Team Experience Emmy Reactions

Hope y'all aren't done talking about the Emmy nods yet. Abe, Cláudio, Juan Carlos, Chris and myself got together to share our reactions to Tuesday's Emmy nominations. From our disappointments about the snubs (sorry about Small Axe, Cláudio) to our individual joys (Carlos remains the world's biggest Handmaid's Tale fan) and our suggestions about how to improve the system (I explain why ranked ballots are the only way to go in the conversation).

Have a watch and share your own reactions, now that the dust has settled.

• Which snubs are still irritating you? 
• Which shows will you know be watching to see what the big deal is? 
• Who do you think will win the hot-hot-hot miniseries category?
• Who are you rooting for? 

TCA Nominations 2021

The Television Critics Association has announced its nominees for the season and they make an interesting parallel kudo-party with the Emmys both in their sameness and where they diverge. I'm told voting closed before the Emmy nominations were announced so these are simple disagreements as opposed to statement making...

INDIVIDUAL ACHIEVEMENT IN DRAMA

Michaela Coel, I May Destroy You – HBO
Ethan Hawke, The Good Lord Bird – Showtime
Thuso Mbedu, The Underground Railroad – Amazon
Elizabeth Olsen, WandaVision – Disney+
Mj Rodriguez, Pose – FX
Omar Sy, Lupin – Netflix
Anya Taylor-Joy, The Queen’s Gambit – Netflix
Kate Winslet, Mare Of Easttown – HBO

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Emmy Watch: Which Limited Series Supporting Actors will break through?

By Abe Friedtanzer 

John Boyega in "Small Axe"

This category is by no means the highest profile of the limited series/TV movie/anthology series acting races, but it does include a handful of strong contenders. The past three years have given us one show that earned three nominations – Watchmen, When They See Us, and The Assassination of Gianni Versace – and it’s certainly possible that this will be the fourth consecutive year of the tripling. This is also one of only two acting categories this year that has more contenders than in 2020, with 140 men in the running…

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Emmy FYC: The cast of "Small Axe"

by Cláudio Alves

As Christopher James mentioned in his overview of the Limited Series Emmy race, much of the discourse surrounding Small Axe has focused on categorization. Is it TV or cinema? To be perfectly blunt, I don't care. Indeed, it's been pretty disheartening to see how so much energy was spent debating this matter instead of simply appreciating the work. To me, the five Small Axe films are a miracle of audiovisual expression and historical narrative, perchance Steve McQueen's most important masterpiece. When it came time to write these Emmy FYCs, I jumped at the chance of singing the anthology's praise. Honestly, the only problem was singling out just one element to promote.

While I could just as happily have written about Shabier Kirchner's luminous cinematography or the sensuous textures of Jacqueline Durran's costumes, I've decided to focus on the actors…

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King McQueen On Every Screen

by Jason Adams

Steve McQueen, the man who directed five, count 'em, five of last year's best films with his Small Axe series, is about to confound everybody fixated on old-fashioned definitions of Art all over again with a new three-part thingamajig for the BBC called Uprising.  THR is calling it a "docuseries" and this one, on paper, does admittedly sound more like a proper old-fashioned series than the Small Axe anthology ended up seeming (to me). We'll  wait and see how McQueen confounds our expectations, since he does always love to do that, and to stunning effect. And hey if awards voting bodies can't keep up with where and how the art is happening that's their fault, not the artists.

Uprising will focus in closer on the 1981 events that formed the backdrop of Axe's fourth chapter "Alex Wheatle" -- namely the New Cross Fire which killed 13 young people, and the Black People's Day of Action and then the Brixton Riots which followed right on its heels. It's not entirely clear if this will be entirely a documentary -- McQueen's quoted as saying it will be drawn from "testimonials" of the people involved -- or if there will be a hybrid project with a fictionalized mix of recreations. Not that McQueen needs help but I'm hoping he draws some inspiration from Raoul Peck's recent HBO series Exterminate All the Brutes, which threw absolutely everything at us all at once and blew my socks straight off in the process.