Saturday, May 21, 2011

Wild Speculation: Emmy Edition

I'm stalling out on my attempt to write a piece about The Good Wife, so what better time to attempt to predict what will be nominated for the top Emmy awards come...whenever the Emmy nominations are announced? (I think it's July--I really have no idea. This is as random as projects come on Awkward is What We Aim For.) Be forewarned that I suck pretty hard at predicting the Emmys simply because unlike the Oscars, where the pool is fairly small and narrowed down by a bunch of precursors, the Emmys are a bigger pool with more populist swing at times that have only a couple precursors that happen six months before the Emmys even nominate. So this is a bit of a wild goose chase, really. Come take it with me!




Best Drama Series
Big Love
Boardwalk Empire
Dexter
The Good Wife
The Killing
Mad Men

I'm only sure about four of these--The Killing may not have the buzz to get nominated and Big Love's final season may not be worth rewarding. But a lot of former locks in this category are gone now (like Lost and Damages), so it'll be interesting to see what fills the slots.

Best Drama Actor
Steve Buscemi, Boardwalk Empire
Kyle Chandler, Friday Night Lights
Michael C. Hall, Dexter
Jon Hamm, Mad Men
Hugh Laurie, House
William H. Macy, Shameless

The nomination for Macy is probably a longshot, but I seriously could not come up with a sixth. I think his name will carry him to a nomination.

Best Drama Actress
Kathy Bates, Harry's Law
Mariska Hargitay, Law and Order: SVU
Julianna Marguiles, The Good Wife
Elisabeth Moss, Mad Men
Katey Sagal, Sons of Anarchy
Kyra Sedgwick, The Closer

Connie Britton (Friday Night Lights) is always a contender, but I feel like there's only room for her or Sagal, who just won the Golden Globe in this category, not both.

Best Drama Supporting Actor
Andre Braugher, Men of a Certain Age
Alan Cumming, The Good Wife
John Noble, Fringe
Chris Noth, The Good Wife
Michael Shannon, Boardwalk Empire
John Slattery, Mad Men 

...sure. Let's go with that.

Best Drama Supporting Actress
Christine Baranski, The Good Wife
Michelle Forbes, The Killing
Sharon Gless, Burn Notice
Christina Hendricks, Mad Men
Kelly MacDonald, Boardwalk Empire
Archie Panjabi, The Good Wife
 
Elisabeth Moss promoted out of this category and Rose Byrne's show wasn't airing this season, which leaves us with two spots. I filled them out with Forbes and MacDonald but have no faith in my guesses.

Best Comedy Series
30 Rock
The Big Bang Theory
Glee
Modern Family
The Office
Parks and Recreation

This is awfully network-heavy, which leads me to think I should replace Parks with either Weeds or Nurse Jackie...

Best Comedy Actor
Alec Baldwin, 30 Rock
Steve Carell, The Office
Rob Lowe, Parks and Recreation
Joel McHale, Community
Matthew Morrison, Glee 
Jim Parsons, The Big Bang Theory

I had to think really hard to get to six here. What an underwhelming category. I have no confidence that Lowe will get nominated but also can think of no one else for the sixth slot. Why doesn't Ed O'Neill hurry up and promote himself to the lead race? He'd get nominated easily!

Best Comedy Actress
Toni Collette, The United States of Tara
Edie Falco, Nurse Jackie
Tina Fey, 30 Rock
Laura Linney, The Big C
Lea Michele, Glee
Amy Poehler, Parks and Recreation

And as opposed to the men, I actually had to cut out a couple viable contenders here. Can I just borrow a spot from Best Comedy Actor to use it here?

Best Comedy Supporting Actor
Ty Burrell, Modern Family
Chris Colfer, Glee
Neil Patrick Harris, How I Met Your Mother
Tracy Morgan, 30 Rock
Oliver Platt, The Big C
Eric Stonestreet, Modern Family

Morgan and Platt are the shaky bets here.

Best Comedy Supporting Actress
Julie Bowen, Modern Family
Jane Krakowski, 30 Rock
Naya Rivera, Glee
Sofia Vergara, Modern Family
Betty White, Hot in Cleveland
Kristin Wiig, Saturday Night Live

The prediction for Rivera over Lynch is probably ridiculously wishful thinking, but I have to admit she's had the much stronger season.

Best Reality Competition Series
American Idol
The Amazing Race
Dancing with the Stars
Project Runway
Top Chef

The nominees have been the same for years now--why change? It's still a ridiculously solid bunch. Also remember that with Chef's win in this category last year, breaking the death grip Race had on the category, it's a real race this year. (I'd bet on Idol or Runway.)

So...that was fun. Any thoughts? Am I wrong all across the board? Take it to the comments!

2 comments:

seasondays said...

Your predictions don't seem as wild as you think, my predictions [and everyone's I think] are very much alike.

I think BRITTON has a better chance than BATES; the drama supporting actor will feature more actors from BOARDWALK than the GOOD WIFE, but I also agree that there are lot of wild cards waiting to happen.

I guess COMMUNITY has a better chance than BIG BANG THEORY, but I do agree that it is hard to predict a full slate of network comedy series.

ROB LOWE seems like a such a long shot but there are virtually no other leading actors in the mix; I am confident that MODERN FAMILY can get four nominations in the supporting actor category.

I also hope that NAYA RIVERA gets a nomination, she is the stand out this season in that show.

The reality competition category I think will be a battle between AMAZING RACE and TOP CHEF, but I'll bet TOP CHEF will take the award again after that amazing ALL STARS season.

Kevin said...

I'm glad I'm (unintentionally) more on-target than I thought!

I think you might be underestimating the sweep that The Good Wife will have. I think Emmy voters have had a season to digest it and, considering how overwhelming the critical adulation was for it this season, it'll easily score a nice nomination total. I'm actually unsure of how they'll respond to Boardwalk Empire.

Community or Parks and Recreation will get nominated, not both. I feel fairly confident about that.

I agree about Rob Lowe but completely disagree about Modern Family. The show's buzz is far lower this season than last and couldn't manage all four last year. I'm betting the glass ceiling is three.