Reminder: For our annual Emmy contenders coverage, Sepinwall does his personal preferences, while I handicap mostly in terms of likelihood of landing nominations. As usual, the first six slides in each gallery are my nomination predictions. The next eight or nine slides are the actors and shows most likely to sneak in, based on precedent, quality or something nebulous. And then at the end of each gallery, I tend to throw in a couple oddballs who have no chance at all of being nominated, but who I think deserve to be a part of the conversation, or might accidentally become part of the conversation, just because.
Our next category:
OUTSTANDING COMEDY SERIES:
Comedy is more subjective than drama, especially because a bunch of the things now categorized as comedies for Emmy purposes are difficult-to-categorize hybrids (“Orange Is The New Black”), comedies-that-are-now-dramas-but-were-never-categorized-as-comedies-before (“Shameless”), comedies that some people don't find even slightly funny (“Girls”) or whatever Louis C.K. happens to deliver to FX (“Louie”). The things that are listed as dramas? Well, they're mostly just dramas.
Only one thing is for sure: Until it loses, “Modern Family” is an unstoppable force of nature.
Last Year's Nominees:
“Modern Family”
“The Big Bang Theory”
“Girls”
“Louie”
“30 Rock”
“Veep”
Attrition: The only show leaving this field for sure is “30 Rock,” which is no longer with us. Sad. For a while it looked like “Louie” might not return to air in time to make the cut and then it looked like “Louie” might not return with enough episodes before the deadline. But it did. “Louie” is, in fact, the only eligible nominee that isn't working on a streak of multiple consecutive Comedy Series nominations, which suggests there may not be a lot of wiggle room below four-time winner “Modern Family.” That's bad news for Golden Globe winner “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” critical darling “Orange Is The New Black” and category carpetbagger “Shameless.” There are a lot of new niche favorites that will also have trouble getting recognition this year, which is probably going to be bad luck for the likes of “Review,” “Derek,” “Looking,” “Getting On,” “Meron” and “The Wrong Mans.” But there are a lot of contenders here, so many that I didn't even bother doing a slide for perennial Emmy snubee “Community.” It's just not gonna happen, Greendale Students.
Here are Sepinwall's personal picks.
My predictions are below.
Your thoughts? Predictions? Analysis?