Emmy Reactions Pt 2: What We Do in the Shadows, Unbelievable, Mrs America...

We polled Team Experience yesterday with several questions on the brand new Emmy nominations. In part one we explored fav nominations and anger-inducing snubs. Here are four more pressing questions -- and please provide your own answers to compliment our teams in the comments!   

• What We Do in the Shadows surprised with a big nomination haul but none for its actors. Who you think is most deserving from that hilarious show?
  
  
• What happened to Unbelievable? Only 4 nominations and only 1 acting nod.
  
  
• Mrs America landed three Supporting Actress nods: Uzo Aduba, Margot Martindale and Tracey Ullman. Were those your three favourite from that series? 
  
  
• Which acting category is the sexiest?  

Our individual answers are after the jump...

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Emmy Nominations 2020

By Abe Fried-Tanzer

William Jackson Harper is finally nominated for The Good Place. The show received 6 nominations including 4 for acting.

Every year when Emmy nominations are announced, there are at least a few surprise snubs and inclusions. One or two inconsistencies are expected, but usually, when a series does well, it brings along its most talented performers with it. This year, it feels like that isn’t true in so many different cases in what may well be the messiest list of nominees we’ve ever seen. But let’s start with the good.

From this truly baffling announcement, there are a few very positive takeaways. Every single acting category listed below includes at least one person of color, and there’s a real diversity to the nominees. Underdogs like Yvonne Orji (Insecure) and William Jackson Harper (The Good Place) made the cut for the fourth seasons of their shows, which is wonderful (and not common). Unorthodox managed eight nominations, including for Best Limited Series and lead actress Shira Haas. Though it didn’t crack its top category, Normal People did score a nomination for Paul Mescal and for writing (we cheered on Nathaniel’s behalf). A lot of people were surely ecstatic that Zendaya (Euphoria) managed a nomination in an insanely crowded field, too.

Unfortunately, that’s about the extent of the entirely positive...

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What did you watch over the weekend?

This weekend, in a fit of extreme laziness and desire to stay right next to the air conditioner, I turned into one of those people who binge-watches a whole season of TV. (I'm not judging, it's just not how I personally do television). The show was Amazon's scifi comedy and socioeconomic satire Upload. It's quite uneven in its laughs and execution -- a giant suspension of disbelief is necessary for its premise of life after death via technological upload, but the 'rules' within the show's universe were ridiculously inconsistent -- but overall I found it endearing and loved the female lead, Cameroonian-American actress Andy Allo. Have any of you watched?  

What have you been watching? Please say "1991's Oscar nominees". The Smackdown is on Sunday!

Almost There: Liv Ullmann in "Scenes from a Marriage"

by Cláudio Alves

I confess that, when I first came up with the idea for this week's Almost There write-up, I didn't expect its subject to be so weirdly topical. First up, there's the actual raison d'être for the piece, which is the Criterion Channel's new "Marriage Stories" collection, in which Ingmar Bergman's Scenes from a Marriage is featured. Then there's the whole Hamilton kerfuffle, which caused controversy over the Academy's definition of what is and isn't cinema or what should and shouldn't be eligible for the Oscars (two importantly different questions). This is relevant because the ineligibility of Bergman's film caused a major ruckus back in 1974 and even prompted a couple of notorious open letters (another topical subject, unfortunately). Finally, we have the recent news that the television cut of Scenes from a Marriage is going to be remade by HBO with Michelle Williams and Oscar Isaac in the leading roles. 

We'll return to some of those matters later on, but, for now, let's concentrate on Liv Ullmann's masterful performance as Marianne in Scenes from a Marriage…

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TCA obsesses over "Watchmen" and "Mrs America"

by Nathaniel R

We have mixed, even contradictory, feelings about the Television Critics Association. On the one hand they've exhibited good taste over the years. Their limited categories mean that their awards are focused and precise and uniquely theirs (always a good thing to have your own voice). As a bonus history shows that they value female actors more than male actors. Same, TCA, same.

On the other their narrow focus can also feel like a curse, or even sometimes read as misanthropic stinginess. Consider that not only do they only have two acting categories but they don't divvy up between female and male actors. This means that even in the Golden Age of Television (are we still calling it that?) only 13 actors get name-checked. 13 from hundreds and hundreds of shows (and dozens of them reportedly great)...

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