Why many TV critics should be fired (or shot?)
Outraged TV critics who recently turned Emmy bashing into a blood sport because the nominations overlooked "Lost" while hailing two sitcoms ("King of Queens," "Two and a Half Men"), one procedural crime drama ("Law & Order: SVU") and lots of dead TV ("Arrested Development," "The Comeback," etc.) proved how clueless they are about television's highest honor. Frankly, it was such a flagrant display of irresponsible TV journalism that they gave their bosses just cause for their termination (and you can take the meaning of that word any way you want to).
The vast majority of these huffy, hot-headed TV critics have no idea how those Emmy decisions were made and they haven't bothered to find out before aiming their weapons of mass destruction at TV's heroic Golden Girl and popping off. They make themselves awfully vulnerable to potshots in return.
I go through this nightmare every year with them. Dealing with TV critics is the worst part of my job as a kudos expert. Film critics actually watch movies competing for Oscars. Music critics listen to music competing for Grammys. So why can't TV critics pay attention to the material submitted for Emmys?
The real reason: they're too lazy and too arrogant to be bothered.
Emmys use a complicated voting system involving participants submitting samples of their best work to juries of their peers. To follow the Emmys, you must look at the samples and do what the voters do: weigh them against each other. Every year the TV academy gives copies of all of the nominees' DVDs to every journalist who requests them. But very few ever ask.
Over the past 5 years I've recruited teams of the top journos to make predix at the old GoldDerby.com (now part of The Envelope), I've had the episodes shipped to their homes or offices and cracked the whip, urging them constantly: "Have you watched them yet? Are you watching them?" Some of the journos were always happy about the big viewing task ahead, but I often had to be a nag to others in order to get them to do what they should do on their own — and cheerfully.
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Photo: Emmy judging panels, which are currently under nuclear attack by America's TV critics, pulled off heroic deeds in the past, including heaping major awards on low-rated sleepers like "Cheers" and "All in the Family," thus helping them to fend off early cancellation.
(NBC, CBS)
Always there were a few — and I am referring to some of the most famous and respected TV critics in America — who'd say, "Oh, I've seen most of those episodes already. I don't need to watch them again. I know enough to make predictions."
"Which episodes haven't you seen?" I'd ask.
"Oh, I can't remember," they'd say.
Obviously, they just didn't want to be bothered to take the time to look at the various Emmy races the same way voters do. It's possible that they hadn't even seen half or more of the Emmy submissions.
The Emmy is the only major showbiz award that tries hard to run a fair race and give underdogs — if they're nominated — a fair shot. In fact, they give all Emmy nominees a guarantee that award contenders don't get from the Oscars, Grammys, Tonys or Golden Globes: a sample of their best work will be seen by every voter. Consequently, low-rated, unknown TV shows like "Cheers," "Hill Street Blues," "Cagney and Lacey" and "All in the Family" managed to survive early network cancellation because they won major Emmys after their first season.
The problem with the Emmys has always been the nominations, which are chosen by a popular ballot, which favors the most popular shows, of course, and thus snubs programs on the alternative networks (FX, TNT, UPN, WB, USA, Lifetime, Showtime). To solve this, the TV academy just tried a bold experiment — to force 10 finalists up for best comedy or drama series and 15 top vote-getters among lead actors to have their work weighed by judging panels. Since juries have done such a great job picking Emmy winners for nearly 40 years, it was logical to assume that juries could rescue the nomination process, too. And, in a large way, they succeeded.
Lots of new faces were added to the mix, hailing excellent TV work, but the alternative nets still got shut out. They received none of the 10 slots for best series and only 3 of the 20 lead acting bids (Denis Leary for FX, Kyra Sedgwick for TNT and Tony Shalhoub for USA). Clearly, the TV academy failed to achieve its chief objective and I think I know why. It didn't throw the net wide enough. It probably should've gone 20 deep instead of 10 and 15.
But it did do something very good: it gave legitimacy to TV genres that tend not to get much respect: sitcoms and procedural crime dramas. "Two and a Half Men" and "King of Queens" never nabbed top Emmy noms in the past. Now they're in the game. Ditto for "Law & Order: SVU," which did score a bid for Mariska Hargitay last year, but never nabbed recognition for costar Christopher Meloni, who's now a serious Emmy player.
USA Today critic Robert Bianco keeps telling us that "Two and a Half Men" is really great TV — far, far better than its silly sitcom reputation. This year, when Emmy judges gave it close scrutiny for the first time, they agreed and nominated it for best comedy series and actor. What if they and Bianco are right? Is it really so inconceivable that programs executed in traditional TV formats could be great?
History has proven that, whenever Emmy voting is handed off to academy judges, TV ratings don't matter and there's proof of that in abundance this year with so many departing or canceled series up for awards. That's something you don't see at other showbiz awards and the fact that the Emmys have the guts to do it is one of the best, most noble things about them.
Sure, yes, the Emmys made some big goofs this year. But before everybody agrees that James Gandolfini and Edie Falco got shafted, let's take a careful look at the performances that earned nominations over them, OK? Is that so much to ask? Maybe voters actually made — egads — the right decision, eh? Soon the TV academy will give journos copies of the winning episodes to watch and we can witness Emmy judging for ourselves, up close.
If my fellow TV journos watch the episodes and then decide that Emmy voters are idiots, fine, I'll accept their opinion respectfully, even if I may not agree with it. But how many of them will actually watch the episodes, do you think?
That's right — just a handful and probably because I'm forcing them. The rest will refuse to take the time because, quite frankly, they're too, too busy beating the bejesus out of TV's Golden Girl because she had the nerve not to nominate who they told her to.
First off, I did not expect this for Kudrow, and she couldn't possibly deserve it more.
Secondly, people can get copies of the nominees DVDs? When I e-mailed the Academy just now, I got this response:
The DVD copies that are submitted by the individual nominees are only available to Television Academy members who are serving on judging panels.
Best regards,
Julie
--
Julie Shore
Director, Primetime Emmy Awards
Academy of Television Arts & Sciences
5220 Lankershim Blvd.
North Hollywood, CA 91601
818.754.2874
___________________
How does one obtain these DVDs?
Posted by: Brett A. Bumgarner | July 12, 2006 at 09:22 PM
The new process may have helped procedurals and comedies, but it made it much tougher, in my opinion, for dramedies
Posted by: Josh | July 12, 2006 at 09:16 AM
I've never understood how an actor can be judged based on Emmy viewers watching one or two excerpts from somebody's body of work over 18-22 episodes. "Lost" is not my favorite show, but I think it's a fine example for this situation. The beauty of "Lost" is how rich and textured the stories are over the course of a season. Imagine if you will an Emmy voter, who has never seen the show (and I'm sure there are more than a few) trying to understand the complexities of "Lost" by watching one or two episodes. As an avid TV viewer, it's something I have never understood.
I am disappointed in this year's Emmy nominations because as a TV FAN who has experienced most of the nominated and non-nominated show, I don't think the best of the best was honored. To be completely honest, I don't care about how well the process went, I just know as a FAN I am not excited about this year's Emmys.
It's just my personal opinion.
Posted by: GMMR | July 11, 2006 at 11:59 AM
Television Critics are people with opinions who write about those opinions in print, online and on broadcast mediums. They take in their own personal experiences and this colors their reviews and opinions.
Voting members of the Television Academy are people with opinions who vote their opinions for nominations and awards at the Emmys.
Just because somebody is TV critic doesn't make THEIR opinion any more valid than any stranger on the street. The critics are just paid to write their opinions.
Even if a critical mass of TV critics think a show or performance is the best of the year, it doesn't matter at all when it comes to the opinions of the Emmy voters. The Emmy voters opinions are what counts.
I may not agree with their opinion (and obviously the TV critics don't), but too bad.
Personally, I think, hands down, Edie Falco is the best actress working on television. She wasn't nominated. Oh well. The other 5 women nominated for Best Actress drama gave great performances. I'm happy for their nominations and anxious to see who wins....moving on.
Posted by: Bryan | July 10, 2006 at 05:01 PM
I agree that a problem might have been not casting the net widely enough. The finalists were supposed to include smaller, quality shows, but just ended up including bigger, mediocre shows ("The King of Queens" and "Two and a Half Men," no matter how you slice it, are not in the same league as "Everybody Hates Chris," and Stockard Channing's nomination for "Out of Practice" is an embarrassment considering the snubs of Lauren Graham and Mary-Louise Parker.) I don't think that the outrage is because undeserving material got nominated. The outrage is because the process resulted in great performances in single episodes (Christopher Meloni was excellent in his tape) overcoming actors who do better sustained work (Hugh Laurie, James Gandolfini).
The new system was supposed to benefit underdogs, and it failed. The Emmys are supposed to reward the best of television, and I think it failed there too. It's not a fireable offense to be angry. It's just common sense.
Don't get me wrong. There are critics and journalists who have no clue. I have seen so-called "experts" giving their opinions on television about who will win the Emmys every year, and many of them clearly have no idea that there are even tapes involved. And if they do know how the system works, they clearly don't think it matters.
But I know the system, I know it matters, and many of these Emmy nominations still suck. For every great inclusion ("24" socring drama and lead actor nods, Denis Leary getting in for "Rescue Me," Frances Conroy for her stunning performance in the "Six Feet Under" finale), there's a baffling exclusion (how the hell was Falco's "Join the Club" not considered one of the five best performances by a leading actress?). Maybe wideneing the net will help, but it's clear that the system still needs fixing.
Posted by: Daniel | July 10, 2006 at 04:01 PM
It must be a day that ends in "day" if Mr. O'Neil is saying something with lots of capital letters and exclamation points to get attention for his sadly flailing web site.
Posted by: BS | July 10, 2006 at 02:52 PM
I've been reading your Emmy posts for the past few days, and it sounds like you're saying that the Emmy juries this year were DIRECTED, i.e. forced, to pick nominees from non-broadcast TV. That's stupid.
That's like telling Oscar voters to pick nominees from blockbusters so they guarantee a big viewership. The voters vote with what they know, what they've seen and what they believe. If the jury members did see every episode provded, and people like Lauren Graham and Felcity Huffman were on the list of 15, then maybe they just weren't good enough this year. If I were a voter, I would probably have a hard time basing a nomination on one episode, though. If I were someone who watched a good deal of TV, I would have remembered that episode from "Lost" focusing on the tailies and said that "Lost" was indeed one of the best shows of the season, even though the producers submitted a crappy episode.
Maybe Kevin James was simply better than Jason Lee. Maybe Stockard Channing did a better job in her canceled show than Felicity did all year. Maybe. I didn't watch much of "The King of Queens" or "Out of Practice."
Ya know, when the Tonys announce nominees for plays that have been closed, no one raises a big stink about it. I think honoring canceled shows is a nice "screw you" to the studios who canceled them because they're too worried about their bank balances.
But I do agree that TV critics who base their predictions without knowing enough about the process need to find other lines of work.
Posted by: Jeff | July 10, 2006 at 02:28 PM
Lazy and arrogant? Seriously. Far from lazy, critics watch much more television than the average Emmy voter. Laziness is watching one episode per season to evaluate a medium that develops its richness from ongoing storytelling--which might be why the TCA awards tend to be a much better gauge of excellence in television acting and storytelling than the Emmys (with their self-interested voting) ever suggest.
And to that point, the Emmy nominees in the female acting categories (regardless of what episodes of shows might have been submitted) illustrate the reasonableness of the TCA nominations as opposed to your previous critique of the organization's slighting of female actresses. Rather than snarking at the critics, perhaps the critique should go to the networks that have cancelled shows with compelling female roles and failed to develop new ones. As the previous poster noted, we can understand how the Emmy voting process works and acknowledge your vastly supreme knowledge of this process, but it is still reasonable for TV viewers and fans who watch all the episodes in a series to be frustrated when excellent work goes ignored regardless of who is to blame.
Posted by: Not a TV Critic, Nor do I play one on TV | July 10, 2006 at 01:37 PM
What do you mean that I set up the joke and don't follow through? Of course, I do -- or don't you understand one of the definitions of "termination"?
IT'S A JOKE ... although I do confess that on a few rare occasions ... when my mind has drifted during a TCA Press Tour presentations ... I've imagined an easy way to solve this problem of haughty TV critics refusing to do their homework about the Emmys, but not shy about pulling a trigger in their direction.
I don't say ALL critics. I say "many." You know the ones I mean ... and they tend to be quite MEAN.
Furthermore, I'm an associate member of the Television Critics Assn. So, yes, I'm one of those journos
Posted by: Tom O'Neil | July 10, 2006 at 09:10 AM
Shot, Tom? Are you really that desperate to stir up more controversy with television critics?
And the peculiar thing is that you advocate shooting TV critics in your headline -- a "Modest Proposal" you never mention again -- and then by they end, you're referring to "my fellow TV journos." So which are you? Are you a "kudos expert" so far above the fray, or are you just another TV journalist with a more enthusiastic use of the elevated first person?
Here's a simple point that you don't seem to understand: When most TV critics complain about the Emmy nominations, they're complaining that a process meant to recognize the best in television fails to ultimately recognize the best in television. Very few are critiquing the process. That's your job. You seem to think that your job is the same as the TV critics' job and it isn't.
At the end of the day, you aren't an automobile critic, you're a reporter for Popular Mechanics, discussing how all the gears come together and how the engines work. That's not an insult, by the way. But if somebody comes out and says that a new car drives really badly on the road, you probably shouldn't advocate shooting them just because you'd rather write about how well the electrical wiring works. Or, to switch to a different analogy, they say that even people who like sausage wouldn't want to see how sausage is made -- If somebody takes a bite of a sausage and says "This sausage is awful" and you say, "But if you understood the different meats that went into the grinder and the stainless steel blades and the casing machine, you'd love it," the person wouldn't be wrong to say, "Yeah, that may be all fine and well, but the sausage tastes like soiled diapers."
When the Emmys are announced this fall, the presenters won't say, "And the award for lead actor in one specific episode of a drama series goes to..." So you can talk about how that fraud is perpetrated all you want. The TV critics are merely noting the fraud.
Posted by: Daniel | July 10, 2006 at 08:51 AM
Kudos To Mariska Hargitay and Kevin James. Hope they both take it home!
Posted by: Rick Schuber | July 10, 2006 at 07:51 AM