Miniseries Actor Categories Won't Be Consolidated At The Emmy Awards After All

The Emmy Awards are too long. That's no secret. As much as many of us love to watch the award show in the hopes of seeing our favorite actors and shows take home a statue or two, there's no denying that the ceremony seems to go on forever. So it's not entirely surprising to hear that there was talk of possibly consolidating the awards in an effort to streamline the ceremony. Specifically, the supporting and lead actor categories for actors and actresses in movies and miniseries might have been consolidated, however the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Board of Governors has reportedly reversed its decision to do that.

EW shared the news, noting that production of movies and miniseries has since increased since the choice to consolidate the awards was made last year, which prompted the board to reverse their decision. So we might expect to see the same number of awards handed out at this year's Emmy's as we did last year. In 2012, it was Kevin Costner and Tom Berenger taking home Outstanding Lead Actor and Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseres/TV Movie respectively, both for Hatfields & McCoys. For the women, it was Julianne Moore for Game Change and Jessica Lange for American Horror Story.

I love miniseries. Moreover, I love great miniseries, so I consider it a good thing that we're seeing more of them being made and more of them on the way. I also think it's great that the actors involved in them will continue to be acknowledged for their outstanding performances, especially looking at the four actors who won last years' awards in the miniseries categories. With that said, while I understand the choice to reverse the decision in anticipation of more miniseries, I'm a little confused over the original decision to begin with in terms of shortening the ceremony.

Why change the award structure just to alter the ceremony? The production and broadcast of the event doesn't need to be completely inline with the awards themselves. Why not simply eliminate the Supporting Actor presentation from the ceremony and present them to the actors at the separate event, much in the way they do guest actor awards and other categories? If it's just a matter of shortening the ceremony, wouldn't it make sense to consolidate the presentations rather than the actual awards? Perhaps that's in consideration now that they've opted to keep the miniseries categories as is for now.