The race for Best TV Actor at the Saturn Awards tonight in Burbank, California, looks like a battle between good and evil — well, mostly good. There are six heroes going up against one serial killer.
Freddie Highmore finally went off the deep end in the fifth and final season of “Bates Motel” this spring as “Psycho” Norman Bates. This is his sixth nomination at the Saturn Awards. He was nominated in this category for “Bates” back in 2014, and prior to that he contended four times for Best Younger Actor for various roles, winning in 2008 for “August Rush,” which was released when he was 15.
Highmore will have to fight off a number of do-gooders, including the heroic Highlander Sam Heughan from the romantic time-travel adventure “Outlander.” He was nominated in this category last year, and the year before that he contended as a supporting actor for this performance. He has yet to win.
A few other heroes in this race are of the super variety, including Grant Gustin as the title character in CW’s “The Flash.” Adapted from DC Comics, the Flash uses his super-speed to fight crime. Gustin is nominated for the third time in a row in this category, and he also won a special Breakthrough Performance Award in 2015.
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Two Marvel superheroes are nominated: first-time contender Mike Colter as “Luke Cage,” who possesses super-strength and bulletproof skin, and second-time nominee Charlie Cox as “Daredevil,” who lost his eyesight but has all his other senses greatly enhanced. Cox was also nominated in this category last year but has yet to win.
The last two nominees aren’t super, per se, but they’re still plenty heroic. Bruce Campbell contends for playing the title character in “Ash vs. Evil Dead,” the series continuation of the “Evil Dead” trilogy of films he made with director Sam Raimi between 1981 and 1992. He’s actually the defending champion in this category, having won last year on his first career nomination.
Rounding out the category is Andrew Lincoln as the oft-traumatized leader of a group of survivors during the zombie apocalypse in AMC’s “The Walking Dead.” This is his fifth nomination for this performance, including one previous victory in 2015. So you don’t necessarily need special powers to prevail in this contest. All it takes is some firepower and the will to face down the undead.
So who do you think will prevail? Bestowed by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films, the 43rd annual Saturn Awards honor the best in genre fare each year. Disney’s “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” leads all films with 11 nominations, while “The Walking Dead” (AMC) has the most bids on the TV side at seven, followed by “Westworld” (HBO) with six.
