Emmys 2023 snubs and surprises: Reservation Dogs, Jury Duty, Vanderpump Rules, Andor
Let's break down the hits and misses—sorry Steve Martin, congrats Keri Russell—from this year's Emmy nominations
TV Features Reservation Dogs
Devery Jacobs in Reservation Dogs; James Marsden in Jury Duty; Keri Russell in The Diplomat; Donald Glover in Atlanta Photo: Shane Brown/FX; Amazon Freevee; Alex Bailey/Netflix; Guy D’Alema/FX
The 2023 Emmy nominations, announced on July 12 by Yvette Nicole Brown, were (mostly) predictable, with shows like Succession, The Bear, Ted Lasso, and The White Lotus each show scoring multiple nods this year. Still, as is tradition, the Television Academy swept in with plenty of surprises (the Jury Duty love!) and some notable snubs (Reservation Dogs!). Catch the complete nominee list here. Let’s unpack this year’s biggest hits and misses from the nominations.
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The only one of these I particular have an opinion on is Andy Serkis, who absolutely should have been nominated for Andor.
Perhaps he was too unrecognizable without his mo-cap suit.
“C’mon, Andy, just say ‘precious’ once. You’re guaranteed an Emmy!”“NO!”
Serkis was very good, but I genuinely think Denise Gough and Genevieve O’Reilly should’ve gotten Supporting Actress nods. Hell, most of Andor’s cast should be recognized for acting their asses off.
Agreed. Is there an ensemble cast award?
There bloody should be. There is an Outstanding Casting category, but Andor is nowhere to be seen. I do reckon there should be an ensemble cast award, since that’s such a prevalent thing these days.At least it got a bunch of other nods (writing, directing, cinematography), especially score. Man what a distinct and gorgeous composition by Nicholas Britell, who is honestly just competing with himself in that category. He’ll probably win for Succession, unless The Last of Us somehow beats that.
Blackbird was not a good show.Sarah Goldberg brings so much compassion to what could have been a flat character (selfish and flawed but god she made sally make sense). Sad she missed out.Happy Caplan got a nod, really brought a lot to that show as a whole. That final monologue <3
Yeah, I have to say — the acting was really the draw for Black Bird and it gave the cast some captivating material in isolation but overall it wasn’t very good.
I’ve been on the Marsden bandwagon since Disturbing Behavior, and have never been able to figure out why he never popped more (I realize he got multiple high profile roles, but like, X-Men for example was a very, very thankless role so even those high profile projects weren’t exactly designed to launch him to stardom). I’m so happy he’s gotten recognition here.
He was just a pretty face to me until I saw his performance in Enchanted. And I liked him in Dead to Me, on Netflix.But I’m in that minority that just never cared for Westworld.
Quinta Bronson as a guest actor on SNL? Her episode was eh. But Jamie Lee Curtis definitely should have been nominated for her work in the Bear
The Bear S2 is eligible for next year’s Emmys! This year is for S1 only
Question:How would anyone at the AV Club know what Keri Russell’s performance is like? The Diplomat isn’t a reality show.
these nominations were for season one. she’ll be eligible next year and almost certainly a lock, especially if season 3 comes out just before the nomination season to remind everyone The Bear exists
Even though I’m not a fan of Abbott Elementary I see why Brunson and Pedro Pascal got nominations for SNL. They were 2 of 3 hosts from that season who were actually good no matter how bad the sketches were. But then… why isn’t Bitsie Tulloch nominated for Superman & Lois? An incredible performance in show with better scripts than SNL and not worse than the second season of White Lotus.
Every year they have to shoe horn SNL noms into this. Neither her nor Pedro Pascal were anything special. That’s no fault of their own, but just the state of SNL in general. There’s other shows and actors out there to recognize than to be giving noms for hosting SNL.
Future Snub: Better Call Saul and all of its actors getting screwed like always.
This was the nomination swan song, and only for the last batch of episodes. Rhea and Bob got in, and there really wasn’t enough of Banks or Giancarlo to make a a dent in a stacked Supporting Actor field this year. I am shocked Cranston missed out on Guest Actor for Henry and Sam in TLoU, though. Not that it is going to anyone other than Offerman or Bartlett.
“Future Snub: Better Call Saul”
You don’t think it will get nominations next year even though it won’t have new episodes?
And of course AVC ignores again Ghosts. The best network comedy series for the last two years! Shame and death (the unreal one) on Henrietta “Hetty” Woodstone’s knees at her mansion to you!! May you “live” in the basement with the other dead cholera victim ghosts!!!
It’s not even half as good as the UK version, which has so much more passion and pathos to it with the writers doing most of the performing.
I absolutely disagree. Don’t know how you see US’s Ghosts less passionate (Thor!) or less pathetic (Isaac!). And the writers doing most of the performing is generally not a good idea for an ensemble show. I prefer the US version.
Ghosts, like Being Human, just shows the Americans can only recreate these shows as sugary, soulless vehicles for vapid, attractive actors to woodenly mumble through.They need to stop.
It’s not a patch on the original Ghosts though.
No love for Edi Patterson in “Righteous Gemstones” again?! Pfft.
There was no Gemstones in the window for this years Emmys…
If Misbehavin’ didn’t get nominated for original song in the first season the show will never get recognized, unfortunately.
I hope Grease: Rise of the Pink ladies wins the one its nominated for so Max has to congratulate a show that they took off the service.
I’m disappointed there’s no recognition for Somebody Somewhere. 🙁
yeah, another egregious snub!!
Stellan Skarsgard and Fiona Shaw gave amazing, deep, dark perfomances in Andor.
It’s utterly ridiculous that “The Bear” is considered a comedy for Emmy purposes.
Despite the flashiness, it is the inferior FX on Hulu show to goddam Rez Dogs. I love The Bear but Rez Dogs is better. And to your point, a thousand bajillion goddam times funnier.
The most confounding sub is Carol Burnett not getting a Guest Actress for a Drama Series nomination for BCS
FUCKING WEDNESDAY GETS A NOD BUT REZ DOGS DOESN’T.I ordinarily do not give much of a shit about awards but jesus christ the egregiousness of shutting them out for performance and writing AT FUCKING LEAST???I love Martin Short. He has nothing on T’Pharaoh. I love The Bear. It has nothing on Rez Dogs. Every fucking episode is a hilarious heartbreaker. That show is the best half hour of TV out there, full fucking stop. I CANNOT believe that shit.It is so egregious it’s making me conspiratorial in a way that I would never usually be. Like are the Emmy voters so fucking white nationalist that they would shut out an Indigenous show like that? (I’ve never watched Atlanta but I’ve always heard good things so I’m guessing an Atlanta fan could back up my suspicions of blatant fucking racism.)WEDNESDAY????!!!!!!
The closest show I can compare Rez Dogs to is Atlanta. Both are willing to take surrealist flights of fancy, both have a similar vibe while still being very different shows, and both have an absolutely stellar principal cast. If you like one, the other is well worth checking out.
My only hesitation has been hype/expectation. It was easy to hop aboard the Rez Dogs train because it wasn’t being talked up. Whereas Atlanta had a lot of buzz, particularly around Glover. And I’m the rare internet nerd with a penchant for TV who doesn’t much care for Community. (A similar thing happened with Broad City, which I wanted to love but came away shrugging.)
As good as Glover is in the show, it’s really a showcase for Brian Tyree Henry and LaKeith Stanfield.
I subscribe to your newsletter and I’m ready to burn the place down. Rez Dogs not getting ANY nominations is just insane. Wednesday getting any recognition outside of maybe costuming or production design is absurd and there needs to be a reckoning.
When the character whose biggest trait is deadpan lack of emotion earns Ortega an acting nomination over the fucking POWERHOUSES of Devory and Alexis as Elora and Willie Jack? That’s incredibly stupid.(And hey, Devory wrote a whole ass episode without trying to go over the heads of the staff writers!)
Emmy noms tend to lag years behind in recognizing newer brilliant series. Speculation why Res Dog’s got snubbed, Reason 1: Long hours involved in making TV leaves Emmy voters scarce time to *watch* TV and gems get overlooked.. Result: Repeatedly, Emmy voters auto-select the same ‘known’, most visible TV series yearly. Grr. I share your outrage, and I stopped expecting the Emmys to be in synch with honoring the TV material I loved.
Instead, I look to The TV Critics Awards (TCAs) and The Peabody Awards, because I have more confidence at least the TV critics and the Peabody’s Board of Jurors actually watch and are intentional in recognizing innovative TV and under-represented stories. FWIW: Yes! The TCAs and Peabodys nominated Reservation Dogs this year: 2023 Outstanding Achievement in Comedy (TCAs), read here TV Critics Award Nominations 2023: Succession, The Bear, Last of Us – The Hollywood Reporter and Peabody’s here Reservation Dogs – The Peabody Awards. These award shows spread the loveSpeculation, Reason 2 : FX’s screwed Reservation Dog’s chances for awards buzz out th-gate by releasing it only on Hulu series , a streaming exlclusive . Fewer eyeballs, + slower rate of mainstream buzz. FX aired Reservation Dogs on FX cable in June 2023, right, just as Season 3 drops this summer on Hulu. I’m just a lapsed AV Club reader (pre-Kinja era). I’ve got no ties to industry. Emmy noms snubs broke my heart too many times – considering these factors helps the snub sting less, for me at least.
My only mild pushback on Reason 2 is that The Bear is *also* an FX on Hulu show but clearly got noms. (Pun intended)
Just wanted to add to the Reservation Dogs love. I started watching it out of mild curiosity, and was enjoying it from the start, but only in a low-key way, to be honest… but my word, that show has just STAYED with me. I think about it constantly and have come to regard it as a near-masterpiece.My good-faith theory as to why it’s been ignored is that it’s a show that is so much more than the sum of its parts. Maybe just watching the odd episode doesn’t fully convey just how good it is. It’s quite offbeat, and understated, there are big emotional payoffs in there, but it’s not grandiose like many other shows out there. And, most likely, it has no big names that can campaign for it effectively as, say, Only Murders can (still a good show, but not in the same league)
I definitely think there’s something to the grandiosity idea, if phrased differently. The Bear, which is also an FX on Hulu show, got nominations. And I think it’s partly because The Bear is flashier and buzzier. You look at all the interest in reality cooking shows and tons of news and human interest stories around how the pandemic fucked with the restaurant business and it’s easy to see why people would be drawn to it. Whereas Rez Dogs is a slice of life comedy about teenagers. It is definitely the harder sell. I love The Bear and am happy to see it get recognition and accolades. But it’s not as good as Rez Dogs. It just isn’t.
Yup, pretty much, you’ve articulated better what I was trying to get at. And yes, Res Dogs > The Bear
It’s a lesson I learned in grad school when I took TV writing classes from a couple of former showrunners. Shows about teenagers and/or school are always a little harder to sell because the stakes tend to be pretty low. You often have to juice the premise like Pretty Little Liars (murder!) or Smallville (superheroes!) or Euphoria (sex! drugs!).
In addition to my genuinely held outrage (OUTRAGE) over the lack of Rez Dogs love (goddammit that’s absurd, Emmys), I’m unsurprised but highly disappointed to not see The Great in the major categories either. It’s an odd duck of a show so I kinda get that people have a hard time categorizing it. But it’s amazing.(But not as amazing as Rez fucking Dogs, you goddam philistines.)
Obi Wan Kenobi?LolFor serious?
Yeahhh… That was shit
At least Rhea Sehorn got nominated.
I honestly didn’t think Saul was still eligible this year. I’m too full of rage about Rez Dogs to spend on Saul but it’s pretty ridiculous to not be up for more. Especially in light of some of the other nominees. This feels like a really dumb year for the Emmys.
Giving Pascal a nomination for that SNL episode is really weird. He was fine, but just fine. I thought Plaza’s work was way better. I don’t think I even saw any other episodes.
Goldberg during the final season of Barry was amazing. Everyone was great, as usual, but she really shone last season.
No mention of Rachel Weisz getting snubbed?
״Andy Serkis, Fiona Shaw (!) or Stellan Skarsgård״Hard agree here, each one of them deserves an Emmy. And Black Bird also.
There is so much good TV, there are bound to be shows and performances that get overlooked. It is frustrating though to see so many nominations hoarded by a handful of shows (Succession, for example). I haven’t watched it, will do so now that it has concluded, but is it really so well-acted that practically NO ONE deserves a nomination over the cast of this show? If the Academy were to listen to me they would limit the nominations a single show could receive to one in a particular category. This would force voters to submit the one they they think is truly the best, rather than seeming to select everyone in a show’s cast because they just like that show.Hypocritically, I am so excited for the cast of The Last of Us, all of their nominations were definitely deserved!
Hulu is in part responsible for the Reservation Dogs snubs. They do not do enough to promote that wonderful show.
I can’t really comment much on the nominations because I’ve seen so few of the shows, but I’ve definitely seen Only Murders In the Building. Martin Short over Steve Martin? I’ll admit, Martin Short usually annoys me and he didn’t in OMITB, so props to him (or the director) for that. But there’s no way he should be honored without – or instead of – Steve Martin.
“What will it take for the Television Academy voters to recognize the sublime glory of Reservation Dogs?”
Right? They had a whole 18 episodes across two seasons. Has there EVER been a show that has gone on that long without major Emmy love?