Tag Archives: Mad Men

June 19, 2008 · 3:54 pm

Emmy Nominations: How They Work and Who They Benefit (2008)

[The following is a post I wrote last year around this time, explaining how the Emmy Awards nomination process works. Tomorrow is the deadline for the first stage of the process, where the popular vote will be completed and the Top 10s will be tabulated. Look for more coverage here at Cultural Learnings of the various categories as the process continues, but in the meantime enjoy this updated explanation.]

Tomorrow, June 20th, the first stage of the Emmy Nomination process ends. Getting nominated for an Emmy Award is not an easy task, and the entire process was recently made even more complicated in an effort to create fairness. To help you follow the process as it unfolds over the next month, here’s a rundown on how the decision is made and who benefits from each stage.

Stage One: The Popular Vote

How it Works: Voters select their favourite candidate from all individuals who have submitted themselves for nomination. They read For Your Consideration ads, watch screeners, but in the end likely just pick who they like, allowed to vote for as many as Ten candidates who gets more points the higher they are on their list.

Who it Benefits: Shows that are either perennial nominees or extremely buzz-worthy, and actors that are well-known in Hollywood. Thus, voters don’t really even need to see what these candidates have to offer, they just assume they’re really good. Examples of shows that perform well at this stage are big winners last year like 30 Rock, current awards season sensation Mad Men, or highly rated shows like Grey’s Anatomy, while perennial Emmy favourites like Julia Louis-Dreyfus (New Adventures of Old Christine) or William Shatner (Boston Legal) will place highly based on their past acclaim.

Who it Harms: Ratings-deprived, critically acclaimed programs without any of the above, and actors or actresses who lack star power or past Emmys attention. Friday Night Lights and The Wire are generally the two best examples, shows that so few people watch that their unquestioned quality (Mostly unquestioned, anyways) goes unrecognized when they can’t make their Top 10. Performers, meanwhile, have an even tougher time even on hit shows; multiple Lost performers will make it onto the next part of the process, but for relative unknowns like Yunjin Kim standing out amongst over 100 other names is tougher. It also does nothing for fan favourite shows, as Emmy voters don’t tend to watch recently canceled shows like Jericho or Moonlight, and therefore they have very little chance of emerging out of this round.

Stage Two: The Top 10 Run-Off

How it Works: The Top 10 series from the popular vote are isolated and screened in front of a blue ribbon panel. Each show/actor/actress selects an episode that will be screened for the panel if it makes the Top 10. They also prepare a short written statement explaining their show and the episode in context with the show. For example, should Mad Men make the Best Drama Series panel (Count on it), they will be screening the shows’s pilot, “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes.”

Then, each member of the panel will rank the shows from 1 to 10, and a final ranking will be decided.

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June 15, 2008 · 11:01 pm

Mad Men – “Ladies Room”

“Ladies Room”

Season One, Episode Two

One of the complications of using a pilot as a piece of misdirection, in this instance not revealing Don Draper’s wife Betty until the very end of the episode, is that the need for exposition (a necessary evil in a series’ first episode) lingers on.

In that sense, this is Betty’s pilot, a chance to get a view into the life of a housewife in an era of uncertainty and confusion perpetuated by new-age psychiatry and the elusiveness of her own husband. Betty is a woman who just lost her mother and who feels as if she’s missing a side of her husband (or five) that he never shows to her, without knowing that a few of them remain hidden even to his co-workers and his mistress.

With her introduction, the narrative of Mad Men’s female characters comes fully into view, as Peggy’s struggles on the job reflect upon the challenges women faced during the era in a frank and honest perspective. When jumping into this series, you really need to get through the second episode before you can understand where Matthew Weiner is taking us, with a whole new side to the story and continued subtle hints at the stories to come.

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June 12, 2008 · 1:58 pm

60th Primetime Emmy Awards Preview: Supporting Actress in a Drama Series

The biggest news to emerge from the depths of the Emmy obsessed into mainstream media this year is certainly the news that last year’s winner in this category, Katherine Heigl from Grey’s Anatomy, is not in the running. That itself is a surprise, but it was her reasoning that has sent shockwaves through Hollywood. As she first told TheEnvelope.com’s Tom O’Neill, after GoldDerby reader KellyClarksonFan discovered the omission:

“I am truly grateful for the honor that the Academy bestowed upon me last year. I did not feel that I was given the material this season to warrant an Emmy nomination and in an effort to maintain the integrity of the Academy organization, I withdrew my name from contention. In addition, I did not want to potentially take away an opportunity from an actress who was given such materials.”

Now, the AP amongst others have taken this to its logical location: it’s a clear slap in the face to the show’s writers, and yet another moment where Heigl’s mouth has made more headlines than her acting ability. For the record, I think she’s right on the money in terms of the material she was given, but this is still a bit much. However, I choose to look at the positive side of this: with last year’s (arguably undeserving) winner gone, there’s more room for some of the fantastic candidates in this category.

And there are fantastic candidates: you have multiple candidates who are due for an Emmy win after numerous nominations, a few dark horses who won’t make the Top 10 but deserve recognition, one or two who might slip in based on series hype, and plenty of room for surprises at the top. And with Heigl gone, more of these deserving contenders have a shot.

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June 10, 2008 · 3:27 pm

60th Emmy Awards Preview – Supporting Actor in a Drama Series

[Leading up to the announcement of the nominees in mid-July, Cultural Learnings will be delving into each of the major categories to highlight a major theme or a certain selection of potential nominees.]

As far as categories go, they don’t get too much more wide open than this year’s race for Supporting Actor in a Drama Series. It’s long been a category dominated by the show of the moment: both The Sopranos and The West Wing saw multiple nominees on multiple occasions, and Lost was added to that list in recent years. So, for a show like Lost, the question isn’t whether one of its actors will get a nomination: it’s which one, and how many.

This goes for other series as well, as this is certainly a year where there’s a lot of shows that probably have multiple deserving candidates. These types of races are always difficult because of two competing phenomena: vote-splitting, which implies that these candidates will struggle to break into the final five or six nominees, and tape-sharing, where the tapes screened for critics could potentially overlap between candidates. The latter, for example, pretty well won Terry O’Quinn the Emmy last year, as he was in Michael Emerson’s submission almost as much as he was in his own.

This year, it’s three competitors from Boston Legal, four from Lost, and two from Damages that will either be fighting more with each other or working together to multiple nominations. And, well, let’s not forget everyone else, too.

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June 9, 2008 · 12:36 am

Mad Men – “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes”

“Smoke Gets In Your Eyes”

Season One, Episode One

[As part of getting in the groove for the second season premiere in late July, figured that CTV’s decision to air Mad Men’s first season in Canada this summer is as good an excuse as any to revisit this fantastic summer series. (For those who don’t know, AMC (A U.S. Cable network) aired the series last summer). I’ll only get so far before the second season premieres on AMC, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.]

When the Emmy nominations roll around in July, one thing is for certain: the Mad Men pilot will be responsible for many nominations, although not for the people we see on screen (who have more showcases later in the series run) but rather the people who created the look and feel of the series.

This is not to say that “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes” is a poor episode for any of the series’ actors, as I’d argue it’s a great showcase for almost all of them, but this is a pilot that’s all about setting: in time, in place, and to a certain extent within the psychological mind frame of these people. Although Freud gets a bum review from the people that matter in the episode, psychology largely serves as a way of orienting us to the way these people think and why they think that way.

What the episode does is create this setting, the smoke-filled and complicated sixties where tobacco is only recently a bad habit, where African Americans perform only the most menial of service-based tasks, and where women are never executives or able to act like them. We watch the characters weave in and out of these concepts: those who enter into them with a naive world view, those who have become inhabited by them for the sake of fitting into this world in which they seem uncomfortable, and those who are them.

On these levels, Matthew Weiner and Alan Taylor and their team have created a masterpiece.

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June 2, 2008 · 2:21 pm

June @ Cultural Learnings: A Preview

As far as TV months go, you’d think that June would be pretty dead.

All the finales have ended, there is largely still a lack of quality in summer network offerings, and enough major films release that it seems that other media formats are outweighing my personal favourite.

However, at the same time, June is a month in which I have a fair amount of time: summer is here, DVD prices are continuing to drop rapidly, and after pontificating to great length over various finales there is a desire to continue on the same path. As a result of this, perhaps even more than last year, I have every intention on keeping busy during this month.

Most pressing is tonight’s guest spot on the /Filmcast, the official podcast of SlashFilm.com. My old pals from The Watchers have gone corporate, but with good reason: /Film’s a great site, and the podcast remains a great community in which to discuss film and television. I’ll be on for the first half hour of the show or so to discuss Lost’s season finale, so tune in @ the live uStream Channel at around 10 EST to listen to me attempt to condense 5000 words of analysis into quippy contributions to a group discussion!

Elsewhere, however, there’s plenty of other things to chat about.

First off, I’m in the process of what I’d like to call “Myles Meets HBO,” a chance for me to catch up on shows that aired on a cable network I didn’t get, and to a certain extent pre-date my interest in television. First and foremost, I am now 2+ seasons into Six Feet Under, a show I picked up on DVD and have been enjoying greatly (I’ll probably talk about this later in the week, maybe once I hit the official halfway point).

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January 14, 2008 · 1:45 pm

The “Winners” and “Losers” of the 2008 Golden Globes Awards

Last night, the 2008 Golden Globes were a ludicrous and fascinating experiment of NBC’s incompetence (Sepinwall tears them a new one here) and a sense that what we were watching was memorable not due to any of the winners but rather because it was just difficult to watch. I tried to LiveBlog it, which was a horrible mistake in every possible way, but it did get me thinking about something.

You see, usually we consider the concepts of Winners and Losers in terms of who won awards, but that really isn’t the question here. The real concern is that by not airing the awards, some of the Golden Globes buzz which could benefit these performers in their future award races or in their future ratings/DVD sales. The lack of hoopla actually hurt some of the winners, dampening the effect of what would have been an entertaining surprise victory.

So let’s look at a bit of an unconventional concept of “winners” and “Losers” after last night’s intriguing events.

Winner – 30 Rock

Yes, it lost Best Comedy Series. And yes, it also ludicrously lost Best Actor in a Comedy Series when David Duchovony beat Alec Baldwin. But Tina Fey’s victory shows that an American-made, New York shot comedy series with little to no connection to the international markets (Although Interrogation Bear might differ) is capable of winning even when it’s not Alec Baldwin, which may end up as all of the respect that the HFPA has to give.

Loser – Mad Men

I would have paid money to see the stunned reaction of the partying attendees to Jon Hamm’s win as Best Actor in a Drama Series, but instead we got Billy Bush’s quip about how it was humorous for an actor to have the name “Hamm.” The impact was entirely gone – it was a great endnote for critics and those who enjoy fine television, but the general population will easily shrug off both Hamm’s win and the series’ eventual triumph in Best Drama Series. Still, this is a qualified sense of loser – it’s a winner in my mind, certainly.

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January 13, 2008 · 10:02 pm

And the Winner is…The 2008 Golden Globe Awards LiveBlog

9:00pm: Welcome to the “Golden Globes Winners Special,” which is just a terrible name for this thing. Also of note: someone from NBC is in Nova Scotia (I, for the record, am also in Nova Scotia), which means that nominee Ellen Page is most certainly winning this evening. That’s good to know.

9:01pm: A seriously melodramatic opening here which leads to…the tackiest set ever with Access Hollywood setpieces. That’s…ugly.

9:03pm: It’s now time for analysis straight from the morning talk shows, as the cast of Access Hollywood begin with the nominees for Best Supporting Actress. And, wow, these graphics are awful. It’s Blanchett, Roberts, Ronan (Atonement), Ryan, Swinton – it’s Ryan or Blanchett in this case, methinks.

And the winner is…Cate Blanchett for I’m Not There, a strong precursor for her when she struggled in the critics’ prizes.

9:04pm: Billy Bush just totally said that Cate Blanchett can’t win for playing a man – this commentary is ridiculous. And now Television Supporting Actor, which gets no time for me to write down each candidate. And the winner is…

Jeremy Piven for Entourage? Frak, people, stop giving him awards: I love Piven, I really do, but this is getting ridiculous. Dillon is more noteworthy, and for that matter so is Ted Danson. People need to stop doing it, immediately.

9:06pm: Oh wow, I can’t type this fast: Lead Actress – Drama. Arquette, Close, Driver, Falco, Field, Hunter, Sedgwick. Who’s going to take this one home: it’s Glenn Close for Damages, which is somewhat surprising in a tough category. And we get more commentary regarding these people, which is really offputting…yet fascinating.

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January 12, 2008 · 3:50 pm

The 2008 Golden Globe Awards – TV Predictions – Drama

I watched Friday Night Lights last evening, but I felt too ill to really put my thoughts onto paper. Suffice to say that I agree with Sepinwall in that any show in its right mind would not put Tim Riggins’ fingerprints on a gun and have him steal a load of cash just after it got dragged down from a frustrating murder storyline. The rest of the episode I think I enjoyed more than Alan did, but on the whole it feels like we’re going in circles. And, in the preview for next week, did they seriously show Tim Riggins going after LYLA again? That just feels unnecessary.

But, either way, let’s settle into the big TV story this weekend: The now truncated and airing on multiple stations Golden Globes: News Conference Edition. It’s been a wild ride of sorts, and now comes word that the press conference won’t be picketed as it will be aired on multiple networks and not just on NBC. Variety has the full (And ludicrously complicated) story, but the end result is the same: TV personalities will be announcing the winners in an hour-long block at 9pm EST tomorrow. This should be an interesting experience, but since stars will be able to attend (due to the lack of pickets) there might be some excitement. I’ll look at drama nominees today, and comedy tomorrow. And maybe some film predictions – I’m weak like that.

Drama Series

  • Big Love
  • Damages [Predicted Winner]
  • Grey’s Anatomy
  • House
  • Mad Men [Myles’ Choice]
  • The Tudors

It’s the biggest TV award of the evening, really, and it’s one that is kind of tough to decide. The two network series are more or less out of contention, their popularity being their only saving grace in an environment that likes new series. Big Love and The Tudors are just not quite unique enough to stand out, and Damages is buzzworthy due to strong performances and a compelling narrative. It also has the most nominations out of any show, although an upset is always possible. Meanwhile, what is lacks in star power Mad Men makes up with quality and a strong awards push – it’s both my choice and a potential spoiler.

Best Actor in a Drama Series

  • Michael C. Hall [Dexter] [Predicted Winner / Myles’ Choice]
  • Jon Hamm [Mad Men]
  • Hugh Laurie [House]
  • Jonathan Rhys-Meyers [The Tudors]
  • Bill Paxton [Big Love]

This is a category that comes down to two people, really, with Jon Hamm just being too much of an unknown to really break through against two heavyweights. Hugh Laurie has won the award already, while Hall has been criminally unrepresented for his fantastic work on Dexter. It is my hope, and my prediction, that this is rectified by the HFPA, and hopefully it can wake up Emmy to his genius. Seriously, Emmys, James Spader? However, you just watch: the Globe will go to Bill Paxton, who isn’t wholly undeserving but still, just to spite me.

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December 13, 2007 · 10:24 am

Because They Won’t Complain About Themselves – The 2008 Golden Globe Nominations

I won’t lie – there are many things that are capable of interrupting my academic productivity and resulting in a lengthy blog post. As of late, this list has been shrinking with the loss of original programming, and with some of that original programming just becoming uninteresting (Heroes, I am looking in your direction). However, there’s nothing like Award Shows to get my blood boiling, and my fingers typing – you can read Cultural Learnings’ other Award Shows coverage here, of which there is an extensive amount.

Cultural Learnings post-dates last year’s Globes (Which means our 1-year anniversary is coming up, so stay tuned!), which means that this is my first time to REALLY complain about the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. For the sake of this blog, I’m going to stick with the Television nominees from an analysis-standpoint, but I’ll probably end up offering predictions on both the film and television side of things come January (Ironically, when I will have even less time). Of course, this is all dependent on the WGA offering the Golden Globes a strike Waiver.

[Speaking of the WGA, their nominations were revealed last night: Mad Men, which you might see more of over the weekend, leads the way with three nominations in Drama, while The Office has four nominations on the comedy side of things. Pushing Daisies also grabbed two nominations, as did 30 Rock and Dexter.]

Anyways, onto the Globes!

Drama Series

  • Big Love
  • Damages
  • Grey’s Anatomy
  • House
  • Mad Men
  • The Tudors

Can I get a woot for Mad Men? It’s clear that the series will be getting some January Awards love, based on the WGA and Golden Globes love. I’m very pleased – the show is fantastic, and hopefully the Emmys remembers it as well. Otherwise, interesting that the other new series on the docket are relatively not new Big Love and the Tudors, along with Damages which…I liked enough, I guess. Missing is Lost and Heroes, which was the big new series last year.

Comedy Series

  • Californication
  • Entourage
  • Extras
  • 30 Rock
  • Pushing Daisies

Pushing Daisies and Californication are the new series, bumping The Office from the list. I don’t know how I feel about that, but I do know that Pushing Daisies and 30 Rock have an advantage in this category. 30 Rock is a rare show that despite being “new” last year, its star is rising – compare to Heroes, which has dropped off the radar entirely in its 2nd year. Ugly Betty, last year’s winner, is also no longer new, and thus no longer nominated.

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