JULY 14, 2016
Winter is coming, and Emmys are likely coming to HBO’s hit series “Game of Thrones,” which on Thursday garnered more nominations than any other program — 23 in all, just one shy of their total last year, when they won 12 statuettes including Outstanding Drama Series.
Right behind “Thrones” in the nomination count was Ryan Murphy’s first entry in his “American Crime Story” franchise — “The People vs. O.J. Simpson” — which earned 22 nominations, including nods for its stars Sarah Paulson, Courtney B. Vance, Cuba Gooding Jr., John Travolta, Sterling K. Brown and David Schwimmer.
Last year’s Emmy champ for Best Comedy Series, HBO’s “Veep,” nearly doubled its 9 nods from last year to draw 17 on Thursday, including nominations for Best Comedy Series and its stars Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Tony Hale, Matt Walsh and Anna Chlumsky. Joining “Veep” in the Best Comedy Series race are returning nominees “Modern Family,” “Silicon Valley,” “Transparent” and “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,” along with newcomers ABC’s “black-ish” and Netflix’s “Master of None.”
Competing against “Game of Thrones” for Best Drama Series are returnees “Better Call Saul,” “Downton Abbey” (in its final season), “Homeland” and “House of Cards,” plus newbies FX’s “The Americans” (in its 4th season) and USA’s “Mr. Robot,” arguably the most critically-acclaimed new show of the season.
In the hunt against “O.J.” for Outstanding Limited Series, the nominees are the second edition of FX’s “Fargo” (which garnered an impressive 18 nominations), ABC’s “American Crime,” AMC’s “The Night Manager” and A&E’s remake of “Roots.”
In the highly-prestigious race for Outstanding Television Movie are HBO’s “All the Way,” based on the successful Broadway play about Lyndon Johnson; HBO’s “Confirmation” focusing on Anita Hill’s ordeal during the Clarence Thomas hearings; BBC’s successful cop drama “Luther;” PBS’ one-off “Sherlock: The Abominable Bride” and Netflix’s holiday-themed “A Very Murray Christmas” starring the irrepressible Bill.
Ever since the Oscar debacle, the question of the diversity of nominees seems to be ever-present. The Tony Awards handled it smashingly earlier this summer, and today’s Emmy noms did a pretty good job too, with African-Americans featured prominently among the acting nominees. Latinos were sadly underrepresented, however, (something to work on now, networks!) but there was, among the leading categories, an actor of Egyptian descent (Rami Malek, Outstanding Lead Drama Actor for “Mr. Robot”) and of Indian heritage (Aziz Ansari, Outstanding Lead Comedy Actor for “Master of None”). Sadly, though, one of TV’s most diverse casts, “Orange is the New Black,” was largely ignored this year despite a Best Drama Series nomination last year and an Emmy win for star Uzo Aduba. It nailed just one nomination today, for casting.
Some personal triumphs:
Actress Laurie Metcalf (previous Emmy winner for “Roseanne”) was nominated for acting in three different categories for three different series in both comedy and drama. (That’s got to be some kind of record.) For the record, her nominations are for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series (for HBO’s “Getting On”), Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series (for CBS’ “The Big Bang Theory”) and Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series for her magnificent performance in Louis C.K.’s drama series “Horace and Pete.” Quite the hat trick.
The Outstanding Variety Talk Series nominees turned the category on its head today. For the first time since 2003, the winner of this category will not be “The Daily Show” or Stephen Colbert, since neither Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah” nor CBS’ “Late Show with Stephen Colbert” managed to get nominated. Sadly, neither was TBS’ much-acclaimed “Full Frontal with Samantha Bee.” The lucky six nominees are Colbert’s CBS stablemate “The Late Late Show with James Corden;” HBO’s “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” and “Real Time with Bill Maher;” ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” NBC’s “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” and most surprisingly, Crackle TV’s Jerry Seinfeld-starrer “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee.”
And a special shout-out to RuPaul Charles, who scored his first Emmy nomination ever for Outstanding Host for a Reality or Reality-Competition Program for his Logo series “RuPaul’s Drag Race.” Like Jeff Probst in “Survivor” and Tim Gunn in “Project Runway,” RuPaul is a host who doesn’t merely introduce acts but works closely on-camera with contestants and seriously helps to shape every episode’s narrative. He’s a great host, and this nomination is so overdue and so deserved.
The 68th Annual Emmy Awards will be presented on Sunday, September 18 on ABC with host Jimmy Kimmel. Be there or be square!
