emmy ballot

There is something about being a fan of a particular medium that makes some of us compulsive list-makers, right? Our desert island discs (Carried to Dust, Everywhere at Once, Challengers, In the Wee Small Hours...) and books (Little Big, House of Leaves, The Talisman, Swamp Thing...), top ten lists every year, and so on. I have to admit, when I first thought of doing this TV blog, one of the things I thought of was Sepinwall's annual "if I had an Emmys ballot" post.

Well, voting for Emmy nominations closed last week. Who would I have nominated?

Comedy

Series

Broad City was the single funniest thing on TV this year. I keep grouping it together with sketch shows in my head, because it's rare that a sitcom not only has such a strong voice, but for that voice to be that of the performers. I mean, Community, Taxi, Arrested Development, those shows have strong voices, but they belong to Harmon, Brooks, and Hurwitz, not anyone on screen. Broad City feels as personal as Key and Peele or Inside Amy Schumer, it just happens to be a sitcom.

Louie is of course the other sitcom for which that's true, though it is even less like a traditional sitcom than Broad City is. This season wasn't as ambitious as last season's multiple multi-episode arcs, but being more low key isn't a bad thing. I really hate the Louie/Pamela relationship, especially at this point in its history, but that doesn't mean it doesn't provide good comedy material.

I might put Transparent here even if all it did was give Judith Light a good role again. But Jill Soloway's show has even more going on than that, and although the transition of Jeffrey Tambor's Maura is the main focus, there's plenty going on in the rest of the family -- all of whom are self-absorbed, obnoxious, and various degrees of broken, which isn't surprising for a show created by a Six Feet Under vet.

The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt seems more like a network show than any other Netflix show does, but only because the work Tina Fey previously did on 30 Rock changed what network sitcoms can feel like. In a world that hadn't already seen 30 Rock, this show might be almost too weird, and maybe that's why NBC passed on it at the last minute. But it's one of the best things to come along in ages -- it's like Fey and her co-creator have realized that what sitcoms like to do is let their performers really ham it up, so they put something together where (just as in 30 Rock) hamming it up somehow works because of who the characters are (a girl recently escaped from a cult, an out of work actor, a wealthy trophy wife) instead of being yet another grating schlub of a husband rolling his eyes at his grating blonde of a momwife.

There are a lot of animated series that deserve at least consideration here. Rick and Morty didn't air last Emmy season, it turns out -- I didn't discover it until late -- but Adventure Time had a very strong season as it delves deeper and deeper into its own mythos and gets weirder and weirder. Bob's Burgers is of course always great. But I think the best thing in this mini-category this year was Netflix's Bojack Horseman, with Will Arnett as the anthropomorphic horse former star of a TGIF-type 90s sitcom. There are so many great things about this darkly funny and sometimes very bleak show, though my favorite is probably Vincent Adultman.


Lead Actress

Although Britta was underused in some of this year's Community episodes, Gillian Jacobs was still the funniest part of more episodes than not. While everyone on the cast has always seemed thoroughly comfortable in their characters, Jacobs really nailed Britta's combination of physical comedy, intellectual pretensions, and lack of self-awareness, bringing one of my all-time favorite TV characters to new heights of greatness. She's a large part of why this was one of the best seasons (despite the missing cast members, only the first two seasons were better).

Both Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson have to be on here for Broad City. And although I'm not going as far as imaginary nominations for guest stars, I'll reiterate that Kelly Ripa was fantastic, and really emblematic of what the guest star Emmy often represents: an actor working outside their usual boundaries and making something excellent happen there.

I'm not sure this was Amy Poehler's funniest season of Parks and Rec, but it was consistently one of the funniest shows on the air and even her weakest season would put her in the top five performances on TV, no question. Besides, there is something so joyful about Leslie Knope that it's always fun to see good things happen for her.

Ellie Kemper anchored The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and made it look easy, though I realize I'm including her at the expense of Julia Louis-Dreyfuss on Veep, Gaby Hoffmann on Transparent, and Constance Wu on Fresh Off the Boat.

Lead Actor

Jeffrey Tambor has had a hell of a career, hasn't he? He's come a long way since The Ropers, but even if Larry Sanders was the thing he was remembered for, that'd be a pretty great career. But then came Arrested Development, and suddenly he was at the center of two all-time great shows. And now a third with Transparent. Somehow you can always find him right there wherever the most innovative and interesting work is happening, and this time, he's anchoring the whole thing.

Louis CK is never not going to be on this list, not as long as he's making his show.

Keegan Michael Key and Jordan Peele are consistently funnier than the vast majority of sitcoms out there, and even their goofiest, most ridiculous stuff -- okay, maybe especially that -- always makes me laugh, from "A. A. ron" to "L'Carpetron Dookmarriott" to, well, this.

Did Review actually come out during the just-ended Emmy season, or was it the one before that? Well whatever, I'm going to say Andy Daly here, the lead of Review, a show that might not sound amazing -- fictional TV show host "reviews" real-life experiences like "stealing," "being a racist," and "eating ten pancakes" -- until you see it.


Drama

Series

Mad Men had a fantastic season, albeit one with a rocky start -- I'm still not sold on the necessity of Diane, even as I recognize how she got us from point A to point B (and maybe that's the problem, since who fondly remembers a character as the route from one place in the story to another?) and am ambivalent about a few other aspects. But I think it's probably a show that should leave you feeling that way.

With Mad Men and Breaking Bad done, the best dramas by far are Rectify and The Leftovers, both of which can be slow and thoughtful in novelistic ways, though I recognize that is frustrating for much of the potential audience. It isn't for me. I'd be on board for a Rectify that was twice as slow. These shows are exactly why TV is great these days, because when else would we have a slow-paced show about a man recently released from prison from death row for a murder he isn't sure if he committed or not, or a bleak portrait of families (and communities) gradually falling apart in the wake of a Rapture-like event?

Better Call Saul is way up there, it's just a little harder to call it a drama at times. But that's not a new problem, right? Ally McBeal was nominated for comedy Emmys but felt like apples and oranges against its sitcom competitors, and before that, St Elsewhere got drama awards but was funny at least as often as BCS.

Took me a minute to think of what the fifth nominee should be. The Good Wife had too uneven a season and the nonsense with Archie Panjabi and Julianna Margulies reached its show-affecting peak. Justified had its strongest season since the Bennetts, but still felt like it was treading water at times. The Americans, on the other hand, dealt with some of its strongest material, though I am still having trouble swallowing some of the plot developments (or the lack of certain plot developments occurring, I suppose) where Clark and Martha are concerned.

Lead Actress

Elisabeth Moss is the best actress on television in the 2010s, period. Okay, Connie Britton could give her a run for her money if Nashville gave her material to work with as strong as Friday Night Lights did, but between Mad Men and Top of the Lake, there is just no one else who has done better than Moss in recent years. The final season of Mad Men includes some of the best Peggy moments, especially the final two episodes. I really hope we don't lose Moss to movies. There is a particular joy in seeing the way an actor develops a character over time, one you can only find in television.

Carrie Coon and Amy Brenneman are the strongest performers on The Leftovers, doing very different work that -- like that of Moss and Christina Hendricks on Mad Men, for instance -- is grounded in their shared world. I knew Brenneman was good, of course, but it's great seeing her have something so meaty to work with, while Coon has been a revelation.

Speaking of revelations, Keri Russell somehow keeps getting better and better. Felicity is a pretty underrated show in the first place -- I think it's too easily summed up by its sort of wincey "girl follows crush to college" premise -- and Mission Impossible aside, she didn't have a lot of high-profile movie work in between series. But holy shit is she good on The Americans. If we weren't in such a golden age of drama, it would be no contest, hers would be the best female performance on TV.

Although Orphan Black hasn't stayed as strong as its first season, that's largely because of the rambling plotting. Tatiana Maslany continues to do heroic work in half a dozen roles -- differentiating them by more than just their hairstyle would be hard enough, but she manages to bring nuance to characters who could easily seem straight out of Central Casting, especially soccer mom Alison.

Lead Actor

Look, lots of guys were great this year, and it's a shame Aden Young hasn't already got an Emmy for Rectify, but he'll have time, as will Bob Odenkirk for Better Call Saul. This year has to be Jon Hamm. There is no close second. It has to be Don Draper. Come on. Teach the world to sing.


Supporting performances

I would nominate everyone on Transparent, Mad Men, and Rectify who doesn't qualify as a lead. Sam Elliott is probably an obvious choice for Justified; same with Michael McKean from Better Call Saul. Speaking of which, I was unfamiliar with Rhea Seehorn before BCS, but she's terrific. The whole Togetherness cast has submitted as supporting actors, and they all deserve nominations. Lorraine Toussaint and Uzo Adaba are the obvious choices from Orange is the New Black. Anybody on The New Girl or Parks is Emmy-worthy -- like a lot of the best sitcoms (Taxi, Mary Tyler Moore, Community, Happy Endings), the strength of those shows is their combinations of characters, much more than any one central performance. Zach Woods and T.J. Miller deserve nods for Silicon Valley, too, as does Kether Dononue for You're the Worst.

aftermeth

I first saw Bob Odenkirk on The Ben Stiller Show in 1992, in the middle of that crazy surge of sketch comedy shows, the likes of which we wouldn't see again until, well, this last year or so: in a three or four year period, you had In Living Color, The State, The Edge, The Ben Stiller Show, The Idiot Box, Just Say Julie, and Mr Show, and those are just the ones I remember off the top of my head. (Mad TV came in just as In Living Color ended - I had to look it up to be sure.) These were sketch comedy shows that represented different viewpoints than SNL, which had already come to represent a sort of white, male, often fratty, often diluted mainstream.

The Ben Stiller Show isn't remembered as fondly as Mr Show or The State today, but I think everyone who watched it realized how much talent was on board there (the way those of us who saw Jon Stewart on Short Attention Span Theater realized we'd be seeing him in a bigger venue eventually -- not that anyone could have foreseen this week's outpouring of tributes following the announcement that he's leaving The Daily Show, nor the importance that a show like TDS could have). Janeane Garofalo and Andy Dick rounded out the cast; David Cross and Dino Stamatopoulos had their first writing jobs on the show. It's probably mostly remembered as a starting point -- Garofalo and writer Judd Apatow went on to The Larry Sanders Show, Ben Stiller's film career began with Reality Bites, Andy Dick had a few false starts and then wound up on NewsRadio. And Bob Odenkirk and David Cross, who met on the Stiller Show, went on to create Mr Show.

Its crazy to me how good Mr Show was, given that it premiered just after The State had ended -- and at the time, The State seemed to me like the definitive word on sketch comedy -- and how little overlap the two shows had. (I'm not looking it up, but just assuming they had a writer or two in common, or a guest star in common, or something.) It tells you a lot about the depth of talent available at the time.

I was exactly the right demographic for both shows -- early 20s, colorful hair, Camille Paglia and Douglas Coupland on the bookshelf -- but also exactly the right age that I could have easily missed them, what with not always being home at night and not always having cable. In fact, I missed the last season or two of Mr Show because of not having HBO (I may not have had cable at all - it's all a blur now). Anyway, like The State, or Python, or the occasional Key and Peele skit today - or some of my favorite SNL bits in the last ten years, like "Dear Sister" - Mr Show was fundamentally absurd, a style of comedy that you don't "get" just by telling yourself, oh sure, it's a parody of COPS only they're in the French Revolution.

Like David Cross, Odenkirk became a comedy fixture after Mr Show, doing small to medium parts in a million TV shows, but it felt like everyone who knew his name was a Mr Show fan. It wasn't until Breaking Bad -- and especially, when Breaking Bad suddenly became huge in its final seasons -- that it seemed like the rest of the world finally got to know Bob Odenkirk's name.

Even before Better Call Saul, Odenkirk's Saul Goodman was an outlier in this age of quality TV drama: a supporting character so vivid and interesting that you could easily imagine a Saul show taking place simultaneously with Breaking Bad, and his early appearances on BB as a crossover between the two shows. You could easily replay those early BB appearances from a Saul-centric point of view and imagine what the rest of his day might be like, or how the appearance of Walter White and Jesse Pinkman in his life affected his overall arc. This feeling faded in the later seasons -- as Saul became more integral to Breaking Bad, the sense of him as a secret protagonist of some hidden show in a parallel universe naturally went away.

But think of how few characters among Breaking Bad's fellow dramas could so easily be imagined as protagonist of their own shows. Even when Frasier was spun off from Cheers -- more or less an ensemble comedy -- back in the day, they had to find a new context to put him in, and ignore his established backstory, in order to make it work. It wasn't just "here's more of Frasier, minus the parts of his life he spends in a bar."

The Wire lends itself most easily to this question, of course -- there was a Tommy Carcetti miniseries planned at one point, and it's easy to imagine the ongoing story of the stevedores, a Cutty-centric spinoff, a Bunny Colvin version of Parenthood, what have you. That's the nature of the show. But try imagining a character from Mad Men, The Sopranos, even Deadwood being given their own show that isn't in some sense a rejiggered continuation of the original show. Any character I pick, it feels like Frasier -- it feels like lifting this character up and removing them to some other venue to tell a story that, really, could have just as easily been told about a brand-new character. AfterMASH. Beverly Hills Buntz. Joey.

I think that's one reason Better Call Saul has been so highly anticipated, and why the premiere rated so highly: Saul Goodman already felt like a character who had his own show we weren't watching. He already felt that alive and that interesting, without needing to give him a fussy brother and a dad who doesn't understand him. Better Call Saul, if it's done right, is a story that can only be told with this preexisting character.

You know what it reminds me of, more than anything on TV? John Constantine. Constantine showed up as a supporting character on Alan Moore's fantastic run on the Swamp Thing comic book, sort of a Ben Kenobi with a Han Solo heart, there to guide Alec Holland to his destiny but not necessarily for Holland's own good. It wasn't until several years later that he got his own series, Hellblazer, and while we got to know other facets of Constantine through that series, none of it felt like it was at odds with what we knew of him in Swamp Thing. It just felt like we had backtracked and chosen to keep following John's story instead of Alec's.

Yes, the Saul we're getting in this first season isn't the Saul we know, yet. He's not even called Saul. But this is clearly the Albuquerque of Breaking Bad. This is clearly that same world, just a different segment of it, a decade earlier, from a different perspective. If it's a prequel, it's not a prequel in the same sense as The Phantom Menace et al -- this doesn't feel like a narrative that is primarily meant to explain how we got to the first few minutes of Breaking Bad, or even to Saul's first appearance on Breaking Bad. It doesn't feel like an explanation at all, and I think that's going to be one of its strengths.

With only two episodes, it's hard to say much about the show so far. It has a mix of darkness and humor like Breaking Bad often did, without the self-destructive megalomania of Walter White at its center. That alone is compelling. Taking somebody like Saul/Jimmy and having him take care of an older brother like Chuck, that's immensely compelling, and immediately makes you ask what happens to Chuck in the intervening years (perhaps like Chuck Cunningham, people just forget about him and stop bringing him up), what the rest of their family is like, etc.

I'm certainly on board.