The 76th Emmy Awards were dominated by a handful of cable and streaming series, each with no more than 10 episodes.
Of course, there’s nothing unusual or unexpected about this.
In fact, there were few surprises on the night, other than “Hackers” beating “Bear” in the Outstanding Comedy Series award.
FX dominance comes as no surprise
As we predicted, “Shogun” and “The Bear” dominated the night, while most of the other series with family hardware stuck to the Academy’s currently favored 8- to 10-episode format.
Again, none of this is shocking.
In fact, you have to go back to 2006 to find the last time a radio drama that aired more than 20 episodes won Best TV Series.
The winner was a 24-year-old who had a lot in common with most of the competition that year.
“Grey’s Anatomy,” “House” and “The West Wing” were also nominated, and like “24,” they are all network series that have aired 22 episodes or more.
It was a different time – but the writing was on the wall.
In fact, it was one of those rare years when The Sopranos released new episodes, but No won the night’s top drama award, probably because it aired a deleted half of its season before its final episodes.
Of course, we all know what happened next.
The age of cable television’s prestige
The next year, “The Sopranos” returned to its former dominance before passing the mantle to spiritual successors such as “Mad Men,” “Breaking Bad” and “Game of Thrones,” each of which won multiple Outstanding Drama Awards. award.
As a result, the Emmys prefer darker, edgier content that typically appears in smaller packages on non-broadcast platforms. That’s totally fine.
But there are significant differences between these series and today’s cable and streaming offerings.
On the surface, shows like The Boys, Bridgerton, The Gilded Age, Fallout, Shogun and Bears have a lot to do with their Emmy-dominated predecessors Common points:
Like The Sopranos and Mad Men, they have shorter seasons and edgier storylines than you typically see on the “big four” networks.
However, those early darlings were still structured as traditional TV dramas, and individual episodes were always treated as such.
television program with television structure
For example, could you listen to The Sopranos Season 6 Episode 9 and find out everything that’s going on?
Of course not. But this episode is treated as a standalone work of art, not just one piece of a giant, super-series puzzle.
In fact, its title, “The Ride,” refers to a controversial amusement park attraction, a road trip involving alcohol and drugs, philosophical conversations between therapist and patient, and the dark depravity of addiction – all of which Was discovered during that hour of television.
Tonally and thematically, this episode is cohesive, as each storyline connects to one another in both overt and subtextual ways.
Multiple characters find themselves caught up in events beyond their control, trapped on a “journey” so to speak, that will leave them forever changed.
In the end, this hour-long masterpiece delivers a conclusion that fans will be satisfied with until the next release, a full seven days later.
Of course, it’s part of the larger Sopranos tapestry, but it also works as a standalone story. What it says is unlike any statement made before or since the show.
modern approach
In the age of streaming, producers and writers of eight- to ten-episode series are often less concerned with the smaller arcs within individual episodes and more concerned with the larger arcs that provide shape to the entire season.
At times, this leaves us with the impression that we are watching a 10-hour segmented movie rather than a television show.
To its credit, the 22-episode season was much more old-school in that sense.
After all, curious viewers can watch an episode of Fire Nation at any point during the show’s run, and while they may not know anything about certain plot points, they can at least enjoy a one-off storyline about the rampaging forest Fire and its potential victims.
In other words, if radio dramas and cable TV shows of the past were at least partly interested in crafting hit singles, short-season streaming shows are all about concept albums.
The main storyline of the season takes precedence over any single episode’s storyline.
This may be one of the reasons why the Emmys aren’t as unpopular as they once were.
Don’t get us wrong, both Shogun and the Bear are great performances.
In fact, “Shogun” may be the best TV show ever. (Bears Season 3 leaves a few things to be desired, but that’s a topic for another time.)
But to the average TV viewer, both are a tough sell.
Not only are they going to a pretty dark place tonally, but one plot point could play out over the course of two and a half months.
Take, for example, the all-important restaurant review that appeared in Bears Season 3.
It’s mentioned in almost every episode, but the season ends without giving us complete closure on this storyline.
That’s just one reason why so many viewers feel a little unsatisfied with their third serving of restaurant comedy.
The feature-length movie approach may work well, but ending on a cliffhanger after ten installments is a bit of a middle finger to the audience.
Of course, that’s not to say that any episode of “Shogun” or “Bear” doesn’t hold up.
For example, Bears‘s second season midseason episode, titled “Fish,” is widely regarded as the show’s finest moment.
A searing portrait of a family in crisis, it’s a departure that’s enriched by the audience’s knowledge of its backstory, but can definitely be enjoyed on its own.
Oh, and on Sunday night, it happened to win an Emmy for Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series.
The episode was directed by Christopher Stoller, the creator and showrunner of Bears.
Perhaps he saw the enthusiastic response to the experiment as a reminder that television was a legitimate art form in its own right and didn’t need to imitate film to be taken seriously.
