The greatest new present of 2022 was utterly snubbed by this yr’s Emmy nominations. AMC‘s Interview With the Vampire is adored by critics and fans alike, but it received no recognition from TV’s highest honor. The present has had a brand new surge in reputation a yr after its launch due to AMC+’s limited-time-only streaming take care of Max, bringing the sequence to new audiences who are actually taking to social media to specific their disbelief over what they’ve been lacking. (Tony-nominated playwright Jeremy O. Harris gave it a glowing endorsement simply this week.)
This luxurious Anne Rice adaptation that options arguably the most effective TV writing we’ve seen in years (plus appearing performances from Game of Thrones‘ Jacob Anderson and The Newsreader‘s Sam Reid that are worthy of wins, not just nominations) is not alone in its awards show snubs. In fact, it’s simply the newest addition to the lengthy listing of style exhibits that awards voters criminally ignore because of an inexplicable style bias — a bias that has excluded Interview With the Vampire from its well-earned seat at awards present tables.
For these unfamiliar with the time period, a style present is a TV sequence that falls throughout the classes of sci-fi, fantasy, and horror — topics which are presumed to solely entertain area of interest audiences. By wanting by way of the exhibits that win Emmys, Golden Globes, SAG Awards, and many others, you see that more often than not, the exhibits are tales depicting life as it’s — no dragons, zombies, vampires, lightsabers, or superheroes.
There have been outliers by way of the years, comparable to The X-Files (sci-fi), which has 15 Emmy wins to its title, and Game of Thrones (fantasy), which has a staggering 59 (it nonetheless holds the report for many Emmy wins of any fictional sequence). And among the many 2023 Emmy nominees are the Game of Thrones spinoff House of the Dragon, Andor, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and The Last of Us, which on condition that it’s a dramatization of a online game, you’d assume awards present snobbery would instantly ignore it as a viable choice for nominations.
It’s needed to notice that most of the time, when a style present is nominated for main awards, it’s an HBO manufacturing. This isn’t any insult to HBO (please, by no means cease making style exhibits!). Rather, I level it out as a result of it’s not the one TV channel making award-worthy style tales, however it’s the just one constantly being celebrated for making them. And I feel that’s simply bogus.
AMC has been producing beautiful work on this entrance for years. Interview With the Vampire is the newest instance, but it surely’s generally straightforward to overlook how a lot of a cultural phenomenon The Walking Dead was when it first debuted. Never had a zombie present transfixed viewers at giant like the primary of this franchise. It wasn’t simply made to scare by displaying the horror of societal collapse as people changed into zombies. It was in regards to the stubbornness of the human spirit and its will to not solely survive, however to maintain on connecting and rebuilding by way of group. It’s not a stretch to say that The Walking Dead walked so The Last of Us might run.
Andrew Lincoln and Jon Bernthal‘s performances in that first season had been worthy of nominations on the very least, and the way in which Danai Gurira carried that present for years was worthy of recognition (she and Lincoln will return within the Rick and Michonne spinoff, The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live). Despite its reputation and reward, The Walking Dead has solely two Emmy wins (for prosthetic make-up) and no appearing nominations.
I’m all the time left scratching my head when serious about why exhibits like these are continually snubbed. Genre tales are a incredible approach to discover each nook of the human spirit by way of metaphor. Why do exhibits should be set in actual life for them to be award-worthy? Is it not more durable to create a sequence that’s entertaining, shifting, and relatable when it’s not set in our actuality? Shouldn’t it’s extra spectacular if it’s a success, in that case?
Despite being raked throughout the coals by followers and critics when it got here out, the ultimate season of Game of Thrones (Season 8) obtained a record-breaking 32 Emmy nominations and received 12. Do you imply to inform me that the worst season of Game of Thrones — the one followers hate probably the most, the one whose ending the solid itself (together with IWTV‘s Anderson) cringed at — is better than Interview With the Vampire Season 1? Be serious. Its Emmys snubs would have me believe that, though. (You can’t make me!)
On the comedy aspect, let’s be actual: Ted Lasso‘s final season was a disappointment. And yet, Season 3 is no doubt a contender for the January Emmy’s high awards. Meanwhile, What We Do In the Shadows (FX‘s vampire mockumentary) isn’t nominated in opposition to Ted Lasso Season 3 within the Outstanding Comedy Series class for its note-perfect Season 4. Make it make sense!
There’s no logical rationalization for the trade’s style bias, but it surely might boil all the way down to voters merely not paying actual consideration to the entire eligible nominees. In college, how typically did you clean on a take a look at reply and simply went with the reply that gave off the most appropriate vibe? That’s how I clarify Don Cheadle‘s Emmy nomination for The Falcon and the Winter Soldier in 2021. The lack of attention awards voters pay to the eligible series was on full display with that one. Cheadle is a wonderful actor, don’t get me mistaken. But he was actually in two minutes of that present, and half of that point was spent listening to Anthony Mackie speak. Cheadle’s personal response to the nomination was “I don’t really get it either.”
Awards present voters, if you happen to’re not going to do your homework throughout voting season, why are you even bothering casting a vote? Why ought to style exhibits and its followers should undergo out of your laziness? Give style exhibits a few of your treasured time, and you might simply notice, like the brand new Interview With the Vampire followers above, that you just’ve lengthy been lacking out on the most effective that TV has to supply. If you aren’t being negligent together with your voting, be happy to try to change my thoughts.