The Emmy B-Team: Variety Series and Specials

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.

The Variety categories continue to be difficult to keep up with. They keep finding new ways to split the categories up, even though I'm not that certain there are more shows. For the purpose of this exercise, it makes my B-Teams weaker. Let's see how they do anyway. 

(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
Reality Shows

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

Variety Talk Series

Nominees
* The Daily Show With Trevor Noah
# Full Frontal With Samantha Bee
# Jimmy Kimmel Live!
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver
* The Late Late Show With James Corden
* The Late Show With Stephen Colbert

B-Team
@midnight with Chris Hardwick
* CONAN
* The Jim Jeffries Show
* Late Night with Seth Meyers
# Real Time with Bill Maher
* The Rundown with Robin Thede

Let's see. The Daily Show is finally finding its footing. The same could be said about Colbert's Late Show. James Corden arguably outdoes what Jimmy Fallon is doing. Full Frontal and Last Week Tonight have the zeitgeist more that Real Time. The Rundown, despite a lot of praise, was cancelled. When @midnight ended, it was well before the #MeToo problems with Chris Hardwick came out. More importantly, the show didn't air all that much in the Emmy window. Meanwhile, Jimmy Kimmel somehow turned himself into the beating heart of late night. CONAN keeps chugging along. The most noteworthy thing to come out of the Jim Jeffries Show is the occasional appearances by Brad Pitt the weatherman. 
Winner: Nominees
The Nominees have the heart, the mind, and the blood of late night represented.It's hard to argue with more than maybe one of the nominees.

Variety Sketch Series

Nominees:
* At Home With Amy Sedaris
* Drunk History
* I Love You, America With Sarah Silverman
# Portlandia
Saturday Night Live
* Tracey Ullman's Show

B-Team
# Comedy Central Stand-Up Presents
* The Joel McHale Show With Joel McHale
* Kevin Hart Presents The Next Level
* Nathan For You
# Tosh.0
# Whose Line Is It Anyway?

Since the variety series split, the Sketch Series category is the one that's suffered the most. It's especially weak this year. SNL is still coasting on the momentum from last year, but it's the class of the field anyway. Legends like Amy Sedaris and Tracey Ulman have shows represented. Portlandia and Drunk History represent the Emmy-approved niche shows. Nathan For You is certainly on the non-Emmy-approved side of things. Comedy Central Presents, Tosh.0, and Whose Line have long histories of being ignored, and I can't say any of them made cases to change that this season. Kevin Hart and Sarah Silverman apparently both have shows. I guess that's cool. Oh, and Joel McHale is making The Soup with a different name.
Winner: Nominees
Zeitgeist alone secures this for SNL and the nominees. Besides, other than Nathan For You, which is about as obscure as it gets, has anything in the B-team done anything worth edging out the Nominees?  

Variety Special (Live)

Nominees:
The 75th Annual Golden Globe Awards
* 60th Annual Grammy Awards
* Jesus Christ Superstar Live In Concert
* Night Of Too Many Stars: America Unites For Autism Programs
The Oscars

B-Team
* 2017 MTV Video Music Awards
* 2018 Billboard Music Awards
* A Christmas Story Live!
* Wrestlemania 34
* 24th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards

It's a new category, but it looks an awful lot like the old "Special Class" category. As much as people like to complain about the Oscars, I'll still pick it over the SAG awards. Jesus Christ Superstar made much more of an impact than A Christmas Story. Grammys > Billboard Music Awards. The VMAs just don't matter as much anymore, and the Golden Globes do still put on a good show. That leaves The Night of Too Many Stars against Wrestlemania. I'd rather not ghettoize the WWE. They put on a good show. The Night of Too Many Stars is often a mess of a show, despite the best of intentions. While I saw neither, I'm willing to go with Wrestlemania there.
Winner: Nominees
Too many of the matchups involve B-Team choices that are poor alternatives for Nominees. 

Variety Special (Pre-Recorded)

Nominees:
* Carol Burnett Show 50th Anniversary Special
* Carpool Karaoke Primetime Special 2018
* Dave Chappelle: Equanimity
* Full Frontal With Samantha Bee Presents: The Great American* Puerto Rico (*It's Complicated)
* Steve Martin & Martin Short: An Evening You Will Forget For The Rest Of Your Life

B-Team
* Andrew Rannells in Concert (Live From Lincoln Center)
* Brian Regan: Nunchucks And Flamethrowers
* Chris Rock: Tamborine
John Mulaney: Kid Gorgeous At Radio City
Patton Oswalt: Annihilation

The Nominees list certainly has more variety to it. The B-Team is one concert show and four stand-up specials. Well, I've never been much of a fan for Carpool Karaoke or Dave Chappelle. Same with Samantha Bee. The Carol Burnett Show special and An Evening You Will Forget I'm curious to see. Meanwhile, Andrew Rannells is sure to put on a good show. Chris Rock and Brian Regan are first-class stand-ups. The strength of the B-team comes from John Mulaney and Patton Oswalt. It's almost unconscionable that Oswalt's special in which he talked about the death of his wife failed to even get nominated, and Mulaney is probably the most broadly appealing standup working right now.
Winner: B-Team
Oswalt pushes it over the edge for me.

 

Writing For A Variety Series

Nominees:
* Full Frontal With Samantha Bee
Last Week Tonight With John Oliver
* Late Night With Seth Meyers
* The Late Show With Stephen Colbert
Saturday Night Live

B-Team
@midnight with Chirs Hardwick
* CONAN
* The Daily Show with Trevor Noah
* Jimmy Kimmel Live!
* Nathan For You

The only thing holding the Nominees down is SNL, which got a bit lazy after a comeback season last year. Despite improvements from the likes of The Daily Show and Jimmy Kimmel Live! there's just nothing to compete with all those former Daily Show correspondents and the former head writer for SNL.
Winner: Nominees
That is a good group.  

Writing For A Variety Special

Nominees:
* Full Frontal With Samantha Bee Presents: The Great American* Puerto Rico (*It's Complicated)
John Mulaney: Kid Gorgeous At Radio City
* Michelle Wolf: Nice Lady
Patton Oswalt: Annihilation
* Steve Martin & Martin Short: An Evening You Will Forget For The Rest Of Your Life

B-Team
* Brian Regan: Nunchucks and Flamethrowers
* Chris Rock: Tamborine
* Dave Chappelle: Equanimity
* Jerry Seinfeld: Jerry Before Seinfeld
* Tig Notaro: Happy to Be Here

It's a battle of stand-up specials as is normally the case. John Mulaney and Patton Oswalt move up to the Nominees field, so by the logic of a couple categories ago, this pick is pretty easy.
Winner: Nominees
This actually was a tough call. Dave Chappelle, Chris Rock, and Tig Notaro are great. I like the variety offered by the Nominees' non-stand up sets along with the emotion of Oswalt's special a little better. 

Directing For A Variety Series

Nominees:
* Full Frontal With Samantha Bee - "Episode 2061"
Last Week Tonight With John Oliver - "Episode 421"
* The Late Late Show With James Corden - "Episode 0416"
* The Late Show With Stephen Colbert - "Episode 438"
* Portlandia - "Riot Spray"
Saturday Night Live - "Host: Donald Glover"

B-Team
@midnight with Chris Hardwick - "@midnight Series Finale"
* CONAN - "Episode 1058"
* The Jim Jeffries Show "The Exploitation of NFL Cheerleaders"
* Jimmy Kimmel Live! "Jimmy Kimmel Live In Brooklyn: Billy Joel And Tracy Morgan"
* Nathan for You "Andy vs. Uber"
* Portlandia "Abracadabra"

I'll be even more honest than normal. I have no idea about most of these. I'm tempted to give the Jimmy Kimmel Live! episode some notice for the difficulty of shooting on location. The @midnight finale was a big episode.
Winner: Nominees
At the end of the day, the group with SNL gets my vote because that show is such an impressive production, and the directing is almost invisible. 

Directing For A Variety Special

Nominees:
* Dave Chappelle: Equanimity
* Jerry Seinfeld: Jerry Before Seinfeld
The Oscars
* Steve Martin & Martin Short: An Evening You Will Forget For The Rest Of Your Life
* Super Bowl LII Halftime Show Starring Justin Timberlake

B-Team
* Andrew Rannells In Concert (Live From Lincoln Center)
* Dirty Computer: An Emotion Picture By Janelle Monáe
* Foo Fighters Live At The Acropolis (Landmarks Live In Concert)
The 75th Annual Golden Globe Awards
* 2017 MTV Video Music Awards

If you can't tell by now, I look to degree of difficulty for direction. Comedy specials don't mean much to me in this category, which immediately puts the Nominees at a disadvantage. The Martin & Martin special is only somewhat better. Really, it's the cumbersome Super Bowl Halftime Show and The Oscars propping that group up. Meanwhile, the B-Team has the Golden Globes to match the Oscars and the VMAs to outdo the Halftime Show. Mix that in with 2 concert movies and a Lincoln Center performance and it's a mighty group.
Winner: B-Team
Someone with more understanding of directing could shoot down my pick in an instant. The way I look at it though, is if I had 5 jobs as a director, the B-Team would intimidate me more.

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Today, the Nominees went 6-2. Given the lack of depth in the categories, that looks like a poor performance, but it's actually a significant improvement over last year (4-3-1). So, good job, Academy voters, I guess.