The Emmy B-Team: Reality Shows

How bad are the Emmy nominations? This question comes up every year when the nominations are announced and everyone has a long list of snubs and shows that didn't deserve nominations. The way people talk about the nominations, you start to wonder if the Emmy voters have watched anything in the last year or if they are just rubber stamping the shows they picked the year before or choosing the last buzzy show they heard about. I certainly had that opinion. I still kind of do. That's was drove me to make what I call my Emmy B-Teams.

In case you are new to this, the idea is pretty straightforward. I go through the Emmy nomination ballot for a bunch of categories and put together the strongest group I can among what wasn't already nominated for the Emmy. I call this group my B-Team. I then compare the Nominees to my B-Team and choose a winner based on which is a stronger group of performers/shows/etc. The idea is to see how badly chosen the nominees actually are. This serves two purposes: 
1) To see how bad the nominees really are. The first year I did this, my theory was that, as a very informed TV viewer, it would be easy for me to find 5-7 names that the Emmy voters missed. I'll go ahead and say now that the Emmy voters, especially outside the Comedy and Drama categories, tend to do a pretty good job picking most of the best options in a category.
2) To highlight some other great work from the last year. With the explosion of new content over the last few years, 5-7 nominees just isn't enough to cover all the great work being done, especially on lesser seen shows that have trouble putting together enough support to be nominated.

As far as who I pick for my B-Team, please disagree with me. I watch a lot of TV, but I miss much, much more than I see. My B-Team is exactly that: My B-Team. In other words, I'm stacking the deck in the B-Team's favor. If I'm picking the 5-7 shows that I like the best and the B-Team still loses, that means the Nominee list is pretty damn strong.

Reality TV has too much of a precense at the Emmys for me to leave it out, but I watch so little that my picks hear are admittedly very weak. I could get into why I don't care much for reality TV. I think I just prefer writing over editing. That's a discussion for another day though. For now, enjoy my limited descriptions and sarcastic comments.

(Final Note: I'm sure that I'll mention this more than a few times, but all my picks are based on who is submitted and in which category. For example, I would've considered the Brooklyn Nine Nine episode "The Box" a lock for my directing B-team, but it wasn't submitted. Thus, I can't include it. Similarly, Mandy Moore would be a great supporting actress in a drama contender on This Is Us. However, she submitted himself as a lead, so that's all I can consider her for)

Previously:
The Scruff

* Indicates a show that I haven't watched this season.
# Indicates a show I've seen before, not this season.

Structured Reality Program 

Nominees

* Antiques Roadshow

* Fixer Upper
# Lip Sync Battle
* Queer Eye
* Shark Tank
* Who Do You Think You Are?

B-Team
* Bear Grylls: Face the Wild
* The Grand Tour
* Impractical Jokers
# Mythbusters
* Penn & Teller: Fool Us
# RAW

OK. Queer Eye and Lip Sync Battle have legitimate buzz. Fixer Upper appeals a lot to the older audiences. Antiques Roadshow is an institution (I remember a Fraiser episode about it, to give you an idea of how long it's been around). Shark Tank and Who Do You Think You Are? have a history of Emmy love. Meanwhile, Face the Wild, The Grand Tour, and Fool Us are sequel series to better shows. Mythbusters is an institution but without as much history of Emmy love. I only bring up RAW to point out how unlikely it is for WWE to get Emmy love. Impractical Jokers is legitimately popular, at least according to my supervisor at work.
Winner: Nominees
In short, it's not a tough call.

Unstructured Reality Program

Nominees
* Born This Way
* Deadliest Catch
* Intervention
* Naked And Afraid
* RuPaul's Drag Race: Untucked
* United Shades Of America With W. Kamau Bell

B-Team
* Ball In the Family
* Catfish: The TV Show
* Keeping Up with the Kardashians
* Man vs. Food
* Ride With Norman Reedus
* Wahlburgers

Naked and Afraid is one of my favorite reality show concepts, whereas Wahlburgers is one of my favorite reality show names. Deadliest Catch, Born This Way, and Intervention are long established Emmy favorites. Keeping Up with the Kardashians has more cultural impact than anything on either team. I like that Ride with Norman Reedus has lasted as long as it has. Catfish has run into a bit of trouble after those allegations against the star of the show (For what it's worth, I don't believe the investigations have turned up much).
Winner: Nominees
Well, I am sick and tired of Lavar Ball, so Ball in the Family doesn't help matters (please ignore that I'm the one who assembled the list). The RuPaul's Drag Race sister series helps the Nominees in my book.

Reality-Competition Program

Nominees
* The Amazing Race
American Ninja Warrior
* Project Runway
# RuPaul's Drag Race
* Top Chef
* The Voice

B-Team
* Dancing With the Stars
* American Ninja Warrior: Ninja vs. Ninja
* America's Got Talent
* Glam Masters
* Chopped
#American Idol

I think The Amazing Race and Dancing with the Stars have about 100 seasons combined. I'd lean Amazing Race, simply because the definition of a "Star" gets looser every season. The mothership American Ninja Warrior edges out the Ninja vs, Ninja edition. Project Runway vs. America's Got Talent is a wash. I'm definitely picking Drag Race over Glam Masters. I hear good enough things about Chopped that I'm fine calling it a draw with Top Chef. The Voice, not American Idol got Kelly Clarkson, so, you can guess how I feel about that.
Winner: Nominees
American Ninja Warrior is the only Reality Competition program I actually watch and Drag Race is the only other one I consider watching. I pretty much have to pick the nominees for this.

Host - Reality Program

Nominees
* Ellen DeGeneres (Ellen's Game Of Games)
* Jane Lynch (Hollywood Game Night)
* Heidi Klum & Tim Gunn (Project Runway)
# RuPaul (RuPaul's Drag Race)
* W. Kamau Bell (United Shades Of America With W. Kamau Bell)

B-Team
* Martha Stewart, Snoop Dogg (Martha & Snoop's Potluck Dinner Party)
* Cat Deeley (So You Think You Can Dance)
* All the Guys (Queer Eye)
Matt Iseman, Akbar Gbajabiamila (American Ninja Warrior)
* Padma Lakshmi, Tom Colicchio (Top Chef)

The B-Team is trying to win with numbers. RuPaul versus the Queer Eye collective is almost a fair fight. Iseman and Gbajabiamila submitted together. I'd certainly take them over, say, Jane Lynch. While I didn't realize that So You Think You Can Dance is still a thing, I'm sure Cat Deely is still doing good work on it. I think Klum and Gunn beat Lakshmi and Colicchio in the battle of the shows that have been around forever. As much as I love Ellen, I think I love that Martha Stewart and Snoop Dogg working together is a thing. 
Winner: B-Team
Fuck it. I hate picking against RuPaul, but I find the B-Team members more interesting.

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A 3-1 day for the Nominees, and the one for the B-team is almost a cheat. I kind of miss the days when Drag Race was getting snubbed, because it made the B-team debate much more interesting.