What the Golden Globes Tell Us About the State of TV
There were a few eyebrow-raisers. Nick Nolte nominated for Graves? Raise your hand if you’ve watched this Epix show. Raise your hand higher if you’ve heard of Graves. And Billy Bob Thornton for Goliath? Quick: Tell me where that airs, and what it’s about. (Answers: Amazon Prime, and he’s a lawyer.)
Other more worthy shows had some recognition, but not always in the categories you’d expect. For example, how could The Americans get nominations for Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys, yet not be nominated in the Best Drama category? Well, it’s probably because the show itself got squeezed out by hot newcomers like Westworld and Stranger Things.
Related: Golden Globes 2017: All the Snubs and Surprises
I was really happy to see my favorite new show of the year, Atlanta, get a couple of important nominations, but where was the love for FX’s other terrific new comedy, Pamela Adlon’s Better Things? And why do the Globes continue to clog up important slots with nominations for the charming-but-anodyne Mozart in the Jungle when there are far superior shows that deserve its place on the list?
What these noms do is confirm something we’ve all been talking about for a while now: There’s too much good TV. We’re living in a time in which there is so much excellent programming to be seen in so many different ways (network, cable, streaming, and, probably coming soon, a video-on-demand tattoo on your forearm) that viewers can barely keep up with it all. Similarly, the Globes nominators seemed to struggle to find a way to acknowledge all the good stuff.
Related: Golden Globes 2017: The Complete List of Nominees
Thus, in order to acknowledge good new shows, some awards regulars, like Empire, American Horror Story, and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt dropped off a cliff. The Globes squeezed in a worthy but obscure show wherever it could. (I may be one of the few critics who was pleased to see the nomination of Riley Keough, for her performance in The Girlfriend Experience.)
There’s so much good TV that anyone with a small-audience favorite show can feel irritated. My biggest frustration? Where were the nominations for Rectify, one of the best-written, best-acted dramas anywhere? I’m sure you have your favorite show that didn’t get nominated as well. Whom to blame? It might seem foolish, but we have to blame ourselves: We’ve indicated to the TV industry that we want more and better shows. Now we’ve got ‘em, and we wish they’d all win awards — but there just aren’t enough to go around.
The 74th Golden Globe Awards air Sunday, Jan. 8 at 8 p.m. on NBC.
