Summer TV and my Emmy category gripes
Summer TV and my Emmy category gripes
Welp, it’s already been over a month since my last post. I keep telling myself I’m going to do shorter, more frequent posts - like every few weeks or so - but somehow time gets away from me.
June 25 is a momentous anniversary in pop music: it’s George Michael’s birthday (he would’ve been 61 years old), and it’s the 40th anniversary of the release of Purple Rain (the album). Prince and George, two era-defining, genre-bending musicians and songwriters who died far too young.
Is anyone watching the new season of House of the Dragon? I don’t have anything hugely important to say about it yet, but I do enjoy watching an “event show” knowing that lots of people will be posting on social media about it right after it airs. And it already feels more grounded than the first season, which did these huge time jumps and so had to switch up the actors playing the main characters mid-way through the season. I feel like the show is settling into a better rhythm. I don’t think I’ll ever hold this show in as high regard as I do more realistic dramatic series - even Game of Thrones would never be on my top shows list - but it is very compelling and I look forward to new episodes.
One of my favorite series of the last few years, Evil, is currently airing its final season on Paramount+ and I’m really gonna miss it. It’s just a highly enjoyable show (though definitely not for people who don’t like horror) featuring lots of weird shit like demons, angels, exorcisms and gremlins. The three principal actors have such amazing chemistry. It’s like a horror procedural, where each week the team is taking on some seemingly supernatural phenomenon, but there’s always humor baked in.
The amazing FX show The Bear comes back this week - and unfortunately is dropping all at once on Hulu. There are just some shows that shouldn’t be binged all at once - they should be savored. And this is definitely one of them. So that’s how I’ll be watching. If even Netflix can figure out how to parcel out episodes (like it did with Bridgerton and has done with other shows where it releases half the season’s episodes and then waits a few weeks for the other half), I don’t know why other streamers can’t do the same.
The Emmy nominations will be coming out sometime this summer and because season 3 of Hacks just finished airing recently on Max (and thus is eligible for nominations), I know this year’s comedy categories are gonna be filled with actors from both shows. Here’s the strange thing tho: The Bear will get nominations for its 2023 season, not the one about to start, because of the show’s weird release schedule. Now, that second season was sublime and wonderful in so many ways. BUT - and I say this with so much love for The Bear - it is the unfunniest “comedy” I’ve ever seen.
I know the deal with the Emmy categories - traditionally everything that’s around 30 min per episode is classified as a “comedy” and everything that’s around an hour is a “drama.” However, it is the show producers themselves who are making these decisions - they decide to submit their actors for comedy or drama categories. And I wish some of them would just break this mold and submit for the category that most accurately represents the writing and acting styles and the tone of the show. Of course there are many shows that straddle the boundary between comedy and drama - one of the best recent ones is Reservations Dogs - so I’m not saying it’s a cut-and-dry decision. But when a show has no jokes and only small doses of humor in it (The Bear) and it will likely beat out the funniest show on TV right now (Hacks) at the Emmys (not to mention other amazing comedies like Abbott Elementary and What We Do in the Shadows), something is really wrong! So anyway, I anticipate being annoyed at The Bear winning lots of categories that it shouldn’t be in.
Speaking of Hacks, I really loved the third season of the show and thought it was firing on all cylinders. Particularly in the first half of the season, it was just joke after joke after joke and they were all so damn good! I really hope the writers get recognized, and it’s not only Jean Smart (who is of course amazing).
As for drama and limited series nominations, I feel pretty confident that my other faves of this year - Ripley, Shogun and Fargo - will be well represented.
I took my kids to see Inside Out 2 this weekend and was absolutely tickled and delighted at the ethnomusicologist joke in the film. I mean, yes, it was mocking my field - the joke revolved around the idea that no one knows what ethnomusicologists do - but just to get a shout-out for my obscure little field in a major Disney/Pixar film was pretty damn cool! I loved the film too. It’s just such a good premise, since the main characters are the different emotions that live inside one girl. It lends itself to a sequel because the number of emotions expand as the girl becomes a teen. The big addition to this film is anxiety, and I thought the visualization and personification of how anxiety feels was incredibly well done. The climax of the film is very moving. I love Disney/Pixar films that adults love as much as kids do.
I also enjoyed Hit Man, currently streaming on Netflix, though I wasn’t a big fan of the ending. I definitely want to see more of Adria Arjona, though, who I think is this generation’s Salma Hayek.
This summer is also shaping up to be a fun one for sports fans. I watched zero minutes of the NBA Finals - cuz really, I didn’t care about either of those teams. But I did watch an incredible French Open semifinal between Carlos Alcazar and Jannik Sinner (an Italian!), the two young stars of men’s tennis. It finally seems like the torch has been passed from Federer/Nadal/Djokovic to the next generation.
Wimbledon just started this week, and the Euros (UEFA European Championships) are currently going on so there will be a lot of soccer in our house. Italia (my team) just barely squeaked into the round of 16 yesterday but I’m not that hopeful about the Azzurri repeating their victory of three years ago, when they beat England in penalty kicks.
And of course the Olympics are this year, and we like to watch them. I don’t know how or why but some sort of regularly buried American patriotism within me kicks in during the Olympics. Rooting for Simone Biles to win all the things again!
What are you watching?