Emmys are to television what Oscars are to Hollywood — the ultimate award, the last hurrah and the moment of glory. Like every year, the Emmys snubbed some incredible performances this year from network television and chose to side with the excessively violent and slightly sociopathic cable shows. What else will you call Michael C Hall’s Dexter?
It’s not that cable television is not good. Au contraire, a show like Homeland will stay with you long after the season is over. It’s the most gripping show on cable television. After all, President Barack Obama is a fan for a reason. Claire Danes has put up the performance of a lifetime as a bipolar CIA agent. As Carrie, she falls in love with a man who, is as damaged and broken as she is, while working for a spy agency with its own egoistical bosses and power players.
But, not every show is Homeland. Game of Thrones is violent (appealing as it maybe to the world). Make no mistake, Dexter is violent. Shows like Girls, Sons of Anarchy and Weeds have something in common — violating and disturbing sex scenes. Let’s go with the most recent Girls — the controversial and possibly non-consensual sex scene between Adam and Natalia in season two of Girls raised some serious questions about what passes off as entertainment and whether it was rape. Show’s creator Lena Dunham called it a “misunderstanding”.
Mad Men continues to rake in nominations even though it’s a haze of women, booze, sex and trauma. What was novel in the first season is just too convoluted to even keep up with. Throw in nudity and you have shows that will surpass beautiful performances each time. However, not every show on cable television revolves around sex and drugs and booze. But those often go unnoticed as network shows.
Things are different when it’s a network show. Excessive violence, sex scenes and nudity are just not acceptable. The themes that are running through cable network can be found on network television minus the excess. So here then, we pick some performances that deserved an Emmy nod.
Show: Parenthood
Network: NBC
Creator: Jason Katims
Since the inception of Parenthood, it’s always been underrated. Procedural shows like NCIS almost always take the audience away. In the concluded fourth season, Jason pulled all the punches. Monica Potter takes your breath away as Kristina Braverman, mother to three children (including an autistic teenager), whose life changes when she is diagnosed with cancer, and doesn’t know if she will live to see her children grow up.
Add that to a cast that includes actors like Peter Krause who plays the husband to Monica and it’s a winning combination. It was a beautiful and poignant season. Forget nominating it for best drama, the Emmys didn’t even consider Monica Potter for a supporting role nod even though the Critics’ Choice Television Awards and Television Critics Association nominated and awarded the actor.
Shows: Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal
Network: ABC
Creator: Shonda Rhimes
Shonda Rhimes is constantly pushing the envelope — casting Kerry Washington as Olivia Pope in Scandal. What we keep missing is the fact that Kerry is the first black actress to lead a show on network television, ever. For an explosive performance, Kerry Washington picked up a nomination for Best Actress. But Tony Goldwyn, who plays the brooding American President, Fitzgerald Grant, was conveniently left out.
Grey’s Anatomy, one of the most popular American shows for nearly a decade, had a monumental season finale. Actors like Sandra Oh and Ellen Pompeo and Justin Chambers have been ignored for years even though they play the complex human emotions with such will and conviction that you can’t help but watch them, year after year.
Show: The Newsroom
Cable Network: HBO
Creator: Aaron Sorkin
The Newsroom is the most criticised show by Aaron Sorkin, the genius writer behind shows like The West Wing, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and films like Moneyball and Social Network. Jeff Daniels won a nomination and rightly so but the powerful script and the quick-witted dialogues that breathe life into the show didn’t earn Sorkin a writing nomination.
Show: Revenge
Creator: Mike Kelley
As the name suggest, the show is all about revenge. Emily VanCamp stars as Emily Thorne, a girl whose sole mission in life is to take down the mighty Grayson family for putting her father in jail for a crime he didn’t commit. The show is a commentary on what complexities lay behind every relationship and how every action has a consequence.
Emily VanCamp’s Emily Thorne and Madeleine Stowe’s Victoria Grayson are mesmerising. The sharp dialogues, beautiful locations, corporate greed, innocent love and familial ties make the show appealing and unique. Once again, even as People’s Choice Awards, Teen Choice Awards and Television Critics Association Awards deemed them worthy of nominations, the Emmys failed to include the cast or even the show in its entirety.
Maheen Sabeeh is a freelance journalist. She blogs at maheensabeeh.wordpress.com and tweets @maheensabeeh
Published in The Express Tribune, August 21st, 2013.
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