Quite a disappointment for a critic used to grousing about what used to be Hollywood’s silliest awards
This used to be a column I would write, regularly as my year end picks and my screed about how reality TV shows are screwing up TV (they really are!):
Golden Globes TV nominations make no sense.
Which is why I’m a little miffed to see that the Globes have cleaned up their act enough this year that most of their TV nominations announced today were actually in line with what seems to be happening in the industry.
Sure there was the typical lean toward international productions to be expected for an organization once known at the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. So we got Netflix’s British comedy The Gentlemen nominated in the best comedy arena rather than Netflix’s more affecting American series A Man on the Inside (though leading man Ted Danson, who also happens to be getting the group’s Carol Burnett Award for career achievement was nominated as best actor in a comedy. Hmm.)
International dramas that American audiences have barely seen or not yet seen at all got nods, like Peacock’s The Day of the Jackal and the yet-to-premiere second season of Netflix’s Squid Game. Keira Knightley also nabbed a nomination for her excellent turn in Netflix’s British espionage drama Black Doves, which was well-deserved though the show has only been available to subscribers since Thursday.
(Here’s my NPR story about Black Doves, Jackal and few other cool espionage show on the air right now.)
Left out of the mix, were well-regarded shows like Prime Video’s Fallout and The Boys, FX’s The Old Man, Apple TV+’s Bad Sisters and HBO shows like Industry and Somebody, Somewhere.
A few new series popped up in the awards mix, including Netflix’s comedy Nobody Wants This, which saw nominations as best comedy and for leads Adam Brody and Kristen Bell. Ryan Murphy’s latest installment in Netflix’s Monsters anthology series on the Menendez brothers did well, alongside Alfonso Cuaron’s tour-de-force for Apple TV+, Disclaimer, and Colin Farrell’s transformative work in HBO’s The Penguin.
(Here’s my stories on Disclaimer and The Penguin for more background)
In a sign of the show business times, the Globes even have a TV award for standup comedy but none for talk shows, where comics like Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert deliver nightly monologues. This year, Globes host Nikki Glaser is among the nominees, which also included Jamie Foxx, Seth Meyers (for a special on Max), Adam Sandler, Ali Wong and Ramy Youssef.
As always, the question is why does the industry need another awards show like the Globes, anyway? Especially given its past controversies involving diversity, conflicts of interest and a long history of questionable awards.
But, as far as TV is concerned, the eligibility dates for the Globes still allow it to be first in recognizing shows which premiere after June, like The Penguin, The Day of the Jackal, The Diplomat, Disclaimer, Black Doves and the new season of Squid Game.
Until the Emmy awards figure out a way to deal with that time lag, the Globes will always appear to be setting the table for later honors. Particularly, if they keep up this distressing habit of actually picking the best TV shows of the year to consider for awards.
See the full list of nominees here.