It's Emmy Nomination Contender Time!
The 2014 Emmy Ballots were unveiled on Monday, June 9 and finished ballots are due in on the 20th. That's a very short window. Between now and June 20, we'll be breaking down the major categories, 10 of them to be specific.
As usual, the process will be pretty straight-forward. Sepinwall will blog about his preferences, using the intriguing rules and methodology that he sets for himself.
And over here, in photo gallery form, I'll be going through the featured contenders handicapping their chances of actually landing nominations. My rules and methodology are also a bit silly. Specifically, the first six slides in each gallery are my nomination predictions, vaguely in order by likelihood. 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, just because.
Life has a way of messing up tight schedules like this and there's an off chance that we won't finish before the June 20 deadline. It's happened in the past and that's why this year we're starting with…
OUTSTANDING DRAMA SERIES!
It's always one of the toughest categories on the Emmy board and it gets harder and harder each year with new players like Netflix and SundanceTV and History pushing their way into a field that gets deeper and deeper, especially when somebody like — hypothetically — HBO decides that something that might — hypothetically — normally have been a miniseries is actually — hypothetically — a drama series.
Normally, you'd have to wait for the end of the nomination announcements or Emmy telecast to dig into this category. Instead, it's where we're starting.
Check out the gallery below…
Last Year's Nominees:
“Breaking Bad”
“Downton Abbey”
“Game of Thrones”
“Homeland”
“Mad Men”
“House of Cards”
Attrition: In a literal sense, all six nominees from last year will be eligible for return engagements this year. But despite the powerhouse nature of the category, perception is likely to be that there's more than a little wiggle room. Surely “Homeland” won't be nominated again, right? Given the competition, aren't “House of Cards” and “Downton Abbey” ready to drop out? And haven't award-giving groups been [incorrectly] telling us for a year that “Mad Men” is past its sell-by date? And it's good that the category is so deceptively vulnerable, because otherwise how would voters make room for “True Detective” (a lock), the return of “The Good Wife” (a near lock) or “Under the Dome” (just seeing if you're awake).
Here are Sepinwall's personal picks.
My predictions are below.
Your thoughts? Predictions? Analysis?