Have you had a chance to digest the Emmy Nominations? If not, let me suggest a spoon full of salt and a spoon full of cocaine. Ok, now that that’s settled, it’s time for some good ol’ fashioned gripin’.
Let’s start at the top with “Outstanding Comedy Seriesâ€. Obviously, it would be nice to see Community up there but that wasn’t going to happen – it doesn’t really thrive when only digested through a few episode submissions, it demands a certain all out immersion. So, the real snub here is Parks & Recreation. It’s such a good fit for the Emmys: it’s friendly, not cuckoo bananas, fairly episodic, fairly political. It’s also like, you know, the best.
Speaking of Parks the most notable acting snub has to be Nick Offerman. The man has created one of the more iconic characters of the decade. It also would’ve been great to see Gillian Jacobs or Danny Pudi nominated for their respective gender’s supporting categories. Community is very much an ensemble show, but those two actors have been able to bring so much flawed humanity to their characters. That being said, there was no getting around the Modern Family juggernaut, and let’s acknowledge the fact that all of those actors/actresses do an absolute killer job in their roles, but I do think Gillian should’ve been picked over Kathryn Joosten of Desperate Housewives.
Though, I’ve never seen The Penguins of Madagascar, I assume Archer is tons better. That paired with The Simpsons, Bob’s Burgers, Futurama, and American Dad would have been pretty perfect.
The writing nominations were on the money. Though, I think nominating the pilot for Girls over one of the later episodes, like the finale, is a bit odd. It would’ve been nice to see How I Met Your Mother’s “Ducky Tie†get a nod but I’m pretty psyched to see two episodes of Parks and “Remedial Chaos Theoryâ€.
In late night, it seems completely insane to us that Bill Maher got nominated for best writing but Fallon didn’t. I mean, really? Fallon is doing some of the most inventive comedy in late night right now and it makes no sense that that show was snubbed in favor of Maher’s tired lefty ranting.
Lastly, Happy Endings didn’t get nominated for anything but it’s hard to say for sure what it really should have been nominated for. The joke writing is strong but if you look at what got nominated, they all are episodes with solid dramatic moments. The cast is so good and so funny but is there one real stand-out?
Overall, they Emmy folks did a pretty solid job. (Unless, you HATE Modern Family, then you probably think they are dumb jerks.) Which, if anything, is a testament to the overall quality of comedies on the air right now. Also, they nominated Bill Hader, which is undeniably super cool. What do you think?