Emmy Experts Typing: Could ‘Jury Duty’ pull an ‘Abbott Elementary’?

Welcome to Emmy Experts Typing, a weekly column in which Gold Derby editors and Experts Joyce Eng and Christopher Rosen discuss the Emmy race — via Slack, of course. This week, we consider revisit comedy and consider the win potential of surprise nominee “Jury Duty.”

Christopher Rosen: Hello, Joyce! It’s Friday, and we’ve finally got a date for the 2023 Emmys. In keeping with Hollywood’s year of questionable decisions, the ceremony will take place in 2024 — on January 15, to be exact. It’s just as we predicted and had hoped against. Better still, the 2023 Emmys (2024 Edition) will occur eight days after the 2024 Golden Globes and one day after the 2024 Critics Choice Awards. Those groups will hand out television awards for shows that aired in 2023, which means the Emmys will feel like a period piece. To wit: If Rhea Seehorn wins her first Emmy and the first Emmy for “Better Call Saul” at the 2023 Emmys (2024 Edition), it will come 17 months after the show’s finale. I disagree dot gif with the date — yes, yes, Fox wanted to avoid football, ratings today are just like it was 20 years ago /sarcasm etc. — but we must prevail, particularly with voting around the corner. This week, we’re typing about the comedy categories many of which are interesting and competitive. I keep going back to Best Comedy Supporting Actor because it feels like any of the nominees could actually win. Tyler James Williams is first in our odds, but I’ve got him in sixth place. Such is life when the margins here feel extremely thin. But to be fair, I’ve never had Williams in first. I was bearish on Ebon Moss-Bachrach for a bit, then flirted with Phil Dunster, before finally landing where you have been all along with James Marsden. We talked about this with our voices this week as well, but I do think a “Ted Lasso” vote-split scenario could be real: Brett Goldstein was his usual exemplary self on the third season of the Apple hit, so it would be easy to envision and maybe even predict him for the three-peat. But anyone who loves “Ted Lasso” knows Dunster was the season’s MVP — largely due to his banter with Goldstein, yes, but the evolution of Jamie Tartt has been one of the joys of “Ted Lasso” for three seasons. So he could win — he’d be the Matthew Macfadyen of the year, I guess. But when there are six or seven legitimate contenders, I think consolidated passion will win out. Marsden has that — “Jury Duty” over-performed and it’s clear there’s a real love for the show among actors. Marsden is also a guy people just seem to love and he’s worked with everyone. In a tight race, I think all those little things matter greatly, which you probably pegged immediately after nominations. So, back to Marsden. I won’t ask you to take a victory lap yet since we won’t know if he actually won a 2023 Emmy for another five months, but do you feel more confident now than ever before?

joyceeng: Because you’re now predicting him? No. My feelings about this category remain the same: It’s the most competitive one and any one of them could win (though less so for Henry Winkler, no offense to Gene). But I do think Marsden, Moss-Bachrach and Dunster have had the most passion and buzz the past few months — Moss-Bachrach, of course, for an episode of “The Bear” that will be eligible at the Real 2024 Emmys — so they’re my top three. And Phase 2 voting is still occurring as scheduled this month, so no one has to worry about whether or not voters are still thinking about their shows in the middle of their Christmas shopping. You can argue that the nomination was the hardest part for all three, but I feel like Marsden has the most upside in winning over new supporters. We know the industry loves “Ted Lasso” and “The Bear,” so they’ve maxed out, so to speak, in terms of visibility, but “Jury Duty” was a tiny Amazon Freevee show that dropped in April to little fanfare and became such a word-of-mouth hit that it made Best Comedy Series over the likes of “Poker Face,” “Shrinking” and “What We Do in the Shadows.” Any voter who has heard of the show but hasn’t watched it yet is definitely more inclined to check it out now. And for Marsden, his performance just stands out among a list of traditionally scripted characters. It’s too simplistic to say he merely plays himself, because that’s really only in name. He’s playing a narcissistic actor named James Marsden and has to walk the fine line of being obnoxious but not too much in order to befriend Ronald Gladden and make it all believable and maintain the ruse. He also lampoons method acting, so he gets to play another character as “Lone Pine’s” Caleb. And in the finale, which is a behind-the-scenes look at how the show pulled it off, you see the real James Marsden (though, like you said, this ain’t his first rodeo, so he has a lot of pals in the biz). And for the comedy purists who take umbrage with “dramas” competing in comedy, his performance is comedic from top to bottom. That being said, you’d be an idiot to discount Goldstein. They love “Ted Lasso,” they love him, and old voting habits die hard, so he’d be an easy default three-peater. But I think Dunster entering the chat could impact him. However, who’s to say if Dunster weren’t here that all of his votes would automatically go to Goldstein just because they’re on the same show? Or vice versa? Here’s something I’ve been thinking about as well: What if “Jury Duty” wins the same awards that “Abbott Elementary” won last year? A supporting trophy, writing and casting. But it’ll fall short in series without a directing nomination, which “Abbott,” last year’s spring word-of-mouth success, didn’t have either. Three wins out of four would be a wild haul. Of course “Abbott” had seven nominations last year, including four in acting, but I won’t hold that against “Jury Duty” since no one outside of Marsden was realistically making it in and X-Man was obviously their campaign focus.

More from GoldDerby

• 'Saturday Night Live' reveals Emma Stone as December 2 'SNL' guest host

• 30 best director and actor duo collaborations ever [PHOTOS]

• How many sci-fi films will contend for Best Picture at the 2024 Oscars?

SEE Experts slugfest: Can ‘Ted Lasso’ hold off ‘The Bear’? Plus: ‘Only Murders in the Building’ returns

Christopher Rosen: It’s not a bad thought, particularly because while “The Bear” is the favorite to win writing for its pilot — and it won at the WGA Awards this year — it didn’t have to face either “Ted Lasso” or “Jury Duty.” I don’t think “Ted” will win, but the show clearly obviously has huge support inside the Television Academy, and if those are the top two shows in general, perhaps it could open the door for “Jury Duty” to sneak in for the win. While we’re on the subject of supporting stars, let’s shift over to supporting actress, where Ayo Edebiri has opened up a nice lead in our combined odds over the competition. She’s also peaking at the right time, SAG strike be damned, with a nice THR cover story and a busy August of releases — plus the afterglow of her sterling work on “The Bear” Season 2. It’s possible, even likely, that she’ll win Golden Globe and Critics Choice Awards for Season 2 of “The Bear” before competing at the Emmys for Season 1. I still think she’ll win for that run of episodes as well, but this isn’t a blowout and I could make a case for both Sheryl Lee Ralph and Hannah Waddingham. Do you think Edebiri will pull a Jeremy Allen White and win Season 2 awards before her Season 1 Emmy, or will one of those past winners reemerge in 2023/24?

joyceeng: Edebiri’s name is probably half-engraved on the Critics Choice trophy. She was nominated last year, losing to Ralph, and has since gone on to win an Independent Spirit Award (their job is also TV now, remember?) and earn a Television Critics Association Award nomination in a gender-neutral, catch-all category. The Globe will be trickier. She wasn’t nominated last year (she’ll get the nom this time) and that category combines comedies and dramas (insert your requisite “‘The Bear’ is a drama” joke here). I do have her winning the Emmy off of the strength of “The Bear” in general and Season 2, in addition to the fact that “Abbott” whelmed this go-around. Ralph could very well repeat — she remains excellent and her tape, “Fire,” even though tapes don’t matter, is a winning one — and they do like back-to-back winners in this category (see: Julie Bowen, Allison Janney, Kate McKinnon and Alex Borstein). Waddingham seemed poised to join that club last year, but voters went with someone who was an underdog to her breakout co-star. I wouldn’t be shocked if Waddingham won again, but I don’t know if they would return to her when they could’ve stuck with her last year and she’s facing the person who beat her and a first-time nominee from a hot show that is giving her show chase in series. I suppose the argument is that voters could see this as the last time to award her for Rebecca Welton, but we don’t even know if Season 3 was actually the last one for “Ted.” It’s not the same as “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” or “Barry” or “Succession” or “Better Call Saul,” which we know are definitely over. We both have “The Bear” winning three acting awards (and you at one point had it winning four) because we also have Jon Bernthal in guest actor. Technically, he’s competing for his blink-and-you’ll-miss-it turn in the Season 1 finale “Braciole,” but we know voters won’t be able to block out “Fishes” when they’re checking off their ballots next week. But you know who else was in “Fishes” (and more of Season 1 and 2)? His fellow nominee Oliver Platt. Make the case for him.

SEE Emmy Experts Typing: Can anyone take down Jennifer Coolidge in Best Drama Supporting Actress?

Christopher Rosen: We’ve talked and typed about how the voters don’t seem to pay close attention to the guest categories — that’s part of the reason why Bernthal can win for his 5-second wordless appearance in the Season 1 finale of “The Bear” when most voters are probably either thinking of “Fishes” from Season 2 or “Ceres” from Season 1. So with that in mind, Platt could win as the category’s long-deserving veteran … but also for his peerless work in Season 2. (I fully expect Platt to be a Best Comedy Supporting Actor nominee for “The Bear” in 2024.) I’m not going to predict it just yet or maybe ever — if I went off Bernthal, it would probably be for Pedro Pascal for “SNL” only because he might be an easy namecheck as well — but were Platt to win, I wouldn’t be too surprised. We spent this whole column typing about everything but the comedy category’s top awards, but we both have White winning Best Comedy Actor and “Ted Lasso” prevailing in Best Comedy Series. We also have Rachel Brosnahan winning Best Comedy Actress but neither of us is really sure what to do there. Have you given that category any more thought yet or is thinking too hard about this one just another Emmys trap?

joyceeng: I mean, do I need to give it more thought right now when we won’t know the winner for 157 days? That category will probably still be the one I’m most unsure about in January. As I’ve said before, no one makes sense and everyone makes sense. I don’t know who I’ll have come Martin Luther King Jr. Day, but I’ll keep Brosnahan until then. That’s one category I would love to see the vote totals for, and they really should release them as a bonus for punting the ceremony to January when November and December are right there.

PREDICTthe 2023 Emmy winners

Make your predictions at Gold Derby now. Download our free and easy app for Apple/iPhone devices or Android (Google Play) to compete against legions of other fans plus our experts and editors for best prediction accuracy scores. See our latest prediction champs. Can you top our esteemed leaderboards next? Always remember to keep your predictions updated because they impact our latest racetrack odds, which terrify Hollywood chiefs and stars. Don’t miss the fun. Speak up and share your huffy opinions in our famous forums where 5,000 showbiz leaders lurk every day to track latest awards buzz. Everybody wants to know: What do you think? Who do you predict and why?

Best of GoldDerby

• Is 'SNL' new tonight (November 18, 2023)? Host, musical guest details

• Jordan Reddout and Gus Hickey (‘The Other Black Girl’ showrunners) on shocking season finale: 'Nella has the power, finally' [Exclusive Video Interview]

• ‘The Talk’ quiz: Can you name all 16 permanent hosts? [PHOTOS]

Sign up for Gold Derby's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Click here to read the full article.