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The 2013 Emmy Awards Discussion: Co..
Jun 17 2013 | 21:18 pm
Jun 17 2013 | 21:03 pm
For those of you hoping that “Man of Steel” might break through the academy’s prejudice against superheroes and score a Best Picture nomination, don’t hold your breath.
Despite its record-breaking $128 million opening weekend haul -- the best in the franchise’s history -- the reviews have been like Kryptonite. The reboot scored 56% at Rotten Tomatoes and 55 at Metacritic.
Sure, films like “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" and "Crash" have survived such low scores and thrived at the Oscars but that was due to their awards cache. While Superman may have a lot of noble qualities, Oscar-baityness isn’t one of them.
That’s not to say that the film won’t factor in several tech categories.
After all, the original “Superman” (1978) received three major nominations – Film Editing (Stuart Baird), Original Score (John Williams), and Sound (Gordon K. McCallum, Graham V. Hartstone, Nicolas Le Messurier, Roy Charman) – and won a Special Achievement Award for Visual Effects (Les Bowie, Colin Chilvers, Denys N. Coop, Roy Field, Derek Meddings, Zoran Perisic). It lost its competitive bids to “The Deer Hunter” (Film Editing and Sound) and “Midnight Express” (Score).
However, it took nearly three decades for the man in the red cape to get some more Oscar recognition: the widely dismissed “Superman Returns” (2006) scored in the Visual Effects category (Mark Stetson, Neil Corbould, Richard R. Hoover, Jon Thum).
So, if there’s anywhere “Man of Steel” can find some love, it’s in Visual Effects, where it may very well win. Aside from that, the Sound categories have always tipped their hats toward superhero films. Production Design, Costume Design, and Score could also be in play.
The Television Critics Association, which is composed primarily of print and web writers, announced the nominees for their 28th annual awards shortly before the Critics' Choice TV Awards announced their winners, and like their Critics' Choice rivals the TCA bestowed four nominations on "The Americans," more than any other program this year. It contends for Program of the Year, Best New Program, Best Achievement in Drama, and Best Individual Achievement in Drama (Matthew Rhys).
That's one ahead of "Breaking Bad," which earned bids in three of the same categories: Program of the Year, Achievement in Drama, and Individual Achievement in Drama (Bryan Cranston).
Last year's Program of the Year winner, "Game of Thrones," is nominated again in that category, along with another bid for Achievement in Drama, but if TCA history is any indication, "Thrones" may be an underdog in the top race; in 28 years, only one program has ever repeated a win for Program of the Year: "The Sopranos" (1999 and 2001).
For the first time in the history of these kudos, women outnumber men in contention for the performance prizes by six to four. Last year was the first time that they had achieved parity in these categories. Among those women are Tatiana Maslany ("Orphan Black"), Monica Potter ("Parenthood"), and Julia Louis-Dreyfus ("Veep"), who hope to continue their awards momentum after wins at Critics' Choice.
Critics' Choice winners in contention at the TCA Awards also include Louis C.K. ("Louie"), who won both Achievement in Comedy and Individual Achievement in Comedy at last year's event and hopes to repeat in both of those categories this year.
But for Achievement in Comedy "Louie" will have to face "The Big Bang Theory," which was the surprise winner of Best Comedy at Critics' Choice and won this prize at TCA in 2009.
Whoever thought that a show about a drug kingpin who poisons little children, watches a woman die of a drug overdose and sets up the execution of nine men in order to save his own skin would be in the Emmy conversation?
But it is.
And according to Gold Derby's experts, editors and users, "Breaking Bad" could very well win its first Best Drama Series trophy this year thanks to several factors -- none of which seem to be its gritty nature.
Currently the fan-favorite meth series finds itself cooking in second place in our poll with 27/20 odds, behind only last year's winner "Homeland" with leading 8/13 odds. Coming in third is "Downton Abbey" with 10/3 odds, then "Game of Thrones" with 4/1 odds, followed by four-time champ "Mad Men" with 4/1 odds.
While the show has never earned an Emmy for writing, directing or Best Drama Series, it has taken home an impressive five statues in acting -- three for Bryan Cranston as Drama Lead Actor and two for Aaron Paul as Drama Supporting Actor. Both men are predicted to prevail yet again this year according to our exclusive polling.
A top score of 99% at Metacritic for its most recent season places "Breaking Bad" as one of the best-reviewed shows on television. In addition, the series won the top prize at this month's Critics' Choice Television Awards and also scored at recent kudos like the Writers Guild of America and the Directors Guild of America.
We took to the Gold Derby forum to find out whether or not "Breaking Bad" has any hope at the top prize this year. Below are just some of your many responses. (See the entire lively discussion here.)
"I actually think this is the show's best shot at winning yet. The competition is all scattered now, and every other show has factors hurting their chances somewhat, even 'Homeland,'" said Renaton. "Whether it happens this year or next year I'm not sure, but I think it's the one show that has only built more and more momentum each season."
Taloson wrote, "Breaking Bad's season aired a year ago but the fact that it will be airing its final eight episodes during voting will certainly help. People will be talking about it again and I think there's an overdue factor that may occur."
Reflecting on getting the part of Shoshanna in “Girls,” Zosia Mamet admits in the video chat below: “I was actually a little bit shocked when I got the part because I didn’t go to college. So I was never really around sorority girls and I’ve never really met that type of individual before. So I was just sort of winging her a little bit.”
At the end of the show’s first season her character lost her virginity. The actress thinks “that’s an experience that changes anybody, especially a young woman. It was something that was sort of her cross to bear for the first season... and it was a big deal for all of us when she lost it. In the second season she’s no longer a virgin, she has this boyfriend and I think that marks a big aspect of her growing up.”
As for Shoshanna’s role on the show, Mamet says: “We often refer to her as the moral compass of the show... I think that there’s a naiveté and a sincerity to her that the other ones don’t necessarily have... there’s part of her that will never be able to do anything without being herself.”
Despite being this moral compass, her sexual awakening led to Shoshanna cheating on Ray with a doorman. The actress defends the choice of her character, arguing “it felt very organic to me... she [Lena Dunham] writes all the characters as exceptionally human and humans play against type constantly in life; especially when you’re growing up... So it seemed like something natural to me to take this character who had just discovered her sexuality and have her go a little too far with it.”
And, as for the resulting break up with Ray which ended the second season, Mamet admits, “It was really sad, I remember the first time I read it and I got so sad and a texted Lena and was like “We’re breaking up?” and Alex Karpovsky legitimately made me cry while filming that scene ... Breaking up is never fun to do and I wanted it to work out for them but I knew it was never going to.”
A different kind of highlight from the season was when Shoshanna told Ray she loved him at a subway stop: “It felt very New York and very Woody Allen and very kind of epic to declare my love while subway trains were going by... the subway was still running so we had to shoot around the trains... it was an exciting day.”
Even with all the upsets at this year's Daytime Emmy Awards, Dan Kroll (Soap Central) got half of the 20 categories he predicted correct.
As with all of our experts, Kroll missed out on "Days of Our Lives" winning Best Drama. However, he did predict the winners in five of the six acting races (Younger Actress tripped him up) and was the only expert to foresee that win by "The Dr. Oz Show" in Talk Show (Informative).
Of our other experts who predicted 20 races, Paul Sheehan (Gold Derby) got seven right while Roger Newcomb (We Love Soaps) predicted six winners and Tom O'Neil (Gold Derby) foresaw five champs. Richard Simms (Soaps in Depth) nailed four while both Michael Fairman (Michael Fairman Soaps) and Jamey Giddens (Daytime Confidential) got three.
Stephanie Sloane (Soap Opera Digest) predicted 10 categories and got half of them right while Nelson Branco (Soap Opera Uncensored) got two of the nine categories he predicted correct.
10/20 CORRECT
Dan Kroll (Soap Central)
7/20 CORRECT
Paul Sheehan (Gold Derby)
6/20 CORRECT
Roger Newcomb (We Love Soaps)
5/20 CORRECT
Tom O'Neil (Gold Derby)
4/20 CORRECT
Richard Simms (Soaps in Depth)
3/20 CORRECT
Michael Fairman (Michael Fairman Soaps)
Jamey Giddens (Daytime Confidential)
5/10 CORRECT
Stephanie Sloane (Soap Opera Digest)
2/9 CORRECT
Nelson Branco (Soap Opera Uncensored)
RELATED LINKS:
Daytime Emmys shocker: 'Days of Our Lives' wins Best Drama Series
Daytime Emmys 2013: Complete list of winners
Podcast: What's behind shocking upsets at Daytime Emmys?
Sneak photos: Behind the scenes at the Daytime Emmys
Watch: Daytime Emmy winners in the press room
Daytime Emmys telecast runs long with miscues and filler
Review: Daytime Emmys find a welcome home on HLN
See how you did predicting the Daytime Emmys
Top Daytime Emmys expert: Dan Kroll (Soap Central)
Hundreds of our readers predicted the winners at the Daytime Emmy Awards. In total, they logged over 2,500 predictions.
To see your results, log into your account and under your profile picture click Daytime Emmy Awards 2013. And to find out where you rank on our leaderboard, click here.
For a full breakdown of the results by category, click here.
Despite the surprises and snubs, two of our users -- FishBiscuit and StephanieJohnson -- correctly predicted 60% of the winners and outpaced all our experts and editors. And a trio of users -- Cerulean, Ivan Simic and snuggle4 -- scored 55%.
Among our editors Daniel Montgomery got 50%, including all six of the acting winners, while Chris Beachum was at 35% and David Schnelwar scored 30%.
Our savviest experts was Dan Kroll (Soap Central) who scored 50%.
Paul Sheehan (Gold Derby) got 35% while Roger Newcomb (We Love Soaps) was at 30% and Tom O'Neil (Gold Derby) came in at 25%.
Richard Simms (Soaps in Depth) scored 20% and both Michael Fairman (Michael Fairman Soaps) and Jamey Giddens (Daytime Confidential) were at 15%.
Stephanie Sloane (Soap Opera Digest) predicted 10 categories and got half of them right while Nelson Branco (Soap Opera Uncensored) got two of the nine categories he predicted correct.
RELATED LINKS:
Daytime Emmys shocker: 'Days of Our Lives' wins Best Drama Series
Daytime Emmys 2013: Complete list of winners
Podcast: What's behind shocking upsets at Daytime Emmys?
Sneak photos: Behind the scenes at the Daytime Emmys
Watch: Daytime Emmy winners in the press room
Daytime Emmys telecast runs long with miscues and filler
Review: Daytime Emmys find a welcome home on HLN
See how you did predicting the Daytime Emmys
Top Daytime Emmys expert: Dan Kroll (Soap Central)
OK, let's not quibble over some of the obvious misfires on the Daytime Emmys telecast.
Clearly, that couch bit was a dud, not so much because it was terrible idea (and maybe it was) but because the gushing, empty questions were cringe-inducing. There was a lot of grumbling too about cohost Robin Meade singing, but I didn't hear her imitation of Julie Andrews – the sound was turned off on TV sets back in the press room at that point while winners talked to us. And then there was that snafu of the mixed-up envelopes …
But put all of that aside for a moment and focus on the good news. It was a classy show that had lots of heart (Scott Clifton and Billy Miller's bear hug), jawdroppers ("Days of Our Lives" socring a first victory as Best Drama Series since 1978!), informality (men dressed mostly in biz attire rather than tuxedos) and a brisk pace.
I liked what it promised about tomorrow. Next year the producers will get the kinks out and this will be obvious: finally, the Daytime Emmys have found an apt home.
It was painfully embarrassing in recent years to watch the Daytime Emmys turn their show into cheesy advertorials for Las Vegas casinos and Caribbean cruises. But Daytime Emmy leaders felt they had no alternative after getting jilted by the broadcast networks and even the CW. HLN came to the rescue and the pairing seemed curious at first.
The new cable channel was only minimally involved in the competition (sister station CNN personality Anderson Cooper's canceled talk show scored a nomination) and it doesn't boast the TV viewership of, say, the Eye Web. No, not when counting up viewers of the live show. But HLN likes to repeat most of its programs and, when it re-aired the Daytime Emmys a few times last year, the show ended up nab a total of five million viewers – that's just about how many it had the last time it was on CBS in primetime.
HLN's desire to give the Daytime Emmys a good home even manifested itself in the program's staging – it was produced by the network's "Showbiz Tonight" team, who extended coverage by adding preview special and a live pre-show.
Gold Derby got a front-row seat back in the press room at the Daytime Emmys. Below you can see what the winners said to us when they arrived with their golden trophies: Best Actress Heather Tom ("The Bold and the Beautiful"), Best Supporting Actors Billy Miller ("The Young and the Restless"), Scott Clifton ("The Bold and the Beautiful"), Best Supporting Actress Julie Marie Berman ("The Young and the Restless") and Best Younger Actress Kristen Alderson ("General Hospital").
Ever wonder what it's like to hang out alongside the red carpet or back in the press room at an awards show?
To see some informal (and, in some cases, shocking) photos that I shot with my android phone while poking around - CLICK HERE
RELATED LINKS:
Daytime Emmys shocker: 'Days of Our Lives' wins Best Drama Series
Daytime Emmys 2013: Complete list of winners
Podcast: What's behind shocking upsets at Daytime Emmys?
Sneak photos: Behind the scenes at the Daytime Emmys
Watch: Daytime Emmy winners in the press room
Daytime Emmys telecast runs long with miscues and filler
Review: Daytime Emmys find a welcome home on HLN
See how you did predicting the Daytime Emmys
Top Daytime Emmys expert: Dan Kroll (Soap Central)
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