The nominations are in and after looking over the list of TV contenders for the 2011 Golden Globe Awards, there’s cause to celebrate and as always, cause to complain. Were your favorites nominated?
If you haven’t had a chance to look at this year’s TV nominations, you can view the list here. In the meantime, after viewing the list, here are a few things that stood out most based on this year’s crop of nominees.
Cable vs. Network
While network TV took the majority of the nominations in the Comedy or Musical Television Series category (Showtime being the only cable network to score two of the six comedy series noms), four of the five drama series nominated were cable shows, including AMC’s The Walking Dead and Mad Men as well as HBO’s Boardwalk Empire and Showtime’s Dexter. While cable channels do have the added advantage of being able to cross content lines that network TV can’t, I like to think that channels like AMC, HBO and Showtime are earning the recognition they deserve because of the risks they take with their programming and not so much on the easy sell of violence, sex and swear words.
The Women of Showtime
There are five women nominated for Best Actress, Comedy. Showtime has three of them (Toni Collette, Edie Falco, Laura Linney). A fluke? Hardly. Showtime’s doing a stellar job in building their original programming with series that center on complex and oftentimes dark characters. The line that separates drama from comedy is grayer on Showtime’s series and that certainly applies to the roles played by Collette, Falco and Linney. Showtime’s comedies and the women who star in them are proving that comedy doesn’t always have to be goofy or self-deprecating to get a laugh. The humor, like the characters, can be dark, messy, and especially in the case of The Big C it can also be kind of sad; while at the same time, it doesn't make a joke out of the characters themselves.
My Starz
Perhaps it was too much to hope that Spartacus: Blood and Sand and Party Down might get some recognition for the talent demonstrated on both sides of the camera for both series but it's still great to see Starz getting some love in the Miniseries category. Pillars of the Earth was as entertaining to watch play out over the course of the summer as the book on which it was adapted was to read. Pillars’ nomination as well as the noms to Ian MacShane and Hayley Atwell are well deserved, as is the overdue recognition the underrated pay-cable channel will receive for playing host to the miniseries.
Where’s Community?
Seriously, I know not all of my favorite shows are beloved by the masses (RIP Terriers), however I’m baffled by the lack of love for Community. This applies as much to the ratings as it does to the award recognition. This comedy series about a bunch of mismatched college study-buddies (who spend more time observing and meddling in each others’ issues than they do actually studying) is easily one of the best shows on television right now. Great acting, clever writing and what appears to be no shortage of comedic ground to cover as the show only seems to be getting better, and yet, no nomination? I think if we were to ask the characters how they feel about the snub Jeff might make a sarcastic comment about the voters’ taste, Abed might have a rational reason to explain it, Shirley might try to come up with something positive to say (while still sounding sad) and Pierce might grunt something about not knowing what the Golden Globes were.
Toughest Category To Call
I don’t have a problem choosing a favorite in most of the categories this year, however Best Supporting Actress (Series, Mini-Series, Made for TV movie) is by far the toughest to call. Putting aside the fact that this is a mashed-together category that forces us to compare apples to oranges (How can we possibly rate Julia Stiles in Dexter against Modern Family’s Sofia Vergara?), this category is bursting with talent, which makes choosing a favorite fairly impossible. The only woman among the nominees that I’m unfamiliar with is Hope Davis but given the company she’s in, I’d say she’s probably just as deserving of the award as the other nominees are.
The 68th Annual Golden Globe Awards will air on Sunday, January 16, 2011 from 5:00-8:00 (PST)/8:00-11:00 (EST) on NBC.
