Emmy nominations redux

Everything I am about to say I said in a previous post, but it bears repeating, especially as the Emmy nominations are out and have confirmed my worst fears.  There is no one minding the store.

How messed up are the Emmys?  The actress from Orange is the New Black who got a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress in a Drama is nominated for an Emmy for Best Actress in a Comedy (another actress from the show was nominated for an Image award in the Mini-series/Movie category).  Two shows, Mad Men and Downton Abbey, are nominated for Best Drama even though both produced fewer episodes than Fargo and American Horror Story: Coven which are nominated for Best Mini-Series.  A member of the Not Ready For Prime Time Players is nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award.  Actors in True Detective are nominated for Best Actor in a Drama even though the show will be completely different next season, making it a mini-series and not a series.

This is what happens when you let people choose the category the want to compete in, mainly because there are no established standards.  In response to claims of “category fraud” the Chairman of the TV Academy, Bruce Rosenblum, said that the academy “should look at” some of the rules.  Saying a committee should be formed to look into something is one of the oldest ways to avoid doing anything.

Under the current set-up, no broadcast series producing 22 episodes a year will ever again be nominated for Best Drama when it has to compete with cable shows producing at most 13 and perhaps no more than 6 episodes (maybe one day Sherlock will snag a nomination with three episodes).  The only answer would be a return of the Cable Ace awards, giving out one set of awards for cable shows and another for broadcast.

Defining a series as having a minimum number of episodes is easy (they won’t do it, but it would be easy).  

Differentiating comedy and drama is harder.  Northern Exposure won the Emmy for Best Drama and when picking up the award the producers admitted it was actually a comedy.  Harry Morgan opined that he felt MASH was at a disadvantage in the comedy categories because so many of its episodes were serious (given it is one of the most nominated shows ever, one could disagree).  Maybe the only solution is to leave it up to judges to decide if they thought it was comedy or drama (it would be embarrassing if a comedy received a nomination in the Drama category simply by not being funny).

I could say “There are no easy answers” but the fact is there are.  A series has a minimum of 13 episodes per season.  A mini-series cannot have the same characters and cast two seasons in a row.  Actors under contract cannot be considered “guest stars.”  Judges in the comedy category should place an emphasis on how funny the show or performance was.

Of course this won’t happen, because producers like the current format.  That’s why it evolved the way it did.  The good news is that we’re talking about television industry awards, not world peace.