For nearly two decades, the art form formerly known as television only grew, in wild and glorious abandon, as if touched by a terraforming agent from “Doctor Who.” Old networks transformed and new ones emerged, filling every screen with constantly regenerating stories of all sizes, shapes and shades.
And everyone wanted Emmys. Nothing offered better proof of concept than a ton of Emmys, and studios would do anything, including offering gas at 1950s-era “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” prices and snarling traffic on the Santa Monica Freeway for hours at a time. process, to achieve it. them.
But endless growth is not sustainable; At some point, the delirium must give way to the broader need for sustainability. If last year's combined writers' and actors' strikes, which lasted 191 days, with all the vitriolic exchange between creatives and managers, haven't convinced you that the unbridled rise of television has officially come to an end, the 75th edition of The Emmys could do it.
Even if Monday's telecast hadn't been delayed four months by strikes, wait, aren't we supposed to be thinking about the Oscars right now? — the list of nominees is, in most cases, so narrow and predictable that it's hard to generate any real excitement about who will win.
Spoilers: HBO.
I'm not saying that HBO hasn't had a very good year, or that the performances of each cast member in “Succession,” “The White Lotus” and “The Last of Us” haven't been excellent. I'm just saying there were some wonderful performances on other great shows, many of which don't appear on HBO, and it would have been nice if the drama acting categories had recognized that.
The “succession” came to an end in 2023, and many voters were no doubt moved by the fact that it would be their last chance to grace the show. But what should we make of “White Lotus”’s five nominations in the supporting actress category? I know voters watched “Bad Sisters” and “Yellowjackets” because they nominated the female leads. But no one else?
Sorry, sorry, this is not the time to argue about options. Emmy voters are merely reflecting the broader problem facing television.
Like visitors entering their third hour at the Louvre, Disneyland, or Costco, we've gone from open-mouthed amazement to a state of brain-pounding stimulus overload.
Even with decent marketing campaigns, many new and ongoing series struggle to get views; Gone are the days when the cultural conversation revolved around a handful of shows that broke television's traditional boundaries. Yes, people talk about “Succession,” “The White Lotus,” “The Last of Us,” and even “The Crown,” but not in the way they once obsessed over “Mad Men,” “Breaking Bad.” “, “Downton Abbey”. “Homeland”, “House of Cards” and “Game of Thrones”.
As many people have said over the years of “Has it finally peaked yet?” TV, there's so much to watch it's hard to know where to watch. And streaming makes any kind of conversation difficult: We may eventually watch the same show as all our friends, but who knows when that will be? Probably not in time for the Emmys, that's for sure.
It's a shame, and not just for the television networks that present the broadcast. For one brief, shining moment (gather now, kids), the Emmys played a huge role in the modern flourishing of television.
First, helping to attract actors from the big screen to the small: “Hey, you're definitely going to get an Emmy.” Then, after “Mad Men,” he started a revolution by proving that even a cable channel once dedicated to old movies could produce award-winning original content, offering gold validation.
Following the model established by AMC in 2007, any network or, later, streaming platform that entered the original content business would inevitably come out with a major “prestige” drama. These were designed not so much to attract large audiences, which decreased with each participant, but to be well received by critics and appear on multiple nomination lists.
Suddenly, an Emmy wasn't just the icing on the cake. He was the cake, proof that AMC, Netflix, History Channel, Hulu, Amazon and others were officially in the game.
Faced with new competition and a growing appreciation and demand for good television, HBO, Showtime and FX also explored new territory, bringing in top-notch actors, writers and directors, as well as unbearably gory violence, increasingly explicit sex scenes and even more naked women.
And with every network and platform wanting its name at the top of the nominations list, the Emmy race, once a mildly flashy local affair, went nuclear, with big-money campaign strategies that rivaled the Oscars. Lavish screenings, wildly creative pop-up events, huge ads everywhere – Emmy FYC made “awards season” a year-round phenomenon.
As the ever-expanding television landscape divided the audience into smaller segments, the Emmy Awards grew in value. Let the broadcasters worry about ratings; cable and streaming would focus on “excellence,” take all the statues, and add “award-winning” to their algorithms.
It worked, as far as it went. Twenty years ago, four of the five drama series nominated (including “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation”) were broadcast shows (the fifth, “The Sopranos,” won), as were three of the five comedy nominees (“Arrested Development ” by Fox). cattle). Then, shows confined by censors and dependent on high ratings began to slowly fall from the Emmy lists, including once-perennials like “House,” “The West Wing,” “Grey's Anatomy,” ” Boston Legal” and “Lost.”
Since the major streaming platforms got into the original programming game, only one streamed series (“This Is Us”) has been nominated for best drama. The last one to win, “24,” did so when George W. Bush was still in the White House. This time, the telecast has no drama nominees and only one comedy, “Abbott Elementary,” in competition.
Certainly, the Emmys helped and reflected the audience's transition from broadcast to cable and from there to streaming. This was no accident; By pushing first “House of Cards” and then “The Crown” with the ferocity of a “Toddlers & Tiaras” mom, Netflix entered an arms race with HBO, trying to break HBO's annual hold on most nominations. and victories, which he finally achieved in 2021.
While HBO's 127 nominations this year (24 more than Netflix and nearly double that of third-place Hulu) may allay any fears about the premium cable network's post-“Game of Thrones” decline, it still marks the end of an era for the Emmys. .
As the strikes made clear, television in all its forms has finally peaked, if not in quantity, then in quality. After years of lavish spending, the flutist, the writers, and the actors must be paid. “Contraction” is the motto now that CEOs realize that you can't live on statues alone. All those new platforms they created with fanfare and high-profile Emmy campaigns must turn a profit, something television networks have known all along.
With a double strike and a delayed broadcast, it was impossible for this year's nominees to engage in the kind of frenetic campaigning seen before 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic brought everything to a standstill. Still, it's hard to imagine that we'll see a return to that kind of attention, spending and fury anytime in the near future.
New platforms no longer need to chase Emmys as a way to establish themselves, though it would have been nice for Peacock to get a comedy series nod for “Poker Face,” if only because, God willing, there won't be any more new platforms. .
Likewise, the expensive period/fantasy drama, constructed as a (say it with me now) 10 (or eight or six) hour movie, may be the first casualty of the new world order. By seeking larger audiences that stay engaged for longer periods (“Suits,” anyone?), the industry is already moving away from the niche and toward a more traditional series model, with more episodes and broader appeal.
“Better Call Saul,” the last living descendant of TV's High Elder days, technically still has a shot at some long-awaited Emmys, which would return AMC to the landscape it helped redefine. But according to my colleague Glenn Whipp, who is annoyingly accurate about these things, it will be the year of HBO.
Some things never change. But on television, many, including the Emmys, are about to do so. Drasticly.
