New Blood At The Emmy Awards: Freshmen Series Making A Splash

By Brian Frosti on July 24, 2014

Image via emmys.com

It’s almost time once again for television’s annual celebration of itself. The Primetime Emmy Awards is one of the most watched television events of the year and are among the most prestigious awards in all of entertainment.

They serve as an annual reminder of the best that television has to offer and occasionally they call attention to the rising stars of the medium. This generally begins with the Golden Globes but the real measure of a show is often its Emmy haul.

Each year there are some staples that the Emmys love to recognize: “Breaking Bad,” “Game of Thrones,” “Modern Family,” etc. But every year there are a few freshman programs that break into the mix. This year, however, there has been an unprecedented amount of new shows nominated for the most prestigious awards.

To clarify, the top awards within the categories of comedy, drama and miniseries/TV movie are outstanding lead and supporting actor and actress, outstanding directing, and outstanding writing. These are the awards you’ll see bragged about on the network commercials and plastered on the DVD box sets.

Generally speaking, drama is considered the most prestigious category, followed by comedy, then miniseries. Actually, the latter category is generally disregarded by the common television viewer, though in recent years that’s changed.

Now the Emmys often feature and reward such “recurring miniseries” as “Sherlock” and “American Horror Story.” Many of the shows like these could be considered full blown series in their own right, but due to their set up are viewed as individual miniseries.

So for the purpose of this article, awards for freshman series will be counted as any nominations, in the aforementioned major categories, earned by a drama series, comedy series, or recurring miniseries.

But now back to the main point: there are an incredible amount of freshmen nominations this year as compared to recent awards shows. If we look back to as far as 2010, the breakdown of nominations and winners looks like this:

2010

This year brought two wins, (Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy–Jane Lynch and Outstanding Director in a Comedy–Ryan Murphy) as part of “Glee’s” seven total nominations.

The other freshman recognized was Andre Braugher as a supporting actor in “Men of a Certain Age.” It was a respectable year for freshmen though it should be noted that Braugher’s nominations (he had a total of two on the show) were the only ones that “Men of a Certain Age” would ever see and the academy decided it didn’t like “Glee” as much as it originally thought in the following years, as the show hasn’t been nominated for a major award since.

2011

The following year had 11 freshmen nominations and two wins, for “Game of Thrones’” Peter Dinklage and “Mike and Molly’s” Melissa McCarthy. “Game of Thrones” also received both writing and directing nominations, while Matt LeBlanc and Kathy Bates earned nominations for “Episodes” and “Harry’s Law.”

The year also included the only nominations “Raising Hope” and “The Killing” would ever see as well as the first nominations for recurring miniseries “Luther” and “Sherlock.”

2012

Freshmen earned even more props in 2012, with 14 nominations and four wins. Three of those wins were for “Homeland,” which remains an acclaimed series, and the other was the first win for miniseries powerhouse “American Horror Story,” which received another three major nominations.

Another important event this year was the nomination of Don Cheadle for “House of Lies.” Cheadle has been nominated for the show every year of its running, the only nominations the show has received.

2013

This past year was a down year for freshmen, with only six nominations and two wins. Both wins, as well as five of the nominations, were for Netflix series “House of Cards” which returns this year with another slew of nominations.

The only other major nomination a freshman series received was Vera Farmiga’s for “Bates Motel.” Farmiga was not nominated the following year.

Image via complex.com

But whatever shortcomings 2013 had, this year the freshmen came out swinging. This year there was a grand total of 26 nominations, which included four new shows nominated for the top prizes (Outstanding Drama Series, Outstanding Comedy Series, and Outstanding Miniseries).

The freshmen this year–“True Detective,” “Orange is the New Black,” “Silicon Valley,” “Fargo,” “Masters of Sex,” “Ray Donovan,” “Derek,” and “Mom”–are collectively the best rookie class we’ve seen in a long time. Although it’s doubtful “Mom” will be held in as high a standing as the others in the future.

To say it’s unusual for the Emmys to recognize new shows like this would be an understatement, especially when you consider how great a chance some of these shows have at winning. It wouldn’t surprise me at all to see “True Detective,” “Orange is the New Black” and “Fargo” take home multiple big awards, with “Silicon Valley,” Ricky Gervais, and Lizzy Caplan set as definite sleeper candidates.

But what’s even more astounding is the amount of freshmen who could have been nominated as there were several notable snubs. Andy Samberg and “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” as a whole took home the top awards at the past Golden Globes but weren’t even nominated for the Emmys while the talented cast of “Silicon Valley,” Michelle Monoghan of “True Detective,” Liev Schreiber of “Ray Donovan,” and James Spader of “The Blacklist” were all left out of the equation as well.

It’s hard to argue that any of the shows and actors that were nominated don’t deserve the recognition they got, but it just goes to show how strong this group of newbies really is.

It’s going to be interesting to see how it all goes down this year, and in the years to come. Will Allison Janney and Ricky Gervais become the spotlights for their shows like Cheadle and Bates are? Or will they fade into obscurity as one-and-dones like Martha Plimpton (“Raising Hope”) and Max Greenberg (“New Girl”).

Will any of the freshmen unseat returning greats? It seems unlikely for any of the dramas to break through as this is the final year of consideration for both “Breaking Bad” and “Mad Men,” though anything’s possible. If I had to predict any of them to sneak in I’d take Mathew McConaughey (“True Detective”) for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama.

Though on the other hand, I fully expect both “Fargo” and “Orange is the New Black” to bring home some hardware, maybe not the top prizes as “Modern Family” is always tough to beat and this was a great year for miniseries and TV movies, with “Sherlock,” “The Normal Heart,” and “Killing Kennedy” all garnering some serious awards consideration.

When the dust settles we’ll probably have a few new series to call perennial nominees, and hopefully these great new shows can draw in some more viewers for their coming seasons.

One thing to consider is whether or not these shows represent a trend for television. Was this just an exceptionally strong year? Or is TV actually getting better? Does the addition of online streaming series give enough new outlets to actually improve the quality of television as a whole? These are questions that will be answered any time soon, but they’re all worth keeping an eye on.

Which of these new shows did you enjoy? And do you think they deserve recognition later this August?  Let me know in the comments.

Closing thought: if “Fargo” is a miniseries then in what world is “True Detective” a drama series?

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