I remember when I went through the bloody, adrenaline-pumped clusterfuck that is The Shield for the first time, I could never wrap my head around why the show never received any awards. Well, it got a fuck ton of them in the first season. But then after that, everyone completely forgot about it. And this simply amazed me. Because The Shield was not one of those shows that started out amazing, and then slowly descended to an "eh, it's okay I guess" death. No. The Shield starts out above mediocre, and then goes on a constant climb until ultimately reaching its "HOOOOOOOOOLLLYYYY FUUUUUUUUU--" final season. So going by this law, the first season was the worst one. And yet, it's the only season that got any recognition.
Well, I was going through Kurt Sutter's blog, and he noticed this too. He explains why this happened, and he freakin' nails it. I've explained this before, but as a reminder, Kurt Sutter got his start writing for The Shield, and then went on to create Son of Anarchy.
Recently, I've had a few interesting conversations with reporters discussing the Emmy nominations. Their standard questions -- Do you expect to earn any nominations? Do you care?
The short answer is no and fuck, yes.
The long answer began years ago on The Shield. After the noms and win of the genre-bending first season of Shawn Ryan's show, The Shield never got Emmy love again (nor any Golden Globe, SAG, WGA, DGA, or TCA love for that matter). We scratched our heads in the following seasons, watching network dreck pull in win after win, wondering whose dick we weren't sucking. We'd rationalize our loss and ridicule all the winners. Mean-spirited attacks would get us feeling better about ourselves and enable us to get back to work. Until the following July.
Clearly we weren't the only ones frustrated. Year after year, articles surface the day after the awards decrying the injustice of the process. So recently I've tried to put a little more thought than vengeance into my analysis. These were my conclusions.
The Emmys are voted on by Academy of Television Arts and Science members. They are individuals who work in the industry in every capacity. They earn the right to join the academy and qualify to vote (here’s a great link that explains the process in detail http://www.howstuffworks.com/emmy.htm). Members are not critics or experts; they are hard working men and women with opinions. Most are way too busy to watch television at all, never mind ALL television. So screeners are sent out of the shows for people to watch at their convenience.
I myself am not a member of the Academy -- at least I don't think I am -- I'm not really much of a joiner. But if I were, this would be my voting strategy --
A. I’d judge the packaging of the screeners. Who spent the most money, who was the most inventive, who really, really wants my vote.
B. I’d only watch the screeners of shows I was curious about (like the awesome shark attacks on Discovery) or rewatch episodes of shows I really like (Lost, BSG). Then I’d give the screeners away to our house keepers. Their kids love them.
C. I would vote for all the shows that employed my friends and family.
D. I'd vote for all the shows that I actually watch. For me, that's about 3 ½ shows.
E. Finally, and this is the important one, I'd vote for all the shows that EVERYONE says are good. I’d trust the hype, because I’m just too busy to watch all this shit.
I'd be willing to bet that 90% of the Academy votes using the above parameters. So what does that mean? Well, two things come into play. First, you have to look at the numbers and play the ODDS. Each week, 10-15 million people watch The Mentalist, 1.5 million people watch The Shield. If you apply that ratio to academy members, clearly more people are watching the CBS show. So using rule “D” above, more people will be voting for The Mentalist than The Shield.
What about Mad Men you ask? No one watches Mad Men; they get less than a million viewers each week. That’s where the second factor comes into play -- HYPE. If you can buy and generate enough buzz, you can create a "given status". Rule “E” above. Mad Men has reached that status. I'm not saying the show doesn't deserve to be nominated, it does, it's one of the 3 ½ shows I actually watch. But I promise you, more than half the academy members penciling in Mad Men have never seen a bloody episode. They are voting for it because they've heard it's great.
So if my theories are correct, the awards can only be uneven. They have to be, it’s a human system. We're very tired, a little lazy, and completely imperfect.
So, do I think Sons of Anarchy will get any nominations? No, we will not. I think the perception of the first season, both critically and within the industry, was that we got off to a slow start and then ultimately became a good show. We can't compete with the ODDS of network numbers and we don’t have enough HYPE to push us into a nomination. Hopefully we can hit the ground running this year and generate positive buzz for season two. Nothing would make me happier than to reach "given status".
But I'm guessing that come this Thursday I'll have to glean my joy from meanness of spirit, as I rationalization and ridicule the shows that earned a nomination.
Here are some of the better comments people left:
Two of my good friends get Academy votes, so they get all the screeners for the Oscars.
You are dead on with how the process works. I get a lot of the screeners, they vote for the ones they've seen/heard hype about, and that's it.
The Shield was one of the best shows in the history of TV, and is the reason I've followed your career since then. So fuck awards. The Shield got you FANS, man. People who watch your shit just because it's your shit.
That's way better.
You were dead on with your post and I've been bitching about this for the past day - it's borderline criminal that The Shield (and Michael, Walton, and CCH) didn't receive ANY recognition, as well as no directing or writing noms? And nothing other than opening credits for Sons? Not even recognition for Katey's work or at least a nom for some outstanding music week after week??? Come on - Hugh Laurie over Chiklis? Shatner???? Seriously- this is the best we can do?
I think this whole process is so seriously dated. 40 years ago there were 3 networks from which to choose nominations. Now, you've got 10 times that number to choose from - there is much more interesting work being played on channels outside of the "Big 3", like F/X - USA - TNT - HBO - Sci Fi (or Syfy or whatever its new logo is). Does anybody really watch ABC - NBC - CBS. It's 95% reality show crap anyway and CSI or Law & Order clones. Maybe it's time to increase the number of nominees in the categories....
For what its worth I think the lack of awards is testament to the nature of the show. If you look at the nominated shows they are easy to watch. What I mean by that is they are shows everyday people can come home from a job they don't like, sit arms length from someone they don't want to be sitting next too and drone out without having thinking/feeling/digesting/questioning etc.
Shield and SOA are shows that get under your skin while taking you to dark places. You cannot be a passive viewer of these shows. I would argue that audiences want to switch off their brains and waste away the hours before the fall asleep only to do it all over again the next day. Its not right
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