Team Experience: One last agonized cry for the snubbees this Emmy nomination day!

As is our habit, we polled Team Experience this morning to see which Emmy snub yanked them straight to mourning this morning. Here are their answers. Please share your own in the comments, won't you? Misery loves company!

CHRIS FEIL: MJ Rodriguez in POSE. While we can hope that Billy Porter's immensely deserved nomination can represent the entire ensemble with a win, it still leaves Pose's exquisite female cast members unrewarded including the most deserving: Mj Rodriguez's resilient and compassionate house mother Blanca. It's infuriating that the show's directing and writing went unrecognized due to the Game of Thrones glut, but to have denied the season's emotional epicenter is just about unconscionable. Hers is the work that most embodies the multifaceted show and all of its triumphs and power.

DEBORAH LIPP: Gentleman Jack got crowded out, why? Emilia Clark over Suranne Jones is not supportable. FOUR nominations for Game of Thrones over Sophie Rundle in supporting actress is not supportable. Game of Thrones' worst season over this breakthrough new series is NOT! SUPPORTABLE!

lots more weeping after the jump...

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Top Ten: Which dramas have been nominated for the most acting Emmys?

Game of Thrones shocking showing at the Emmy nominations -- including 10 ACTING NOMINATIONS and 32 overall (a new record for overall in one single season beating NYPD Blue's previous mark) -- begs the question of how many shows the voting body actually watches on a regular basis. 32 nominations for a single shows seems more than a little excessive no matter how good a show is, given the hundreds of eligible competitors. Especially when it comes to acting.

So it made us curious. Is this normal and/or how abnormal is it? So we looked back through Emmy history which is not that easy to do -- the Emmys are actually much more like the Grammys than the Oscars in that they change their categories frequently and have 100s of them and it's harder to sift through their history analytically given that there's less accurate information compiled in any one place. To make this list simpler and also more far-ranging (wait-what?), we've devided this into the six drama series acting categories, rather than one collective list and we've also included how these lists are effected by the nominations this year. Hope you enjoy... 

TEN  SERIES WITH THE MOST ACTING NOMINATIONS FOR "LEAD ACTRESS"

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Emmy Nomination Announcement, Live

Ken Jeong and D'Arcy Carden (The Good Place) announcing the nominees for the television Academy's 71st annual prizes.

And here are the nominations in the top categories announced live via screenshots. We'll talk more about the Emmys once we wrap our head around these nominations...

BEST DRAMA SERIES

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Big Little Lies MVPS: Episode 2.6 "The Bad Mother"

Previously: Episode 1 (Nathaniel) Episode 2 (Spencer) Episode 3 (Lynn) Episode 4 (Nathaniel) Episode 5 (Eric)

by Chris Feil

... So.

By now I’m sure you all have seen the reports about what has gone on behind the scenes of Big Little Lies: director Andrea Arnold was removed from the show in post-production, a planned usurping by original season one director Jean-Marc Vallée once he completed Sharp Objects. Despite the free reign she had been given, a major lack of communication resulted in the show being snatched from her creative hands.

What a fiasco that’s only resulted in a somewhat disjointed season - looks like the blame for what hasn’t been working goes to producers for putting the show through a meat grinder. But what has been working can be easily ascribed to Arnold’s approach: the attention to character detail, a complex thematic landscape marinating hard-to-reconcile truths, the weight of suppressed feelings brimming over. Aren’t those things Big Little Lie’s fans would use to define the show and their love for it, not just its structural or aesthetic attributes?

Despite the timing and our allegiance to Arnold, Big Little Lies turned in what had to be its most thrilling episode yet this season, one that builds a huge sense of momentum leading into next week’s finale. Let’s look at this episode...

Top Ten MVPs of Big Little Lies, Episode 2.6 "The Bad Mother"

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Big Little Lies MVPS: Episode 2.5 "Kill Me"

Previously: Episode 1 (Nathaniel) Episode 2 (Spencer) Episode 3 (Lynn) Episode 4 (Nathaniel) 

by Eric Blume

I’m onboard with most of the TFE staff that season two of Big Little Lies isn’t quite up to the level of its first season, but that it’s filled with fun, exciting, and interesting things.  Last week, Nathaniel noted that David Kelley’s writing is weaker this season, and I agree (especially in those therapy scenes), but it’s also about the directing: Andrea Arnold has talent, but she lacks Jean-Marc Vallee’s lush lyricism and ability to keep everything jangled and on-edge. She also doesn’t have Vallee’s gift for framing:  the images aren’t as memorable as what Vallee put together, and she’s shot too many in-the-car sequences from the backseat so the scenes feel repetitive rather than intimate and revealing. 

 But each episode holds wonderful surprises and treats for those invested in the show...

Top Ten MVPs of Big Little Lies, Episode 2.5 "Kill Me"

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