The Peabody Awards are all about the quality. It doesn’t matter if five people watched a show; if it’s great, the Peabodys hunt it down. In the past it’s singled out everything from Justified to South Park to Portlandia. Every year, there are some surprising nominees, but this year in particular goes above and beyond in that regard.
It’s an interesting mix of the highly visible, like This Is Us and Netflix’s Luke Cage, hoping to follow up on Jessica Jones‘ win, to more interesting choices, most notably Lemonade, marking an unusual step, and Atlanta.
The Peabody nominations are also a good place to pick up more obscure stuff you might have missed, or give stuff that deserves more viewS a hand. It’s great to see Pamela Adlon’s tart Better Things on the list, for example, and Happy Valley, which you can find on Netflix, takes on small town murder stories through the lens of a divorced policewoman struggling with her inner demons and the routine of law enforcement in rural England. No list of nominees like this will ever please everyone, but this is a really solid attempt.
All the shows up for the award are posted below, and we’ll find out who takes in April 20th.
Better Things
Cleverman
Happy Valley
National Treasure
