The biggest surprise at the announcement of the 2015 Emmy Awards nomination ceremony on Thursday morning was one of inclusion. Tatiana Maslany, the constant also-ran whose snub from the list in years past caused fans on Twitter to lament her exclusion vociferously, finally got the attention she deserves for playing a coterie of different characters on Orphan Black. However, as always, the Emmys are loath to change up nominations in major categories, staying mostly the same from year to year with the addition of two or three new names.
The outstanding drama and comedy categories look almost identical to last year’s, even though both categories were expanded to include seven nominations. For drama series, newcomer Better Call Saul took the open slot and Orange is the New Black – now eligible only as a drama after another rule change that declared comedies must be 30 minutes long – took up the slot vacated by Breaking Bad, which is no longer on the air. Mad Men, naturally, got a slew of nominations for what will probably be its victory lap at this year’s awards ceremony, on 20 September.
The other nominees – House of Cards, Downton Abbey, Game of Thrones and Homeland – are perennial favorites, even though their past few seasons have been subpar. It’s sad to see shows like The Americans, The Good Wife and Rectify continue to be ignored, while past-their-prime Academy favorites continue to get nominated mostly from inertia.
As for oustanding comedy, the new additions are the very deserving Transparent and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, so that is very good news, but it was easy to pencil in Veep, Silicon Valley, Louie and Modern Family. Parks and Recreation was a bit of a surprise nominee, especially considering it knocked out The Big Bang Theory, the highest-rated comedy on television. This is probably because it’s the beloved Parks’ final year in contention – but I don’t think it stands a chance to actually win, with Kimmy Schmidt, Transparent and traditional winner Modern Family in contention. Surprisingly left off the list was Girls (and its star Lena Dunham), which has been nominated in the past but really deserved to fall away given that it is occasionally brilliant but wildly inconsistent.
This is the first time that we have four of the nominees in the two big categories on over-the-top content providers, with three nominees for Netflix (House of Cards, Orange is the New Black, and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt) and the first for Amazon (Transparent). This is what the Emmys of the future looks like, and it seems inevitable that there won’t be any network shows nominated in the near future. This year the only network shows to represent are ABC’s Modern Family and PBS’s Downton Abbey, and that’s if you count PBS as a network. The broadcaster with the most nominations, shockingly, is the BBC with 15.
But the sad thing about new inclusions, like Tatiana Maslany, is that they sometimes knock out really deserving actors such as The Good Wife’s Julianna Margulies, who won the trophy last year but failed to be nominated this time. Maslany will be fighting it out with Taraji P Henson from Empire – the ratings juggernaut’s only high-profile nomination – and the third new nominee (and my odds-on favorite to win), Viola Davis for How to Get Away with Murder. That’s a shame for Mad Men’s Elisabeth Moss, who finally deserves to win for Mad Men, and Robin Wright from House of Cards, who sports the best hair on television (or whatever it is we call Netflix).
It’s a much more exciting field than the outstanding actor in a drama category, where hopefully Jon Hamm will take home Mad Men’s first trophy in an acting category. But this is also the last chance to give Jeff Daniels another trophy for The Newsroom, perhaps the worst television program ever to win an Emmy. New show Better Call Saul, which did better than expected, also has Bob Odenkirk to add to its tally, even though he never got nominated for playing the same character on Breaking Bad. Kyle Chandler, who has appeared here before, is one of the few nominees for Bloodline, a Netflix show that didn’t get nearly as much attention as it deserved. Finally, Liev Schrieber for Ray Donovan and Kevin Spacey for House of Cards get another chance at the gold. The Welsh actor Matthew Rhys, who plays a spy who plays several different personalities on The Americans, is sort of like the male Tatiana Maslany. Maybe he’ll get nominated next year.
There are also three great new female nominees for the comedy category – it girl Amy Schumer (Inside Amy Schumer), comedy veteran Lily Tomlin (Grace & Frankie) and past winner Lisa Kudrow (The Comeback). It’s strange that Tomlin’s co-star, Oscar winner Jane Fonda, didn’t get any appreciation considering she has a more polished reputation, but her character on the Netflix show wasn’t nearly as humorous as Tomlin’s.
Even more shocking is that Ellie Kemper, the title character in Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, was snubbed. So was Golden Globe winner Gina Rodriguez, who is so winning on Jane the Virgin, the only CW show worthy mentioning in a news story about the Emmys. I’m also a little sad Constance Wu, who is amazing on Fresh Off the Boat, failed to register. Instead we get to see Julia Louis-Dreyfus accept her 20 millionth statue in the category and watch as Amy Poehler (Parks and Recreation) and Edie Falco (Nurse Jackie) lose to her yet again, but for the last time since both their series are ending.
The outstanding actor in a comedy category is wide open now that perennial winner Jim Parsons failed to even get nominated this year. He’s replaced by a genuine surprise: Will Forte got a well-earned nomination for The Last Man on Earth, the strangest comedy on network television. Blackish star Anthony Anderson earned his nod too, for the much more conventional sitcom (which I think should have been nominated for best series as well). This is Jeffrey Tambor’s first eligible nomination for Transparent, and probably the first of many trophies he will earn for playing a transgender character on the show. Tambor’s shoo-in probably means that Matt LeBlanc (Episodes), Don Cheadle (House of Lies) and William H Macy (Shameless) will continue to be also-rans.
Speaking of snubs, Modern Family’s stranglehold over the outstanding supporting actor in a comedy series category has finally come to an end. Last year’s winner, Ty Burrell, was the only one from the show who was nominated. The surprise replacements are Tituss Burgess, whose work on Kimmy Schmidt was certainly unbreakable, and – more shockingly – Keegan-Michael Key of Key & Peele. How he’s a supporting actor when his name is in the title I don’t know, and how he was singled out instead of Jordan Peele, who was not nominated, is a bit of a head-scratcher as well.
In fact, the supporting actor categories across genres are where the real excitement lies. The outstanding supporting actress in a comedy series category has a shocking eight nominees (due to an Academy rule where if there is less than a 2% difference in the votes between the final nominee and the next entry, both are included in the category). Usual winner Allison Janney from Mom and perennial favorites Anna Chlumsky from Veep, Mayim Bialik from The Big Bang Theory, Julie Bowen from Modern Family and Kate McKinnon from Saturday Night Live are joined by past nominee Jane Krakowski (Kimmy Schmidt) and surprises Niecy Nash for Getting On and Gaby Hoffman for Transparent. While Hoffman’s performance on the critical favorite makes sense, Nash’s inclusion is a deserved shock. She is excellent on the HBO show, but its audience is big enough to fit inside the stadium of a second-tier baseball team.
The audience for Game of Thrones meanwhile is huge, and it has two supporting actress nominees for the first time with Lena Headey and Emilia Clarke duking it out. Uzo Aduba is nominated for Orange is the New Black and won a trophy last year for guest actress in a comedy, so this is a total 180 for a past winner. Christina Hendricks has been here before but like all the other Mad Men stars, this is her final chance. Joanne Froggatt also has a shot after a surprise Golden Globe win earlier this year for her role on Downton Abbey. And Christine Baranski is once again a double nominee for The Good Wife and The Big Bang Theory. Can’t we finally give her something?
Baranski’s co-star Alan Cumming is once again back in outstanding supporting actor in a drama, and he joins Jim Carter (Downton Abbey) and past winner Peter Dinklage (Game of Thrones). They all have a better chance this year now that Breaking Bad’s Aaron Paul is no longer there to ruin their chances. But Michael Kelly really deserves a shot for his work on House of Cards, playing one of the few realistic characters on the increasingly hammy show. Jonathan Banks gets another nomination for playing his Breaking Bad character, but this time on Better Call Saul. (He really only had one breakout episode in the season, however, so I think co-star Michael McKean probably deserved some recognition instead.) Ben Mendelsohn did great work on Bloodline, but I’m afraid too few people saw it for him to stand a chance.
One of the toughest categories this year should be outstanding variety talk series, a new category with a bunch of old nominees. This award went to The Late Show with David Letterman for many years before being monopolized by The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report over the past decade. With all three of the shows going off the air, it is a Sophie’s choice as to who will win this year. Sorry, John Oliver, but you’ll probably have to wait until the following year to start your own monopoly over the category.
Another new category is outstanding variety sketch series, which opens up a whole host of shows for first-time nominations. And it’s a great category, with the ideological Inside Amy Schumer and Key & Peele going up against better-than-ever Portlandia and cultural institution Saturday Night Live. Oh, and Drunk History is nominated too. If only Broad City were more of a sketch show, because it deserves to be nominated somewhere. Of course, SNL is going to take it because who doesn’t know and love the show, but I wouldn’t count out Schumer or Key & Peele quite yet since their multiple nominations prove they both have a wave of support.
I don’t even want to talk about the outstanding limited series categories, because if American Horror Story: Freak Show wins it will supplant The Newsroom as the worst show ever to win an Emmy. With a whopping 19 nominations the show barely deserves any of them because it was a confused, jumbled, awful mess of a season that wasn’t even that scary. Though Finn Wittrock, as the cheeky villain Dandy, is probably the only one of the cast that really deserves being mentioned alongside the word Emmy.
Olive Kitteridge is probably going to sweep up anyway, though The Honorable Woman or American Crime are suitably apt winners. Hopefully they’ll net Maggie Gyllenhaal her first trophy, or another for Felicity Huffman to add to her set, but this is Jessica Lange’s last time on American Horror Story. While I love her, it would be a travesty if she were to beat these two. I was also pleased to see Regina King, who plays a devout Muslim on American Crime, get a nod in the supporting category. ABC’s stab at prestige television is really one of the best shows on network TV, so I hope it gets something – maybe for Timothy Hutton, who gives a sad and nuanced performance as a father whose son is killed.
We can almost write off the TV movie category now that no one but HBO makes decent movies for TV. When the horrendous Grace of Monaco, Hello Ladies: The Movie, and Killing Jesus are in contention for the best of the year, you know a category is completely busted.
And of course, the guest categories in comedy and drama continue to be where famous people go to get statues: Alan Alda, Michael J Fox, Tina Fey, F Murray Abraham, Diana Rigg, Cecily Tyson, Mel Brooks, Paul Giamatti, Jon Hamm, Bradley Whitford and Joan Cusack will all get to walk the red carpet for doing a few episodes on one of our favorite shows.
