obligatory long-shot emmy nomination post
Let’s remember that the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences is an organization that picks a horse and sticks with it till death – the Emmys would have you believe that not only is Boston Legal one of the best five dramas on television, but also that co-star William Shatner – yes, THAT ONE – is one of the best five actors on television, as is Charlie Sheen – yes, THAT ONE.
This organization owes Lauren Graham five statues yet never even gave her a nomination -- if it were up to me, thieves Jennifer Aniston, Patricia Heaton, Debra Messing and Sarah Jessica Parker would all be getting visits from the Emmy repo man. It gave Candice “Murphy Brown” Bergen so many statues she retracted her name from the nominees’ list in embarrassment. It nominated Ellen Burstyn for a 14-second appearance in a TV movie. It tends to do stupid and boring things like nominate most of the Desperate Housewives (one of the best moments in Golden Globes history was the whole Best Actress category was four Housewives and Mary-Louise Parker, more talented than they are collectively, and she won) or give all the writing nominations to The Sopranos or try and set up some kind of a sweep. It has nominated Kelsey “Sideshow Bob” Grammer TWELVE TIMES.
So it’s got its problems.
But I love awards shows and television and I really love acting; in fact I value it above anything else in either TV or film, because shit lives and dies on actors’ shoulders, as much as the writer in me hates to admit it. A good actor can elevate bad writing, good writing will be made better by great acting. Bad acting will rarely hurt good writing. It’s always a jump-off, never the point.
So here are some acting nominations I do not expect to see in July:
Melora Hardin The Office
Some bemoan Jan’s descent into madness, beginning with the breast augmentation, but I love it. How else but a post-divorce downward spiral do you explain a beautiful, career-oriented big-city girl moving to Scranton to be with Michael Scott? Hardin has always played Jan’s inner conflict with the perfect amount of lust and sickness – she knows he is not the right choice for her, yet she wants him anyway. The heart wants what it wants, unfortch. So it makes sense that after getting the heave from corporate and ending up broke and jobless in Scranton, the once-powerful Jan would turn on Michael so ferociously. And he knows she’s the hottest woman he’ll ever be with, and vanity is what’s kept him in this mess. That boob job is symbolic on so many levels.
Emmy clip: The “Dinner Party” episode, when Michael and Jan host Pam, Jim, Andy and Angela at their condo, is an excruciating field trip. Jan’s past passive-aggressiveness with Pam – remember when she threatened her at the rabies fun run? – receives context via Michael’s false claims that they had dated, while Hardin puts all of herself into the mortifying cougar dance Jan performs in time to ex-assistant Hunter’s shitty song about her deflowering him. When the episode’s denouement comes via a visit from the cops – who had clearly been there before – Michael’s $200 plasma is in pieces on the floor, broken by a Dundie hurled by a Jan finally pushed over the edge.
Rainn Wilson The Office
For all the comic relief at Dunder Mifflin, none is more terrifically bizarre than Dwight Schrute, and Wilson could skate by on deadpan glares and awesome lines like “The eyes are the groin of the head.” It’s hard to build poignancy into every pocket of an ensemble, and the heart of The Office is Pam and Jim, but this season managed to do something extraordinary when it let Dwight and Angela’s relationship move from a callback joke to a real situation with an emotional fallout, turning Dwight into a real human at last. The catalyst for the breakup was standard Schrute – he killed one of her beloved cats by sticking it in her freezer (still alive!), tried to win her back with a cat he found in an alley and named Garbage (and set loose in Vance Refrigeration) and still lost her, eventually to an oblivious Andy. The final scene of the year was Phyllis walking in on Dwight and Angela doin’ it on the heels of her new engagement, but in between death and sex was a lot of pathos and complexity.
Emmy clip: In "Goodbye Toby," the season finale, Dwight admits the breakup was his fault, without a post-beat one-liner. Four seasons in, he earned this unguarded, bravado-free moment, and Wilson plays it beautifully.
Kathryn Morris Cold Case
As happens with me and procedurals, I have just gotten into Cold Case in its fifth season. Like its network mate NCIS, it’s a top 20 show nobody talks about – tens of millions watch it every week, but it remains firmly off the water cooler discussion topics list. And rightfully, mostly – it’s heads above any CSI installment, but never rises to the heights that are within its grasp, a straight-up-the-middle whodunit. It’s like NYPD Blue once people got used to the asses and swears – solidly made, enjoyable, moot. Blue stayed near the top right till the end, but you stopped hearing about it once Jimmy Smits died.
Anyway, most procedurals feature a partnership at the centre (Hargitay/Meloni, Petersen/Helgenberger, Sinise/Kanakaredes) and Kathryn Morris’ Lilly Rush has a partner in Danny Pino’s Scotty, but it’s not the traditional kind – Cold Case was built around Morris back in 2003 and it still plays that way, and due to its sub-radar sturdiness, her show does not glitter like a nominee. Unfortunately the Emmys are not known for recognizing things they’ve missed so many years in a row, and like Lauren Graham before her, Morris will likely go unnoticed for the show’s duration. And what a shame -- Morris’ tough, often funny portrayal can make you wince in the way your own friends do (Rush comes from white-trash alcoholism, and sometimes she talks like it, dropping her “g”s and replacing her “doesn’t”s with “don’t”s) but there’s lots to admire in Lilly, who never backs down or gives up. The writers’ strike fucked up the momentum of her recovery from being shot in last year’s season finale but hopefully they’ll keep it on track in season six.
Emmy clip: In “The Road,” which takes place almost entirely in a car driven by Lilly and Scotty, who are escorting a serial killer back to Philly, the killer baits Lilly from the backseat, not incorrectly surmising that she is a workaholic with no love in her life. His method of murder is to lock women up and take away their wills to live – separating them from their children, spouses, whatever it is that gives their life meaning, until they starve to death. He’s almost got Lilly convinced too, but then she refutes him (and solves the case, natch) in a great speech: “Even in the ugliness of Kensington [Lilly’s shit hometown] she found something to cling to, something beautiful. She didn’t break, did she John? She never gave up. Because when it was all taken away, in the end, she still had herself.”
Justin Kirk Weeds
Kirk is a spitfire of a talent, sly and infuriating and hilarious. You might remember him from Angels in America, but he’s brought major game to Agrestic, California, where he’s been throwing down with Angels castmate Mary-Louise Parker for four years. As Andy Botwin, Nancy’s late husband’s brother, Kirk has a helluva time getting high, getting his toe bitten off in a drug bust, becoming a Rabbi to avoid the army and going on the run with crazy Zooey Deschanel. Nancy’s kids need a father figure and Andy is a terrible one, but he’s got good advice – the incredible, euphemism-packed two-minute masturbation speech Andy delivers to Shane in season two is award-winning in its own right – and he’s a good foil for Nancy herself. Last season’s plot about him becoming a foot fetish porn star was dumb, but everything else has been gold with this guy.
Emmy clip: Nothing specific, just overall dopeness. Even though he provides a good bunch of the quirk, Kirk is also necessary to keep Weeds in the centre of its difficult, Scrubs-like tone balance – he can bring it down when he needs to. Here he finds the middle ground:
Connie Britton Friday Night Lights
The critical mass for this show is almost tiresome at this point – it’s not about football (except when it is!), it's about the American dream, small town life, you should be watching it, blah blah. Let’s assume you are watching it already. In a sprawling ensemble with many high points – the hotness spectrum of bumbling Matt Saracen (Zach Gilford) and smouldering Tim Riggins (Taylor Kitsch, OH Canada); Buddy Garrity (Brad Leland), the embodiment of a small-town Texas business slickster; the addition of Santiago (Benny Ciaramello), whose sadness equals his hotness; a litany of delightful tertiary characters in Grandma Saracen, Tyra’s sister Mindy, Smash’s mother Corinna and Coach Mac Macgill – it’s Connie Britton who forms the core of Friday Night Lights. Kyle Chandler isn’t too shabby either, and much has been made of their terrific portrayal of marriage, but Britton has had a wonderful year in a season that was knocked off-balance by some heavy-handed storylines about murder and race.
She did it by doing what Friday Night Lights does best – keep it real. She didn’t have the showy plot but she acted the shit out of it anyway. Required to react to an ever-shifting world underscored by post-partum depression, Britton's Tami Taylor navigated her family’s choppy waters – new baby, absent husband, fuckup sister, asshole teenager – with skill and heart and all of the breezy charm she and Chandler have been credited with from the start.
Emmy clip: In the season opener, "Last Days of Summer," mere days after the arrival of baby Gracie, Eric is unexpectedly called back to TMU. He tells Tami, whose lip starts to quiver. She bites it back until he stops talking. “I’m gonna go out for awhile.” As we stay with Britton, Chandler exiting in the background, her face collapses in silent sobs until she hears the door close, then lets loose a torrent of body-wracking weeping.
Honourary mention: Hauling that petulant brat Julie out of a van, then slapping her.
Other deserving long shots: Jeanne Tripplehorn, Big Love; Ginnifer Goodwin, Big Love; Ally Walker, Tell Me You Love Me; Ethan Embry, Brotherhood; Jason Issacs, Brotherhood; Jane Krakowski, 30 Rock
