The good people at AOL Television have put together a photo gallery featuring various thoughts on who got snubbed for the 2007 Emmy Nominations, and I was lucky enough to be one of their featured commentators.
Emmys Blog Reactions – AOL Television
However, their list has admittedly got me thinking about some of the most frustrating snubs that could possibly have arisen out of the various Emmy nominations (Even the obscure ones). And so, I’ve created a list of what are my ten largest snubs of the nominations, individuals who deserved a chance to be recognized by their peers.
‘Lost’ for Best Drama Series
There is no question that Lost reached creative highs in its third season, it’s a pity that an arguable lowpoint in its opening episodes kept it from gaining enough traction to overcome lesser shows like Heroes or Boston Legal which skated by with newness and familiarity respectively. It’s hard to know what got it snubbed: a lack of voter interest, a poorly submitted episode, or the spread of the opinion that the show was past its prime. I don’t understand any of those options, but Lost will sit out another year regardless.
Michael C. Hall (Dexter) for Lead Actor in a Drama Series
It was the single worst snub of the Emmy season, greater than any of the other missing individuals. While James Spader and Kiefer Sutherland went through the pace, Michael C. Hall crafted a serial killer that we not only grew to empathize with but actually kind of liked in the end. His performance made the entire concept work; without some level of empathy, the show would collapse under an unlikable hero incapable of emotional contact with others. After the Hollywood Foreign Press and his Screen Actors Guild peers recognized him, it is unfortunate that the Academy members could not do the same. The fact that he won’t have a chance to challenge for this award is the season’s greatest travesty.
Here at Cultural Learnings, we did a lot of coverage on the post-hiatus portion of Lost’s third season, which is of course considered to be its strongest. As a result, for the purposes of this post, I’m not going to go into that too greatly, and will instead provide links to my reviews at the bottom of the page. I want to instead focus on the season’s first six episodes, the ones that caused millions to abandon the series and the ones that people call “uneven” or “awful”. Because, even if they don’t reach the pinnacles of the show’s final throes in May, I strongly believe in the quality of the prologue to this season.
In preparing to write these pieces, I knew that I was going to have a problem with Heroes. I have a lot of opinions about this series, and admittedly not all of them are positive: despite enjoying the series immensely at certain points, at others I cringed and wondered just why I was watching it. So, knowing that I would likely end up writing an article about its season as a whole, I tried to distill my thoughts into something positive, but tentative. But then I realized that would not work, and that I needed to be honest. And so, here we are, with what is my first venture into this territory. Because, you see, even though it officially made the Drama Series Top 10…I don’t think that Heroes should be considered for an Emmy award for Outstanding Drama Series.
There are certain shows that are all hype and no follow through; they launch in September to rave reviews and high ratings, but immediately falter and fail to pull you in. For a brief period, I felt Ugly Betty was that show. And then, something clicked: the soap opera elements of the show’s plot were given resonance, and the series returned to its characters and settings that made it a success in the first place. And that’s really the hallmark of a series’ first season: does it end in worse or better shape than when it started. With perhaps the strongest melodramatic finale of the season (Take that, Grey’s), Ugly Betty proved that its initial success was no fluke, and its growth makes it deserving of Emmy consideration.
Attempting to sell people on NBC’s Friday Night Lights has always been difficult, as it is tough to describe just what makes it one of the best shows on television. Is it a football show, or is it just another teen drama? Does it value principles such as family or principles such as teen lust? Is it trying to be a broad political commentary on the War in Iraq, or rather a representation of isolated small town America? What I believe I’ve decided upon is that Friday Night Lights is that it is an amazing achievement because it manages to be all of these things: through a handheld camera lens, Peter Berg and Jason Katims have created a window into the lives of families, teenagers, high school football, and even the ramifications of world politics on small town America. The best new network drama of the Season, Friday Night Lights it without a doubt worthy of Emmy consideration.
I don’t quite understand why How I Met Your Mother was almost not renewed for a third season this past year. The show’s second season was a bit uneven, but it has a charm and wit that few multi-camera sitcoms can relate to. On a network where its most successful sitcoms star middle-aged men and women, How I Met Your Mother follows twenty-somethings adjusting to life out of college and in the real world. What began as a moderately intriguing premise of figuring out how Ted met his wife has turned into a cohesive and diverse comedy that has been able to exist outside of the cultural radar.
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