2016 Primetime Emmy Awards - As the Final Climax Unfolds...
Cast of Game of Thrones in the 68th Primetime Emmy Awards. These are the ones to beat. (Image: LA Times)
The last round of 2016 World Fandom Championship is on the books: the Primetime Emmys! Naturally, this is where the World Championship title and all the other titles are decided. The 2016 has been a long ride with the biggest upset being FMM going totally M.I.A., and the domination of Clexa from The 100 during two different online pairing competitions shook up the standings and prompted a heartfelt donation and a heartbreaking upset, with Lexa's victory in SpoilerTV Character Cup furthered her lead in the Character's Championship and set the milestone for any LGBT character ever. All in all, this is where the road is about to end for this season! (Although the Final round of SpoilerTV Favorite TV Competition will officially close the season due to the fact that the competition didn't finish as Emmy rolled)
With the nominations released in conjunction of the start of SpoilerTV's Character Cup nominations, it was all a guessing game of "who will dominate Emmys" for everyone. As expected, Game of Thrones dominated the nominations list, but newer shows like American Crime Story and Mr. Robot pose a much bigger threat to the Sci-Fi series, judging by their overall performance throughout their airing. With three phases at stake: two days of Creative Arts awards and the main gala itself, this pinnacle award show for television will decide its victors: the ones with pure quality.
Before that, I want to apologize that I couldn't able to present my Preview post like other rounds did. Real life has once again take its toll on me that I am unable to find the right time to post it, and the moment the Creative Arts winners are already posted, it's all too late. With SpoilerTV Favorite TV Series competition coming to a close and the Spring/Summer 2017 Fashion Week is ongoing, my focus is being tested yet again, which I eventually failed hard. As a result, this post will describe the nominations plus the results for Creative Arts and the Main Show.
The final standings for the 2016 World Fandom Championship plus the Winner's Ceremony will be posted after the SpoilerTV Favorite TV Competition post which should be coming soon after this one, realizing that there's still one round to go even after Emmys ended, like I said previously.
THE NOMINATIONS
The nominations were released during the SpoilerTV Character Cup nominations timeline, which was on July 14th. These nominations include the key nominations as well as Creative Arts nominations, which would be held on 11 and 12 September, roughly one week before the main gala started.
Game of Thrones - ready as ever, always, with 23 nominations at disposal. (Image: GIFStories)
Emmy dominator Game of Thrones stood tall in the Outstanding Drama series nomination, fighting against the likes of Homeland, Downton Abbey, House of Cards, and newcomer Mr. Robot, while the Comedy race saw Critics' Choice Awards winner Transparent fighting against last year's victor Veep and reigning champion Modern Family. American Crime Story fought against Fargo in the Outstanding Limited Series, and Sherlock went up against Luther in the Outstanding Movie category.
As for the actors, newcomers Rami Malek and Matthew Rhys, representing Mr. Robot and The Americans respectively, went face-to-face against House of Cards's Kevin Spacey and Better Call Saul's Bob Odenkirk in Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series, with the female counterpart pitted Claire Danes, Viola Davis, and Taraji P. Henson with Tatiana Maslany, Robin Wright, and Keri Russell. Bryan Cranston, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Idris Elba duked it out in the Limited Series / Movie Actor race, with Kerry Washington, Sarah Paulson, and Audra Mcdonald coloring the Actress counterpart of the nomination. In the Comedy grounds, William H. Macy and Jeffrey Tambor went head-to-head in the Actors camp while Julia Louis-Dreyfus is the one to beat in the Actress camp, with Amy Schumer and Ellie Kemper threatening the throne. To further note, I spilled some of the names for the Female Drama Actor category during the SpoilerTV Character Cup preview post.
Guest Actors race saw a number of familiar faces featuring Christine Baranski, Laurie Metcalf (in The Big Bang Theory), Tina Fey, Amy Schumer, Amy Poehler, and Melissa McCarthy (in Saturday Night Live) in the Comedy genre, and Michael J. Fox (The Good Wife), Margo Martindale (The Americans), and Allison Janney (Masters of Sex) in the Drama genre. A last-minute change in the Guest Actor in a Comedy Series however was seen in the form of Peter MacNicol's disqualification after breaking the "less than 50 percent" rule in Veep. The entry was all accurate, but it was the fact that the show was still in the production during the Emmy submission timeline and his appearance in his fifth episode out of nine at the time of his submission that led to the disqualification. Girls' Peter Scolari eventually replaced the disqualified actor.
At the end of the day, Game of Thrones had the most nominations on the grid with 23 across both the main gala and Creative Arts, with American Crime Story just one nomination short behind and Veep taking 16 nominations. It was safe to say that this year's Emmys was all about Game of Thrones vs. American Crime Story, a duel between the veteran stalwart and one of the breakout newcomers of television this year.
THE WINNERS
The show started with Jimmy Kimmel's antics involving taking a ride with some of the nominees, almost crashing to a Stranger Things van, and riding Daenerys' dragon to the gala, as well as some opening monologue before the show started.
Aaaand we've already gotten our first #Emmys upset of the night https://t.co/N6QQguQs00 pic.twitter.com/nLzJwTZGyq
- Collider News (@ColliderNews) September 19, 2016
Kicking off with the series of Comedy honors, starting with Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series, Baskets' Louie Anderson won the award while Aziz Ansari and Alan Yang from Master of None won Outstanding Writing category. Saturday Night Live's Kate MacKinnon won the Supporting Actress category, with Jill Soloway from Transparent took the trophy for Outstanding Directing. Julia Louis-Dreyfus from Veep successfully won her fourth Emmy in a row in the Outstanding Lead Actress category while Jeffrey Tambor's award victories has extended to Emmys after winning the Outstanding Lead Actor category.
Moving on to Limited Series / Movie honors, The People v. O. J. Simpson: American Crime Story dominated the field with five wins, including Outstanding Writing (for D.V. DeVincentis), Supporting Actor (Sterling K. Brown), both Lead Actors (Courtney B. Vance and Sarah Paulson), and the Outstanding Limited Series. American Crime's Regina King and The Night Manager's Susanne Bier (the only female nominee in the category) snatched Supporting Actress and Directing wins, and Sherlock (exactly Sherlock: The Abominable Bride) finally won the Outstanding Television Movie. The gala continued after a series of Variety Show nominations and some Jimmy Kimmel banter with Matt Damon. There was also some sandwich moment involving Stranger Things too.
The climax came by with the first of Drama nominations, with David Benioff & D.B. Weiss taking Game of Thrones' first win in the night in Outstanding Writing, continued with Maggie Smith winning Supporting Actress for Downton Abbey, which her absence in Emmys caught Jimmy Kimmel's attention before the award show even started and Maggie had something to deliver to him. Miguel Sapochnik gave GoT's second win for Outstanding Directing, Ben Mendelsohn winning Supporting Actor for Bloodline, and then came the sweetest part: Mr. Robot's Rami Malek and Orphan Black's Tatiana Maslany both won Emmys! While the former has been a strong newcomer this season, the latter was also well-celebrated considering she really gave her all, and as expected, the Twitterverse exploded, and I was too. In the end, Outstanding Comedy and Drama Series went to Veep and Game of Thrones respectively.
We're so happy for @ACSFX! With its Outstanding Limited Series win, the show is really sweeping the #Emmys. pic.twitter.com/M2CtnjQcth
- HelloGiggles.com (@hellogiggles) September 19, 2016
It all seemed to be American Crime Story's domination in the gala night (WARNING: Not to be confused with American Crime), effectively beating the stalwart Game of Thrones by five wins against three. But, if you haven't checked Creative Arts winners yet, it was all just half of the battle. Game of Thrones took nine wins there while American Crime Story only took four, meaning that by numbers, GoT indeed dominated the Emmys and ACS was actually pulling something inspired by Katsumasa Chiyo's brave last-minute catch-up during this year's Bathurst 12 Hour, but in WFC terms, American Crime Story may pull the infamous last-minute pass in this year's Nurburgring 24 Hours, where the FX show plays as the white and blue car to GoT's green and yellow car. Other Creative Arts winners include Adventure Time (the only victorious animated show standing), Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, and Fargo, all of them scored two wins.
All information regarding winners and beyond can be found on Primetime Emmys' official site here, where you can download documents regarding the award shows, such as supplementary facts, statistical breakdown, and much more. In addition, there were actually other best moments during Emmys, a bunch of best photos, and of course some GIFs.
GAME OF WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP TITLE
First 'Game of Thrones' win of the night - signs of #Emmy things to come? https://t.co/STPuFWZdFG pic.twitter.com/iPE33ZO7dS
- Collider News (@ColliderNews) September 19, 2016
In calendar terms, Primetime Emmys concluded the 2016 season of World Fandom Championship, the second season ever. With SpoilerTV's Favorite TV Competition leaving the Final round of Person of Interest against Leverage, as well as Major Crimes against Veronica Mars for the 3rd Place match at the time Emmys gala rolled, the polling competition's final round took the liberty to close the second season, and the recap post for this competition will be posted soon. By now, the only question remaining is "how will one fandom's domination in Emmys change the course of the final standings?"
With Game of Thrones successfully gaining full championship points, it may be enough to catch up to the current leader of the World Championship standings: Orange is the New Black, continuously leading after a strong showing in People's Choice Awards and Screen Actors' Guild Awards. Not even The 100 could catch up despite winning two online polling competitions, and the large gap, combined with Favorite TV Competition and Emmys being the last rounds standing, meant that the only fandom that have the most chance in winning is the one that made it to both competition, which in this case, Game of Thrones, currently standing 25th place outright with only 8 points from less stellar placements in SAG Awards and Zimbio March Madness. By now, they would take home 20 points after counting Emmys, but how much will they earn from their Favorite TV Competition run? Will it be enough to finally become this year's World Champion? And will they able to take the Sci-Fi/Fantasy trophy this year as well, especially taking on Person of Interest?
Will Game of Thrones finally defeat the previous update's standings leader Orange Is The New Black? And Will Person of Interest and OITNB claim their genre trophies for the second time in a row?
To be continued...
~[R]