The Emmys say The White Lotus can’t compete as a limited series anymore
Mike White's HBO show will have to take its chances in the Drama categories from here on out
Aux News the Emmys
Another year, another HBO series getting called out by the Television Academy for pushing past the limits of a so-called “limited” series: Variety reports that Mike White’s The White Lotus will no longer be allowed to compete in the Emmys’ Outstanding Limited Or Anthology Series category, where it won last year. The series has instead been moved over into the Outstanding Drama Series category.
As we’ve noted many time before, HBO in particular seems to love fudging the lines surrounding this particular category, presumably so that at least some of its shows don’t have to fight it out in the hyper-competitive Drama bracket; after all, “limited” really just means “We haven’t decided to renew it for a second season yet.” (Looking at you, Big Little Lies.)
Admittedly, The White Lotus had at least a shot of sneaking by under the grounds that it’s an anthology series; the show’s second season switched locations and (mostly) casts, ditching Hawaii for Sicily and retaining only Jennifer Coolidge as one of its leads. And while it’s hard to fault White for that decision, it probably did contribute to today’s verdict: The story of Tanya McQuoid-Hunt in the show’s second season is very much a continuation of her adventures in the first, with a sort of continuity that puts the lie to the whole “anthology show” idea. (Also, there’s something vaguely embarrassing about a show winning for “Limited Series” two years in a row, which probably contributed.)
Limited Series has always been a bit of a mutant category, running at various times since the 1970s as Outstanding Drama/Comedy—Limited Episodes, Outstanding Limited Series, Outstanding Miniseries, and Outstanding Drama/Comedy Special And Miniseries before settling on its current name a few years back. The point, generally, being to distinguish shows with deliberately shorter runs from TV drama juggernauts (and to give short-run British shows a shot at winning awards in the American market)—but the actual effect being, more often than not, to simply muddy the waters and create exactly the sorts of semantic games that networks are all too happy to benefit from.
Anyway: The White Lotus is now officially a very dramatic Drama, a distinction that absolutely nobody will be able to quibble with or complain about.
11 Comments
good.
What does a show like Fargo compete as? While “limited” doesn’t necessarily match, an argument could be made for it. Sure, there are a couple of characters that recur, but each season is its own standalone thing that doesn’t require having seen any prior series. Which is much like Fargo. But I don’t really care which category it competes under as long as the standards are consistently applied. So whatever category Fargo has been in, that’s where White Lotus should be.
Maybe there needs to be a separate anthology category?
Fargo always competed in the Limited/Miniseries/Anthology category, but (1) it’s not up for an award this year and (2) it had no characters or storylines spanning multiple seasons, as far as I know.There are always going to be edge cases, but if there is going to be a separate category for limited series I think it needs some criteria, and not having multi-season characters and stories seems like a good place to start.ETA: Okay, then, what about Alfred Hitchcock Presents…? Wasn’t Alfred Hitchcock a recurring character. Does that mean it wasn’t an anthology show?No! Alfred Hitchcock was the presenter. Yes, he was acting out a certain persona, but he appeared before and after the episodes proper, which were entirely self-contained. Obviously it was an anthology.Okay, then, what about American Horror Story? It has lead actors who appear in season after season.Yes, but as different characters, in completely unrelated stories. Except when they reappear as the same characters and it turns out the stories are related. Look, I said there would be edge cases, why are you being so difficult?
Season 2 of Fargo followed Lou Solverson, played by Patrick Wilson, who was the father in season 1 played by Keith Carradine. Other characters had repeat appearances as well, though usually played by different actors due to the different settings in time.And I agree it’s complex, which makes me raise an eyebrow at this decision a bit. It’s hard to find a reason White Lotus should be treated differently.
Yeah, that does complicate things. I guess the next thing I would look at is are those “lead” characters whose arcs are central to the season, or are they secondary? But that’s not always clear-cut, especially with large ensemble casts. In the end there are always going to be questionable choices, as with the Golden Globes classifying movies as comedies and dramas or the gazillion different genres at the Grammys.
All the seasons are connected. Four tells the origin of the corporate mob and Milligan from two. Two tells the origin of the Fargo outfit in one. Three is the least connected but still has Mr. Wrench.
And I think you also have to look at release schedules. Take the “Tales of the City” franchise, which has had 4 different mini-series on 3 different networks/platforms over the course of 26 years. They have storylines/characters/actors that continue across all four series, but you’d be hard-pressed to argue that any of them should have been forced to compete in the regular series category.In the case of “White Lotus”, the seasons themselves are being released on a pretty regular schedule, temporally the series takes place within the same era, and there is continuity of characters/setting (even though they’re different locations of the same resort). They could go the “Yellowstone” route and do a “White Lotus: 1965″ that only has the barest character continuity (like so-and-so’s parent staying there), and it’d easily fit in the limited series category.
AHS has tied seasons together with storylines and character, so they should be kicked out of the category, too. Asylum and Freakshow were tied together. The witches had two seasons. I haven’t watched since Apocalypse (if that was the name of the season. It’s been a while).
I feel like if the award shows were fair, limited series and anthologies should be cleaning up in the regular drama category, and shouldn’t need their own limited section.
Dramas tend to be freshest in season one – that’s normally the plot that gets the most time taken over it, and a self-contained story with a conclusive ending should be even better.
Perhaps there’s an argument that the people judging these awards have their favourite shows that they want to push year after year, but that’s not a problem with the categories, per se…
Emmys did the exact opposite with True Detective, started it in Drama and moved it to Limited.One crossover character hardly seems enough to make it a series like “This Is Us”