THE EYE-OPENING QUADRUPLE AWARD SEASON FULL OF SURPRISES
So January has ended already and now we're now counting days to the grandiose month of the year for obvious reasons: March. The first month we've passed has fielded four different award shows: People's Choice Awards, Golden Globes, Critics Choice Awards (Movie and TV, wow!), and SAG AFTRA Awards, completing the first bunch of the Awards Season. Of course all these four awards count towards the 2016 World Fandom Championship competition, and we still have plenty of time before Fandom March Madness and its other clones come starting with seeing top models strutting down in world runways for example. Cue the neverending mentions about mainstream-tier models such as Kendall Jenner et al. and my hallucinations of better models such as Leila Goldkuhl.
Lots of surprises were thrown in any of the four awards, such as Person of Interest's first foray to the award shows, the rise of newer series, and the now-combined format of Critics Choice Awards which has condensed BOTH Movie and TV awards, something which I didn't expect and understandably missed it due to the financial nonexistence of my internet subscription (read: I have no money), and not to mention, the diversity of SAG Awards winners.
THE ROUNDS
I will try to brief them into bite-sized paragraphs so you don't need to get TL;DR'd by me.
The 2016 People's Choice Awards kicked off both the 2016 Awards Season and the 2016 World Fandom Championship as well, with first-time nominations from the likes of Person of Interest, among others. The award saw regular winners such as The Big Bang Theory claiming both Favorite TV Show and Favorite Network TV Comedy, plus Jim Parsons raising his flag as the winner of the Favorite Comedic TV Actor, although the lack of fandom representations for all actor/actress nominations voided Team Big Bang's three wins. Other regulars include Grey's Anatomy as Favorite Network TV Drama winner, Pretty Little Liars as Favorite Cable TV Drama winner, and a clean sweep of Castle actors Nathan Fillion and Stana Katic in Favorite TV Crime Drama Actor and Actress respectively. Not to mention, this also marked Person of Interest's win in Favorite TV Crime Drama, beating up seasoned veterans like Bones and Castle. In the Movies side, Furious 7 took the Favorite TV Movie win and at the same time Favorite Action Movie. Shailene Woodley remains undefeated in Favorite Action Movie Actress, Pitch Perfect 2 repeating its TCA success with a Favorite Comedic Movie win, and Dakota Johnson from Fifty Shades of Grey winning the Favorite Dramatic Movie Actress, although the Fifty Shades itself was unable to score points due to the mentioned actor/actress representation circumstance. Fifty Shades was almost there.
The awards action moved on to the more quality ground of Golden Globes where a field of quality-picked movies and TV shows battle it out. Jennifer Lawrence represented Joy this time after her PCA's absence, and she managed to win the Best Comedy Actress in Motion Picture, as well as Leonardo DiCaprio in the Best Drama Actor in Motion Picture, combined with The Revenant's glory in Best Drama Motion Picture which ensured its total win. In TV categories, new shows Mr. Robot and Mozart in the Jungle snatched their respective outright Drama and Comedy wins, with highlight wins go to Rachel Bloom (Crazy Ex-Girlfriend) as the Comedy Actress winner, Gael García Bernal (Mozart in the Jungle) as the Comedy Actor winner, and Lady Gaga (American Horror Story: Hotel) as the Limited Series Actress winner. Seasoned players Taraji P. Henson (Empire) and Jon Hamm (Mad Men) completed the winner's list.
Round 3 of Critics' Choice Awards saw the combined format of Movie and TV awards into one, long night, allowing for guaranteed unified standings, especially in the Actor's Championship. Mad Max: Fury Road took a total victory in the now-unified award show with a whopping nine wins out of their 13 nominations, including the Best Action Movie. Golden Globe victors DiCaprio, Brie Larson and Rachel Bloom took another set of victories once more, with The Danish Girl's Alicia Vikander winning the Best Supporting Actress in the movies side. The TV race saw Jeffrey Tambor of Transparent undefeated in Best Actor in Comedy Series and Rami Malek of Mr. Robot fame scoring another great result for the fandom in the Drama counterpart of the category, which we also found that the fandom also won the Best Drama Series. Another set of new shows like The Grinder, The Leftovers, and UnREAL also scored their respective wins, with each winning one category.
Finally, the fourth round of Screen Actors' Guild Awards saw what can be touted as "the diverse set of winners". Again, repeat victories for DiCaprio, Vikander, Tambor, and Brie Larson. But it seems like Idris Elba's victory in both TV and Movie category showed that he was the SAG night's MVP undoubtedly. In TV categories, Netflix shows OITNB and House of Cards raised their flags for their actor/actress wins for both Uzo Aduba and Kevin Spacey. Viola Davis's victory in the Best Drama Actress in TV (or whatever that is in SAG's language) marked the only Network show standing in what could be deemed as a Streaming/Cable-dominated fight, as far as the movies are unconcerned.
THE CURRENT STANDINGS
After the four award shows, Orange is the New Black takes a commanding lead thanks to its consistent performance on top in the main championship, collecting 22 points in total. Movie franchises The Revenant and Spotlight tail the Netflix series in second and third respectively, with both collected 20 for the former and 18 points for the latter. The new show Mr. Robot is in fourth place and second place among the TV franchises albeit facing an unclassified finish in SAG Awards with 15 points, tied with Mad Max: Fury Road in fifth. Furious 7 currently scores 12.5 points prior to all of its four appearances and is tied with last year's Comedy Trophy champion The Big Bang Theory. Last year's outright winner Person of Interest meanwhile is stuck within the Top 15% along with stalwarts Outlander, Pretty Little Liars, and abother new shows Scream Queens and Supergirl, but the table will dramatically change as we go to the popularity contest season later on.
The Actor's Championship has Leonardo DiCaprio leading the six-round sub-championship with 22 points, Christian Slater right behind with 16 points, and Brie Larson completing the male-dominated Top 3 with a gap of two points. Meanwhile we haven't seen much from the TV actors, but Idris Elba could count as one as he currently stars BBC America's Luther and is scoring 12,5 points, and several "mainstream" tier actors still haven't kicked some notch. A good year for DiCaprio indeed as he has won several awards, plus an Oscar, and now leading the Actor's Championship at the same time, despite that it's all over for the Movie-only actors! But that reminds me: Should I feature Oscars as an additional, Movie-only round next year as opposed to Emmy's TV-only round?
Netflix meanwhile leads the Constructor's Championship with a whopping 33 points courtesy of its SAG Awards domination, with FX Networks completing the Streaming/Cable domination with a 9-point deficit, with two Networks FOX and CBS follow suit with 23 and 19 points respectively. Other efforts include USA's debut with a strong sixth place start with 17 points, newly-renamed Freeform (formerly ABC Family) starting slow with six points and 12th place, and Lifetime finally taking its first WFC points as a channel that's not just capable of showing a bunch of people making dresses.
The Genre Trophy races are rife with contrast competition differences. In the Comedy Trophy, Amazon's Transparent is en route to victory after successive consistent runs starting Critics' Choice Awards, going away with 22 points as its rival The Big Bang Theory is six points apart, with two debutantes Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and Mozart in the Jungle tied behind the CBS comedy with 12 points, which also sees the movie The Big Short in the same position. Teen Drama Trophy competitors only managed to appear in one round only, with Pitch Perfect 2 leading with 12 points. Pretty Little Liars and Scream Queens tailing two points behind, but this means the race is still up for grabs, so there's still a chance for all Teen Drama fandoms to make their score, approximately up to Teen Choice. The Sci-Fi/Fantasy Trophy has the movie fandom The Martian taking the lead with 24 points thanks to its PCA and Golden Globe wins, but at the same time television fandoms Beauty and the Beast, Outlander, Person of Interest, Supergirl, The Leftovers, and Game of Thrones has a bigger chance to make up for their positions later on with 12 points all. The Drama Trophy saw a record of 25 currently-classified entries, with OITNB taking the lead with 24 points and The Revenant with a one-point gap. Another movie Spotlight is sitting in third with 20 points, while the debutante fandom Mr. Robot collected 18 points. Finally, the Animated Trophy has Inside Out taking the lead with 24 points and The Simpsons catching up with half of the former's points.
Syndication races see three different leaders in all three categories. The Big Bang Theory leads the Network Championship with 24 points but with the new show Crazy Ex-Girlfriend hot on the trail with only a two-point deficit, which can have a strong influence by the time FMM comes in. Last year's Streaming/Cable Championship winner Orange is the New Black also leads the mentioned category with the same story as the Network Championship, this time with Mr. Robot trailing, which makes up for some degree of similarity between the two syndication championships. In the Movies Championship, The Revenant leads after a good Awards Season run, scoring 26 points, with Spotlight chasing down within four points, and Room right one point behind the second place.
Finally, the strong contender for Breakout Newcomer Award is revealed to be Mr. Robot, a Sci-Fi/Fantasy series with a consistent Awards Season run in its class. However, I felt that as March comes near, either Jessica Jones or Crazy Ex-Girlfriend will fit as a strong contender knowing the fact that usually strong female leads would prevail.
Complete breakdown of results and standings are in the worksheet below. Take note that the list is far from complete as the spreadsheet document currently focuses only on classified finishers at the moment. More will be added on-the-fly.
COMING UP
In coming days as I said, Fandom March Madness and clones of the other kind are on the horizon now. Expectations and "Starting 15" shake-ups are of course abound as newer shows will fill the holes of the now-ineligible shows, but I still have doubt whether the FMM will have a desired line-up as I see fit as the LiveJournal community somehow have lack of love to certain fandoms, Rizzoli & Isles being one of them. Yup, I'm a little biased, but I had to do it. The Winner's Choice fandom and the Community's Pick fandom are an uncertain matter altogether. As the competition is near, I will have my thoughts on this year's race in the next post.
Meanwhile the Awards Season will continue with Teen Choice Awards and Primetime Emmys very later on. While the former will be the end of the road for Movies, the latter will be the deciding factor (hopefully) for TV franchises and actors in their respective championships.
And now, if you excuse me, I will have myself a mountain car racing and a bunch of runway shows while thinking that I should binge-watch Carmilla Season Zero.
~[R]