The Emmy B-Team: Reality Shows

Welcome back to my 6th edition (yes, six!) of the Emmy B-Team. The idea is pretty simple. People like to complain about the Emmy nominations. They point out one or two "snubs", never consider what's actually on the nominating ballots*, and say that the Emmy voters did a bad job. The skeptic that I am, I wanted to find out if the Emmy picks were really that bad. So, I looked through the official Emmy nominating ballots. I created an alternate group of non-nominated performers/episodes/shows and compared those groups to the actual nominees to see which was stronger. I'll spare you the suspense: The Nominees always win handily, although it's close in the Drama and Comedy categories. Now, this serves as a fun way for me to point out the biggest snubs, audit the Emmy picks more fairly, and point out some quirks in the nominating ballots**.

*Remember, a show, person, or episode can only be nominated if it is submitted. Even if you want every episode of Game of Thrones to be nominated for writing, that won't happen, since they only submitted one episode there.

**You'd be surprised how often that actor you thought was snubbed wasn't even on the official ballot or had listed himself as a lead instead of a supporting actor.

I don't do every category. I don't pretend that I've seen everything or that I fully understand all the categories. I'm a one-man operation talking about hundreds of shows. I'm doing the best I can.

Next up are the Reality categories, which I full guess about.

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

Outstanding Host For A Reality Or Competition Program

Nominees

*Ellen DeGeneres (Ellen's Game Of Games) (NBC)

*Amy Poehler, Nick Offerman (Making It) (NBC)

#RuPaul (RuPaul's Drag Race) (VH1)

*Marie Kondo (Tidying Up With Marie Kondo) (Netflix)

*James Corden (The World's Best) (CBS)

B-Team

*The Queer Eye Guys (Queer Eye)

*Julie Chen-Moonves (Big Brother)

Matt Iseman, Akbar Gbajabiamila (American Ninja Warrior)

*W. Kamau Bell (United Shades of America With W. Kamau Bell)

*Padma Lakshmi, Tom Colicchio (Top Chef)

It's odd that the Queer Eye Guys fell out of the field. I'd like to give Julie Chen-Moonves props for hosting Big Brother last year while her husband was in the process of getting ousted from the company over sexual harassment charges. And American Ninja Warrior is the only of these shows that I watch. I'm not all that attached to Iseman and Gbajabiamila though. Meanwhile, in the Nominees list, RuPaul is the reigning king (queen?) of the category, Marie Kondo has her acolytes, everyone loves Ellen, and Nick Offerman finally has an Emmy nomination. Game over.

Winner: Nominees (Dominant)

Outstanding Structured Reality Program

Nominees

*Antiques Roadshow (PBS)

*Diners, Drive-Ins And Dives (Food Network)

*Queer Eye (Netflix)

*Shark Tank (ABC)

*Tidying Up With Marie Kondo (Netflix)

*Who Do You Think You Are? (TLC)

B-Team

*Disney’s Fairytale Weddings: Holiday Magic

*The Grand Tour

*Impractical Jokers

*Property Brothers

#Lip Sync Battles

I basically made my B-Team by looking for anything that I'd heard of. And I added that Fairytale Weddings show because, as a Disney Parks obsessive, I'm curious about that. The nominees list has all the staples though. Antiques Roadshow is "There was a Frasier episode about it" years-old. Queer Eye is still popular in this second run. The new nominee, Tidying Up With Marie Kondo, is one of those shows that every podcast host and TV writer seems to watch. Meanwhile, I'm mostly just annoyed by the the Impractical Jokers and the Property Brothers.

Winner: Nominees (Comfortably)

Outstanding Unstructured Reality Program

Nominees

*Born This Way (A&E)

*Deadliest Catch (Discovery Channel)

*Life Below Zero (National Geographic)

*RuPaul's Drag Race: Untucked (VH1)

*Somebody Feed Phil (Netflix)

*United Shades Of America With W. Kamau Bell (CNN)

B-Team

*Bug Juice

*Intervention

*Keeping Up with the Kardashians

*Naked and Afraid

*Ride with Norman Reedus

*Wahlburgers

Look, the nominees have the win, but the B-Team is the list I'm more interested in. First of all, when did they bring back Bug Juice? That announcement should've been front page news. And Naked and Afraid and Wahlburgers remain two of my favorite TV show titles.

Winner: Nominees (Dominant)

Outstanding Competition Program

Nominees

*The Amazing Race (CBS)

American Ninja Warrior (NBC)

*Nailed It! (Netflix)

#RuPaul's Drag Race (VH1)

*Top Chef (Bravo)

*The Voice (NBC)

B-Team

#Battlebots

*The Masked Singer

*Penn & Teller: Fool Us

*American Idol

*The Bachelor

*Survivor

Again, there really isn't much competition here. Drag Race + Ninja Warrior seals it for me. That said, I personally enjoy Battlebots a lot and The Masked Singer was a massive hit. I doubt The Masked Singer can keep its momentum going, so this was probably its best year for a nomination.

Winner: Nominees (Comfortably)

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 That's a clean 4-0 sweep for the nominees. But, who knows. If I'd watched more reality TV then maybe this would be less lopsided.