Brad's Tiny World

Science Fiction And The Emmy's

Posted on 30. Mar, 2009 by Brad in Television | Twitter: @bradhart |

Part one of a three part series.

Battlestar Galactica aired its final episode last week. Stargate Atlantis ended in January. Stargate Universe has begun production. Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Dollhouse, Fringe, Supernatural, Smallville, Heroes, Ghost Whisperer and Medium are all top shows on television today. Science fiction, fantasy and the supernatural are very popular, but this is not reflected in the industry’s highest honor, the Emmy.

The annual awards have shown that they are not afraid to honor such shows with nominations but more often than not the shows we know and love have only grabbed statuettes in the technical categories rather than in the more glamorous, showy categories like Actor/Actress, Show or Writing. With so many fans and the gaining popularity of science fiction and its related genres, shouldn’t the Emmy’s start acknowledging this fact?

History

The Academy used to have genre categories. They gave out awards for best comedian/comedienne, best news commentator/reporter, best male singer, best action/adventure series, best public service series, best western series and achievement in entertainment-musician. I’m not suggesting that there should be a separate category for science fiction/fantasy or whatever. That would defeat the purpose. The Academy needs to acknowledge that this genre is here to stay and should be a part of what gets awarded.

Science fiction litters the technical categories. It’s not surprising that things like visual effects, make-up and costume design are some of the awards these show get awarded for. Shows that have received these are Battlestar Galactica, Firefly, Star Trek: Enterprise, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, 3rd Rock From the Sun, Earth 2, Star Trek: Voyager, The X-Files, Babylon Five, Babylon Five-The Gathering, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Alien Nation, Quantum Leap, Star Trek: The Next Generation and Beauty and the Beast. Other winning technical categories include cinematography, editing (film), editing (sound), music composition (dramatic underscore), hairstyling, sound mixing, art direction, music and lyrics, main title theme music, and creative technical crafts. Some of the show above won these awards. Other shows winning these are The 4400 (miniseries), Smallville, Xena, Sliders, Pushing Daisies, SeaQuest DSV, Dark Shadows, Buck Rodgers and the original Battlestar Galactica.

Now a lot of the shows previously mentioned have also received nominations in those categories, multiple times. There are also a couple of other technical categories that shows have been nominated for that were not mentioned above. Those are musical composition (series), stunt coordination, costumes, casting and make-up (prosthetic). Shows that were nominated in these and the previous categories that were not mentioned previously are Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Jericho, Eureka, Heroes, Supernatural, Surface, Stargate: SG-1, Stargate: Atlantis, Dead Like Me, Farscape, Dark Angel, Angel the Series, Earth: Final Conflict, Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, V, V: The Final Battle, Knight Rider, The Incredible Hulk, Galactica (1980) and The Twilight Zone.

Now let’s touch upon the “flashier” categories. I’m thinking here of actor and actress (supporting and lead), directing, writing, and series (comedy and drama). The nominations in these categories include some shows you might automatically think of when you think of science fiction and fantasy. Some of the shows might surprise you. On the supernatural side of things, Touched by an Angel was nominated for both lead and supporting actress. This is not very surprising considering the subject matter of the show. Beauty and the Beast had both leads nominated as well as nominations for writing and for the show as best drama series. Bewitched snagged nominations for all acting categories as well as directing and comedy series. The most glaring of the supernatural nominations that constantly comes up in conversations regarding Emmy snubs is the writing nomination for Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s “Hush” written by creator Joss Whedon. Everyone cites this as the Emmy voters as not recognizing something that was innovative and different. This is true, and somewhat ironic, as the episode contains only twenty-eight minutes of actual dialogue.

On the alien side of the genre 3rd Rock from the Sun was nominated for comedy series, directing and John Lithgow as leading actor. Mork and Mindy was nominated for comedy series and Robin Williams as leading actor. I’m not very surprised that he didn’t win as his comedy routine was always controversial. Both of these shows are comedies, which don’t seem to push the science fiction element as much.

In the dramatic outer space genre we have all the recognizable shows that you might think of. The original Star Trek was nominated twice for best dramatic series and Leonard Nimoy received three nominations for best supporting actor. Star Trek: The Next Generation was also nominated for best dramatic series. The new Battlestar Galactica was nominated in writing for “Six of One” and “Occupation/Precipice”, and for directing.

Straddling to comedy/drama edge is Pushing Daisies. I’m surprised that this hasn’t been nominated for more. But as it was just recently cancelled, maybe there is still more hope for the series or its actors. Creator Bryan Fuller was nominated for the episode “Pie-lette”. Both Lee Pace and Kristen Chenoweth were nominated for actor and supporting actress respectively. I love this quirky little show and I hope that it gets more nominations for its second and final season.

Finally in the general drama category we have Heroes, The X-Files and Quantum Leap. QL was nominated as best drama series and I believe that it deserved it at least once. Scott Bakula should have won as leading actor for the last season of QL because he was great. And Dean Stockwell could have won supporting actor at any point. Heroes’ pilot “Genesis” was nominated for directing. The show was nominated as best drama but the unevenness of recent seasons has left it off nomination lists. Hopefully it will show up again as its gaining momentum again. Masi Oka was nominated in the supporting actor category but his character Hiro has grown annoying of late. Finally the X-Files was nominated for direction for the episode “The Post-Modern Prometheus” which was also nominated for writing. The episodes “Memento Mori” and “Duane Barry” were also nominated for writing. David Duchovny was nominated twice as Fox Mulder. I believe that he should have won at least one of those times. Gillian Anderson was nominated three times for playing Dana Scully.

Now it’s finally time to address the actual winning. The list is very small. This is a sad commentary on the Emmy voting and voters. Bewitched’s Elizabeth Montgomery won as best actress in a comedy. It won for directing and best comedy series. Lindsay Wagner won best actress in a drama for The Bionic Woman. Mariette Hartley won for lead actress in a drama for The Incredible Hulk. 3rd Rock from the Sun’s Kristen Johnston and John Lithgow won as best actor and best supporting actor. Battlestar Galactica’s Razr won a different kind of Emmy. It won for special class short format live action entertainment program. The X-Files episode “Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose” won a writing Emmy. Gillian Anderson won as best leading actress. This was following the season where she was suffering from cancer. Death, dying and sickness are always good was to win awards it seems. More recently Patricia Arquette won for Medium. Being psychic is also a good strategy.

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