There are, roughly, four-thousand-million-billion TV shows airing right now. Distilling those into a list of the eight “best” in poorly defined genres is silly, because who can complain about what’s chosen? They’re all great. But who can complain about what wasn’t chosen? Everyone!
Welcome to Complain Day.
I love this year’s Emmys nominations because of how they are a reminder of how Extremely Online we are. If you search through the Twitter response to these nominations, you will see what an “OUTRAGE!!!” it is that certain series or actors didn’t make it into the shortlist, which is correct. It is an outrage! There’s been a lot of good TV this year. Your favorite show? Give it Emmys! But the Television Academy doesn’t care. They just liked Ted Lasso.
The biggest complaints to weigh against the Emmys this year, if we’re being forgiving, are these: Voters keep voting for the same shows over and over, and—and this is the big one—they’re not Extremely Online.
(See the full list of this year’s Emmy nominations here.)
We may have collectively agreed online that Ted Lasso is lame, but the Emmys sure hasn’t. And, honestly, the rest of the world hasn’t either. I’m as annoyed as anyone that Pachinko, For All Mankind, The Other Two, and Ghosts aren’t more represented, if represented at all. But I also don’t presume that Emmy voters saw my effusive tweets about Molly Shannon and ignored them—they were just watching the Ted Lasso Christmas episode again. (It’s dark times! I do this, too!)
In this splintered era, we’re apparently all watching the same TV shows somehow. Or, at least, the Emmy voters are. Here are the biggest snubs and surprises from nomination day, or if they’re not “surprising” (I could have predicted all of this), they’re at least the things you could bring up at the cocktail party:
Ted Lasso Dominates
Season 2 of Ted Lasso was actually great. Nevermind the backlash you read about if you were afflicted with the aforementioned Extremely Onlinedicoccus. It’s not surprising to me how much it dominated the comedy categories. My issue is that the expansion of these categories, to include a larger number of nominees, was meant to give opportunity to new, surprising talent. Instead, actors you forgot were even on the show received Best Supporting Actor nominations, because voters are just checking off everything Ted Lasso. (Even the guy who plays Hannah Waddingham’s ex-husband was nominated?!)
So Does The White Lotus
It seems like several lifetimes ago that we were all watching The White Lotus, a TV series so popular it even received the minted accolade of popular TV: The Backlash. Still, the show was so weird—and aired so long ago—that I wondered if the Emmy voters would remember it. They did the opposite: Giving it more nominations than it deserved. (And I loved the show!) Practically the entire cast is nominated: Connie Britton, Jennifer Coolidge, Alexandra Daddario, Natasha Rothwell, Sydney Sweeney, Murray Bartlett, Jake Lacy, and Steve Zahn. They’re all brilliant. But did Emmy voters not watch a single other show?
They Also Love Yellowjackets
It’s hard to complain about the Emmy voters’ penchant for just voting for the same show over and over again—there are so many good shows, Emmy voters, spread the wealth!—when one of those shows is Yellowjackets. Normally a series like Yellowjackets, with its horror and gore, would be an award-show also-ran. Instead, voters went buckwild, nominating it across the drama categories.
Where Is This Is Us?
The final season of This Is Us was supposed to be the last gasping breath for broadcast TV at the Emmy Awards. Its much-talked-about (and very good) final season was predicted to receive a victory lap of Emmy nominations. But the much-deserved Mandy Moore nom never happened, and neither did a mention for Drama Series Sterling K. Brown, writing or directing for its last episodes. All it got was one nod, for best original song.
TheThis Is Us victory lap didn't happen like it deserved to.
NBCBut Also … Abbott Elementary!
It’s tempting to look at the snub of This Is Us and assume broadcast is dead, but the embrace of Abbott Elementary suggests otherwise! Congrats to multiple-nominee Quinta Brunson, Sheryl Lee Ralph , Janelle James, and Tyler James Williams. But if the Emmys were really embracing broadcast again, it would have also nominated the CBS comedy Ghosts.
Reese, Not Jen?!
Jennifer Aniston has won several awards for her work on The Morning Show. And deservedly so! That show is batshit in a way that revives my will to live, and Aniston is manning the defibrillator. So it was a surprise to see Reese Witherspoon nominated instead of her co-star. But this actually heartens me to an extent: It suggests the voters actually watched the show! Witherspoon was given juicier material this season, and she delivered on it.
The Category Expansion Flop
When the Television Academy expanded some categories from five to eight nominees, it was because there were so many performers from so many shows competing that it was ridiculous to winnow them down to five. Maybe a deserving nominee from a smaller project could sneak in, even? What happened instead is rubber-stamping in its most egregious form: Three supporting actress and three supporting actor noms for Ted Lasso. (If you can name who they are, I’ll give you a lollipop.) Three guest actress and four guest actor nods for Succession. Five supporting actress noms for The White Lotus?! If this splits the vote and Jennifer Coolidge doesn’t win, that’s on you, Emmy voters. Friends, there were other TV shows last year!
Dave Chappelle, Collecting Trophies
Dave Chappelle’s extremely controversial Netflix special The Closer was nominated twice. Tell me again about how cancel culture is real?
Inventing Anna, an Awards Nominee
This show is one of the worst things I’ve ever watched. It’s now a three-time Emmy nominee, including Best Limited Series and Best Actress for Julia Garner. It was considered more award-worthy than all of the following: Station Eleven, Under the Banner of Heaven, Maid, The Staircase, Midnight Mass, Gaslit, Landscapers, and Scenes From a Marriage. Each of those titles rank among the best TV I’ve seen in the last year. Inventing Anna ranks among the worst.
Inventing Anna was outrageous—in the worst way possible.
NetflixWhere Is Yellowstone?
The most popular show on cable television was presumed to be a major Emmy player this season, with critics starting to pivot from “hey, it’s not just my dad who’s watching this!” to “hey, it’s pretty good.” That it was completely snubbed—no noms—doesn’t speak highly to Emmy voters’ relevance. That this is already being used to argue Hollywood’s “anti-woke” bias is predictable.
It’s Time to Abolish The TV Movie Category
I’m glad that there is a separate category for all the fantastic limited series to duke it out. But this TV Movie category is a joke: The nominees are Chip ‘n’ Dale: Rescue Rangers, Ray Donovan: The Movie, Reno 911!: The Hunt For QAnon, The Survivor, and Zoey’s Extraordinary Christmas. Chip ‘n’ Dale, three TV movies based on series that were already canceled, and then one actually good film. Why is this necessary?
What Are the Snubs?
The idea of “snubs” is irrelevant in a game where over 500 TV series are competing for eight slots. But this is a prognostication-heavy industry, and there are certain things that were predicted or expected to receive mentions. That This Is Us and Julia Roberts, especially, who was so good in Gaslit, were both overlooked ranks near the top of the snubs list. Voters went H.A.M. for Only Murders in the Building, but didn’t nominate Selena Gomez. (The best actress in a comedy series category, to be fair, is stacked.) A lot of critics hoped that the fantastic, Cinderella-story series Reservation Dogs and Pachinko would make it into the Comedy and Drama Series, respectively, but both failed to do so.
What Are We Happy About?
Both Lily James and Sebastian Stan, who were great in the underrated Pam and Tommy, got in. What We Do in the Shadows eking out a Comedy Series nomination? Taste. Nicholas Hoult and Elle Fanning getting actor nods? Taste, again. The love for Severance makes me happy, and while I wish Station Eleven got the White Lotus treatment, but I’m glad Himesh Patel is a Best Actor nominee. The Squid Game dominance is a rare case where all those nods are wholly deserved. I wish Insecure’s final season was everywhere on the nomination list, but Issa Rae’s Best Actress nod had me clapping this morning, as did Kaley Cuoco’s The Flight Attendant nomination. And let’s raise a glass, finally to Rhea Seehorn, Emmy nominee!
At least Insecure received one big nod for its fantastic final season.
HBOIn a Perfect World, Who Else Should Be Here?
Kristin Chenoweth for Schmigadoon. Molly Shannon and Heléne Yorke for The Other Two. Sarah Jessica Parker for And Just Like That. Bridget Everett for Somebody, Somewhere. Better Things and Pamela Adlon in every category. Sharon Stone in Guest Actress for The Flight Attendant. Reneé Elise Goldsberry for Girls5eva, which should also have every original song slot. Mandy Moore was sensational in This Is Us’ final season. Zach Gilford in Midnight Mass is still the performance I can’t shake out of my brain. Given the usual starfuckery, I’m shocked that Anne Hathaway’s legitimately brilliant performance in WeCrashed was overlooked, not to mention Julia Roberts (Gaslit) and Michelle Pfeiffer (The First Lady). Ghosts shoulda been nominated, and so should have Ana Gasteyer for American Auto (justice for broadcast sitcoms!). And excuse me, where is PEN15? Also how dare you give Barry all these nominations without including Sarah Goldberg?
In the End …
Natasha Rothwell is an Emmy nominee, and that’s all that matters. Also, someone explain to me how RuPaul’s Drag Race: Untucked keeps getting nominated but not any season of the Real Housewives. Make it make sense.
