If I Picked the Emmys 2022

Best Limited Series

Winnter: White Lotus*
Nominees:

Dropout*

The Shrink Next Door

Winning Time

MAID

American Crime Story: Impeachment

Actor: Clive Owen, ACS

Nominees:

Will Ferrell, The Shrink Next Door

Quincy Isiah, Winning Time

Paul Rudd, Shrink Next Door

Mike Meyers, Penuverate

Best Actress: Margaret Qualley, Maid*

Nominees:
Beanie Feldstein, ACS

Sarah Paulson, ACS*

Amanda Seyfried, Dropout*

Alexandra Daddario, White Lotus* (Different Category)

Julie Garner, Inventing Anna*

 

Supporting Actor:  Naveen Andrews, Dropout

Jason Segel, Winning Time

Dan Bakkehdal, ACS

Murray Bartlett, White Lotus*

Adrian Brody, Winning Time

Fred Hechinger, White Lotus

Tracey Letts, Winning Time

 

Supporting Actress: Kathryn Hahn, The Shrink Next Door

Nominees: Kaitlyn Dever, The Premise

Annika Noni Rose, Maid

Annaleigh Ashford, ACS

Jenniifer Coolidge, The White Lotus*

Sidney Sweeney, The White Lotus*

Laurie Metcalf, Dropout

 

 
Best Episode: Momento Mori, Winning Time

Nominees: Pilot, Dropout

Toxic Fan, Premise

The President Kissed Me, ACS

Pentagon City Mall Interrogation, ACS

String Cheese, MAID

Bear Hunt, MAID

 

Best Writing: White Lotus

Nominees:  American Crime Story

Winning Time

 

Best Animated Show

Winnter: Central Park

Nominees: Adventure Beast

Star Trek: Lower Decks

Dicktown

Inside Job

Solar Opposites

COMEDY

 

Best Show: Resident Alien

Nominees: 

The Afterparty

What We Do in the Shadows*

Killing It

Ghosts

We Are Lady Parts

Marvelous Mrs Maisel*

 

 

Best Actor: Alan Tyduk, Resident Alien
Nicholas Hoult, The Great*

Craig Robinson, Killing It

Matt Berry, What We Do in the Shadows

Keegan Michael-Key, Schmigadoon

Ben Falcone, God’s Favorite Idiot

Glenn Howerton, AP Bio

 

Actress: Claudia O’Doherty, Killing It

Nominees:

Rachel Brosnaham, Marvelous Mrs Maisel*

Tiffany Haddish, The Afterparty

Cecily Strong, Schmigadoon

Aya Cash, Welcome to Flatch

Elle Fanning, The Great*

Sosie Bacon, As We See It

 

 

 

Supporting Actor: Gwilym Lee, The Great

Mark Prosch, What We Do in the Shadows

Michael Zengen, Marvelous Mrs Maisel

Brandon Scott Jones, Ghosts

Tony Shalhoub, Marvelous Mrs Maisel*

Alan Cumming, Schmigadoon

Sacha Dawson, The Great

 

 

Supporting Actress:  Marin Hinkle, Marvelous Mrs Maisel

Alice Wetterkund, Resident Alien

Belinda Bumilow, The Great

Dana Silver, Space Force

Phoebe Wright, The Great

Alex Borstein, Marvelous Mrs Maisel*

Tifany Haddish, The Afterparty

Guest Actor:  Colm Meany, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia

Nominees: Matt Walsh, Ghosts

Enrico Colantoni, Ghosts

Owen Wilson, SNL

PJ Byrne, Never Have I Ever

Common, Never Have I Ever

Luke Kirby, Marvelous Mrs Maisel

 

 

 

Guest Actress:  D’Arcy Carden, Killing It
 

Nominees: Kristen Schaal, What We Do in the Shadows

Alex Borstein, Resident Alien

Natasha Lyonne, SNL

Jane Lynch, Marvelous Mrs Maisel

Danica McKeller, Home Economics

Selena Gomes, SNL

 

 

Writing: What We Do in the Shadows

Nominees:

Schmigadoon

AP Bio

The Great

Marvelous Mrs Maisel

Welcome to Flatch

 

Drama

 

 

Winner: Yellow Jackets*

Nominees: The Chair

Orville

The Resort

Severance*

Flight Attendant

Star Trek: Picard

 

Actor: Adam Scott, Severance*

Nominees: Jay Duplass, The Chair

Billy Zabka, Cobra Kai

Patrick Stewart, Star Trek: Picard

Actress: Melanie Lynskey, Yellowjackets*

Britt Lower, Severance

Sandra Oh, The Chair

Annie Murphy, Kevin Can Go F**k Himself

Elizabeth Moss, Shining Faces

Kaley Cuoco, The Flight Attendant

 

 

Supporting Actor: Luis Gerardo Mendez, The Resort

Bob Balaban, The Chair

Skyler Gismodo, The Resort

Kevin Bigley, Upload

Daniel Dae Kim, Kevin Can Go F*** Himself

John Turturro, Severance*

Supporting Actress: Christina Ricci, Yellow Jackets*

Allegra Edwards, Upload

Holland Taylor, The Chair

Juliette Lewis, YellowJackets

Peyton List, Cobra Kai

Rosie Perez, The Flight Attendant

Allison Pill, Star Trek: Picard

 

Guest Actor:

Paolo Costanzo, Upload

Michael  Chernus, Severance

PJ Byrne, Cobra Kai

Guest Actress:
Leighton Meister, The Orville

Mackenzie Carroll, Upload

Whoopi Goldberg, Star Trek: Picard

 

 

Episode:  The Chair, The Chair
Dinner Party, Upload

Pilot, Yellowjacket

F Sharp, Yellowjackets

Twice in a Lifetime Graves-Orville

From Unknown Graves-Orville

Top 12 TV Shows of 2021

 

1. White Lotus (HBO) Season 1-Mike White’s astute tableaux of human shallowness explores whether people on vacation can truly escape who they are through three interlocking groups of vacationers in Hawaiian paradise. For those who still mourn the cancellation of “Enlightened”, this is sweet redemption (More here and here)

 

2. Wanda Vision (Disney Plus) Limited Series- With such mind-boggling layers of symbolism, this is as if the world's best escape room writers were tasked with writing a sitcom that entrusts viewers to be active rather than passive participants in decryption. The series takes the viewer on a journey through various sitcom tropes on a decade-by-decade journey with underlying storylines dealing with grief, manipulation, and escapism as a form of evil. With all the painstaking detail that the prodution team implants its easter eggs, this is a sure contender for the most intricate show on television if not its most ambitious. I have little familiarity with the MCU (full disclosure: I hate the MCU) but was able to peace most details together.

 

3. Resident Alien (SyFy) Season 1-Alan Tyduk hits the right notes of not-to-be-believed silliness, as an oblivious alien who improbably manages to integrate into a small town in Colorado. In its own hokey way, the show is endearing, rich in character, and features a marshmellowshly  portrait of small-town life with plenty of scenery porn in the background. The show also features a sizeable Native American cast but doesn't resort to being pedantic. (More here)

 

4. We Are Lady Parts (Peacock) Season 1-A six-episode inaugural season takes us into the often unseen world of Muslim urbanites in Europe. The diverse quintet of women in London are united by their love of punk rock. If Dewey Finn’s mantra (whose words, ironically were written in “School of Rock” by Mike White of “White Lotus”) that “one great rock show can change the world”, these hijab-clad women are rocking their way to just that. (More here)

 

5. The Great (Hulu) Season 2-The spiritual sister to “The Favourite” (Show runner Tony McNamara also wrote that film about the decadent court of a European royal) is set in the glorious decadence of the court of 18^th Century Russia with bored aristocrats feeding their basest desires. In “Hamilton”, Washington says to the titular character, “Winning was easy young man, governing’s much harder” which is an apt description of this season as Catherine the Great has won.  Now what? This is a slate of psychologically multi-layered characters who are constantly re-evaluating which side of the fence they sit on.  (More here)

 

6. Never Have I Ever (Netflix) Season 2- Never Have I Ever tells the story of a teenage girl breaking away from the mores of a traditional Indian-American family grieving for her late father, and discovering boys. This year, the show proved the epitome of how a show should expand its side characters and mix up the dynamics in its sophomore season.

 

7. Doctor Death (Peacock) Limited Series-Adapted from a podcast, this is a high-takes parable of a medical narcissist (played by Joshua Jackson, yes, that Joshua Jackson) who left a trail of paralyzed patients in his wake while the medical establishment took way too long to catch up with him. It’s a tale of bureaucracy working exactly as it should and still leading to classic nightmare fuel. It’s also a tale of the upstream battle two doctors (Alec Baldwin and Christian Slater at the top of their game) must take to stop an atrocity.

8. What We Do in the Shadows (FX) Season 4-It’s been the best of times (for Colin Robinson who appears to have made at least one trusty comrade) and the worst of times (geez Nandoor, you need some Prozac) for our gang of Staten Island-based vampires. The joke here is that as the quartet (plus everyone’s favorite lackey, Guillermo) ascends the ranks of the vampiric council, they continue to be tripped up by the banalities of life (chain letters, toy store, neighborhood meetings).

9. Mr. Mayor (NBC) Season 4-Another entry in the canon of Tina Fey and Robert Carlock that's a little more "30 Rock" than "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt." The humor is clever but skin-deep. Don't expect pathos-driven growth with the narrative highs of Kimmy, Titus and Jaqueline. At the same time, the show, set in the Mayor's office of L.A., has much less of an insider vibe. As it's mostly episodic, the show lives or dies by the episode but it's hard to deny that the show has been hitting a lot of home runs in the back half of the season.

 

10. Bless the Harts (Fox) Season 2-Though the show was cancelled, we can at least celebrate how the show got a lengthy second season run. The brainchild of ex-SNL writer and former North Carolina native Emily Spivey, the show split the difference between homage and parody of small-town Carolinian life. The show is about a lower-class family in small town North Carolina features a waitress with modest aspirations to rise within her station, her sly mother (whose primary motivations in life are besting her rival, feeling young enough that she can flirt with construction workers, and pulling off semi-fraudulent schemes), her boyfriend (a trucker persona with a teddy bear persona underneath), and her dead panning daughter. It’s an extremely strong quartet of characters who exhibit great chemistry.

 

11. American Crime Story: Impeachment (FX) Season 3-As a child of the 90s, I knew very little about this incident other than feeling my heart broken by Bill Clinton when  he went on TV and flat-out admitted to saying he did the thing he previously said he didn’t do a million times. Boy, would 8^th grade me loved to have heard all the juicy details (for educational purposes about sex, if nothing else). Better late than never! ACS is essentially found art: Monica and Bill is such a juicy news story, that even in mediocre hands it would make good TV. However, the credit goes to Ryan Murphy and crew for such adept casting and editing.

12. House Broken (Fox) Season 1- Lisa Kudrow plays a poodle, Honey, who leads a therapy group for all the neighborhood pets. There’s a lot of low-hanging fruit here for the jokes—simply imagine what your pet would say if they could talk to a therapist and viola! – but the jokes really hit and the large ensemble of characters (for example, Will Forte voices a turtle who’s in love with a croc shoe and Clea Duvall plays a rescue cat in desperate need of validation) establishes their comic beats with an extremely impressive speed. (More here)

Honorable Mentions:

AP Bio (Peacock) Season 4, The Chair (Netflix) Season 1, Cruel Summer (Freeform) Season 1, Ghosts (CBS) Season 1, Locke and Key (Netflix) Season 2, Kevin Can Go F*** Himself (AMC TV), Maid (Netflix) Limited Series,  Studio C (BYU TV) Seasons 13 and 14, Saturday Morning All-Stars (Netflix) Season 1, Schmigadoon (Apple TV) Season 1

Everything Else I Saw:

And lest you think I’m being hard on these shows, this is everything else I watched this year that didn’t make my top 12 or Honorable Mention list that these shows rank above:
Abbott Elementary (ABC)^,  Animaniacs (Hulu), AP Bio (Peacock), Attack of the Movie Cliches (Netflix), B Positive (CBS)^, Call Me Kat (ABC), Call Your Mother (ABC), Cobra Kai (Netflix), The Circle (Netflix), Disenchanted (Netflix), Frank of Ireland (Amazon), Explained (Netflix),  Great North (Fox), Inside Job (Netflix), It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (FX), Home Economics (ABC), Kevin Hart’s Olympic Show (Peacock), Kim’s Convenience (CBC), La Brea (NBC/Peacock), Lost Symbol (Peacock), Love Death and Robots (Netflix), Mr. Mercedes (Amazon), Mighty Ducks (Disney Plus), Miracle Workers: Oregon Trail (TBS), Mosquito Coast (Apple TV), McGruber (Peacock), Mr. Corman (Apple TV), Mythic Quest (Apple TV), Nora From Queens (Comedy Central), Nine Perfect Strangers (Hulu), Only Murders in the Building (Hulu), The Premise (Hulu), Rebel (Amazon Plus), Reservation Dogs (Peacock), Rutherford Falls (Peacock), SNL (NBC), Solar Opposites (Hulu), Squid Game (Netflix)^, To Tell the Truth (ABC), Young Rock (NBC)^

 

^ means I watched just one or two episodes. I didn’t necessarily watch every episode of a show if it’s not marked

What I'm Watching December Edition: Kim's Convenience, MacGruber, Love, Death and Robots

 Kim’s Convenience (CBC, now available on Netflix)-I previously wrote that this show was mildly entertaining but two of the four main characters (the father and mother in a nuclear family) are portrayed so stereotypically it borders on offensiveness. But I was watching the show in a vacuum.

When reading about how the show has affected people, it turns out “Kim’s Convenience” was heavily championed by the Korean-American community during most of its five-season run from 2016-2021. My issue was with the parents’ broken English but apparently that’s somewhat accurate.

Upon rewatch, the show has really hooked me. Like CBC’s other offerings (that I’ve seen) “Schitt’s Creek” and “Little Mosque on the Prairie” there’s an overriding warmth and sweetness even when the show goes through the highs and lows of low-stakes sitcomdom. I often liken “Schitt’s Creek” to a funkier version of the “Andy Griffith Show” and even though we never venture far from the store, there’s a larger sense of community that’s presented here whether it’s the expanded world of Janet’s photography school, the personalities that visit Kim’s store, or the neighborhood church.

At its core, this is a second-generation family that doesn’t have an easy time expressing their affection to each other and that tension has been interesting to explore.

Maid (Netflix)-An exploration of the have nots in Americana with Margaret Qualley (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) in the lead. Qualley plays a trailer park resident in Washington State, Alex, who exists in the bureaucratically gray area between abused and ineligible for government care.

The series begins as Alex’s husband (Nick Robinson of Jurassic World) threatens them by punching the wall prompting Alex to take their toddler in the middle of the night and escape. Initially Alex doesn’t believe herself worthy of a government hand-out and the judge doesn’t treat her like a victim (at least it first).

It’s one of those situations where you want to punch the screen in agony over why the various stake holders don’t just talk to each other and acknowledge their collective responsibility to care for one in their community. Which (along with something like “Orange is the New Black” or “The Joker”) is part of the point: To make you, the viewer, more empathetic to what’s wrong with society.

This is a tricky balancing act. Making the viewer flat-out depressed over how society is letting down its own isn’t universally considered an enjoyable viewing experience. Maybe, that’s why this is a limited series? But “Maid” walks that line well. There are enough moments of hope to balance the economic bleakness of the mood and the drama is very engaging.

The Great (Hulu)-I had just made my top 12 list and now I have to struggle with kicking something off because this show is too good. It was my number one show last year and through 4 episodes, it’s hard to ignore that this show has it going on.

Is the show historically authentic? I have no clue but it’s certainly a fun world to inhabit that feels close enough to the real thing that we get a gist.

The first season presented us with a near-psychopathic emperor who simply served his basest instincts instead of ruling the country. It’s within the first episode that his subservient wife finally succeeds in taking Russia. As we know from Hamilton, “winning [the Revolutionary War] was easy, governing’s harder.” That’s the general theme of Season 2.

What’s also wonderful is how the characters are so deep, you can deep dive in their psychologies. Why is Grigor so loyal to the King? Is Marial completely taken over by revenge? How deep do Peter’s mommy issues run? There’s almost no character getting screen time that’s uninteresting.

MacGruber (Peacock)- The film approached gratuitous nudity and violence with such an over-the-topness that it reminds one of the hard-drinking college friend with no sense of shame.

Considering that the series has no boundaries over how low brow is the limit, there's no reason to worry about tarnishing the legacy of such a spectacularly stupid film by expanding it to an eight-episode series.

Still: The series never reaches the comic plateau of the film. The comic energy works best when Will Forte's lunacy is juxtaposed alongside Ryan Phillipe's sensible soldier and love interest Kristen Wiig (the film starts out with her married to a general played by Lawrence Fishburne which is quite the obstacle). One problem is it takes at least three episodes to get the tree of them together and by then there's a significant loss in momentum. Will Forte's MacGruber is notably nastier here (I'm guessing it's a way to deepen the character and give him edge) and it's a lot less fun.

Even when operating on full cylinders, it still feels like the jokes per minute count is a little lower than the film. Perhaps, it's because of the way the plot is serialized and stretched out but not in a way that adds to the humor.

Saturday Morning All-Star Hits (Netflix)-As previously noted in a separate review, this show is Zazz!

Love Death and Robots (Netflix)-An anthology series focusing on technology and futuristic concepts. It’s a lot like “Black Mirror” but the episodes are in the 10-15 minute range and that makes a clear difference over how much depth a plot motif can get in. Like “Black Mirror” there’s usually a twist but the series isn’t beholden to base the strength of the episode entirely around the twist. What makes this show stick out is the consistent quality of the animation and the way different episodes use different animation styles.