HOLLYWOOD, CA – FEBRUARY 07: (L-R) Actors Laura Dern, Nicole Kidman, Shailene Woodley, Zoe Kravitz, and Reese Witherspoon attend the premiere of HBO’s ‘Big Little Lies’ at TCL Chinese Theatre on February 7, 2017 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)
Nominations for the 2017 Emmy awards will be announced on Thursday morning. Here’s who we’d like to see recognized by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences this year.
We know you’re sick of hearing about The Golden Age of Television, but the fact of the matter is this epic TV era is showing no signs of slowing down. Which is good news for us TV junkies, especially when our Christmas, a.k.a. the Emmys roll around. The actual award show won’t air until September, but nominations for the honors will be announced on Thursday morning at 11:30 a.m. ET. (Find out how to watch a livestream of the event here.)
Before Anna Chlumsky and Shemar Moore tell the world who’s in contention this year, along with Television Academy Chairman and CEO Hayma Washington, we took a look back at the programs and performances that stuck with us over the past year. Of course, a few fan favorites aren’t even in the running. Because of the Emmys’ particular rules about when a show airs, powerhouses like Game of Thrones, which nabbed 23 nominations last year, won’t be eligible to compete.
Here’s hoping these shows and actors are:
Nicole Kidman in Big Little Lies
If the dramatic goddess that is Nicole Kidman isn’t recognized for her conflicted, heart-breaking portrayal of abused wife and mother Celeste in HBO’s hit limited series, I’m confident I wouldn’t be alone in my shock. When the addictive show was airing earlier this year, a lot was said in the “wow, since when is Nicole Kidman a good actress?” vein online. The answer, in case you were wondering, is since always.
She was a stellar choice to play Celeste, perhaps the series’ most challenging role in a project that’s full of them. Kidman has said she was drawn to the show, based on Liane Moriarty’s 2014 novel of the same name, because it offered her and her costars nuanced parts that largely haven’t been available to women.
Celeste’s nuance is a balance of determination and vulnerability, of passion and fear. Talking about tackling the emotional role, Kidman told W in August:
"“I felt very exposed and vulnerable and deeply humiliated at times. […] But at times I would have flashes of images of women that have gone through this and I’m like, ‘This is authentic, this is the truth and this is what I have to do.'”"
While nearly every performance on Big Little Lies was epic (if Reese Witherspoon or Zoe Kravitz or Laura Dern or Shailene Woodley earn a nod, it will also be well-deserved), Kidman’s truth reached out from the screen, grabbed its viewers, and didn’t let go.
The Handmaid’s Tale
Leave it to Elizabeth Moss and Margaret Atwood to take the swirling fog of fear that millions of women have felt in real life in recent months and channeling it into an unsettling TV masterpiece. Hulu’s adaptation of Atwood’s 1985 dystopian novel felt so timely, a handful of confused people online were outraged Hulu would get so political, when, again, this book was written more than two decades ago.
But its terrifying timing aside, the show is an imaginative work of art. It’s breathtaking, as well as chilling. And, as always, Elizabeth Moss really kills it in the lead role of Offred. When producers had attempted to turn Atwood’s disturbing Handmaid’s world into something audiences would watch in years past, it didn’t go so well. According to The Atlantic, the 1990 film version, starring Natasha Richardson, Robert Duvall, and Faye Dunaway is now “almost entirely forgotten.” Hulu’s interpretation, however, which was made with Atwood’s consultation (and even a cameo), arrived at a time when the world was perhaps more ready to take it all in.
Even if we were more ready, Moss’ performance, along with her supporting cast, captured the lurking horror of the book, revealing how the world slipped further toward oppressive theocracy one unsettling detail at a time (don’t get us started on the first “ceremony” scene, it gives us the creeps just thinking about it). Atwood, Moss, and the entire production team involved in bringing this story to riveting life deserve the praise they’ve already received. And hopefully, the Academy will agree, either honoring the cast or the show overall.
This Is Us
Full disclosure: I have never seen This is Us. But hear me out: NBC’s super emo drama has gotten more positive buzz than I’ve heard about a network show in quite some time. I’ve heard the show described as emotional porn and our sister site for This is Us fans is literally called “This is Us Crying,” so I feel like I have a pretty good idea of what will happen when I do have a chance to check it off my Must-Watch list (hint: it will involve a lot of sobbing).
This is Us is getting my vote here because I like the idea of a network show getting serious attention from critics at a time when prestige cable and streaming projects have all but destroyed network TV’s hopes for an acclaimed hit. Who doesn’t love an underdog story? And who doesn’t love Mandy Moore?
Stuff that’s labeled as too weepy or sentimental is so often dismissed as crowd-pleasing fluff. And maybe this show is. I wouldn’t actually know. But from what I’ve gathered, it’s a thoughtful and heartfelt story being told in a creative format and I think that’s something the television landscape could use more of. Long before we all fell into an endless tunnel of prestige cable and streaming content, network TV was thought to be the pinnacle of primetime drama (um, remember ER? The West Wing? Go watch them. Now.), and I’m hoping This is Us gets some love, if only to prove pleasing a crowd isn’t always a bad thing.
Westworld
Westworld‘s got everything you could want in a prestige television drama: mystery, sex, violence, western shoot-outs, robots, Sir Anthony Freaking Hopkins. One thing it doesn’t have? The hardware to show for it. Despite its Golden Globe nominations for Best Drama Series, Best Actress in a Drama (Evan Rachel Wood), and Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Series, Limited Series or Motion Picture Made for Television (Thandie Newton), the show went home empty-handed in January.
We’re hoping that history doesn’t repeat itself when it comes to the Emmys for several reasons. First and foremost, Thandie Newton on Westworld is an actual queen among humans (humans, robots, whatever). Her fierceness playing host Maeve is unmatched, in my opinion, by any performance that could potentially compete against it.
Then there’s the fact that sinking into the show’s eye-popping alternative reality is just so easy. And riveting. In a time when movie and TV tropes are recycled over and over and over again, the concept and complicated backstory of the show feels so unique (okay, yes, technically it is also a recycled movie, but the way it’s approached by HBO is wholly original). We can’t wait to return to the park, and if the park has a few more trophies to display in its saloon next season, that would be even better.
Better Call Saul
Unpopular opinion: I like Better Call Saul better than Breaking Bad. I realize that in TV critic circles such a stance is akin to sacrilege, but it’s true. Jimmy McGill is flawed, but he’s also a character you can’t help rooting for, which I never felt was the case with Walter White. So rewarding the Breaking Bad spin-off with an Emmy or three would not only make me feel better about my television preferences, it would also show that an antihero can be a little more heroic at heart without losing that morally-questionable intrigue.
Obviously, Bob Odenkirk brings this show to life, but the supporting cast here is worth recognizing as well. Michael McKean, who’s actually better known for his comedic work (much like Odenkirk), as Chuck is arguably the best actor on the show. Watching Chuck realize what was happening in the courtroom scene this season after Jimmy pulled the trick with the cellphone battery was television at its best. As Jen Chaney recently described his performance in Vulture:
"McKean displays the symptoms of Chuck’s agony with heartbreaking precision, via the twitching of his hands, the winces that distort his facial features, and the panic in his eyes that erases all traces of his self-assured smugness. Another actor might lean too hard into this type of physicality and render it silly or unbelievable. But McKean’s manifestation of Chuck’s symptoms never comes across as anything other than totally real, even if the cause of those symptoms may be an aberration. When Chuck becomes wildly uncomfortable in his body, he’s also trying to fight that feeling, and McKean consistently displays that tug-of-war between terror and Chuck’s need to maintain order and justice, even within the context of his own panic attacks."
Other characters are just as gripping. Jonathan Banks (someone I did love in Breaking Bad) is flawless as Mike. Rhea Seehorn’s guarded goodness is what makes Kim so compelling. All-around, the show is proof that Godfather 2 isn’t the only follow-up to shine just as brightly as its original.
Master of None
There’s a common theme running through Aziz Ansari’s work, whether it’s his stand-up, his book, or the delightful series he’s created for Netflix. It’s all about Ansari’s astute observations on relationships and in the case of Master of None, those observations are at once heartbreaking and hilarious.
Season 2 of the show about actor Dev navigating the world of young adult New York City (and occasionally Italy this time around) was even better than season 1. Ansari makes the show and in season 1 his charm and wit was on full, albeit subtle, display. The second time around that engaging personality still drives the action but it was the cinematic and storytelling choices Ansari and his fellow showrunners made that made this chapter stand out.
Creative risks like doing an episode (the season premiere, at that) in black and white and almost entirely in Italian; like having capsule episodes like the one that depicts a family evolution through its Thanksgiving dinner each year or the one that focuses on characters that have no relation to Dev other than they too live in New York, could have felt gimmicky. But the way they’re handled on the show just feels artistic and interesting.
Next: Actress Katja Herbers books a stay at HBO’s Westworld
For that alone, we’d argue Ansari deserves a trophy, but we could say the same of so many other aspects of the show, too.
Which shows do you think deserve some Emmys praise? Let us know in the comments below.