably the best of this year's three episodes.
 

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