Ep. 75: Emmys Preview

I need support staff to clear the room. Stand up and walk now. Hello and welcome to the watches. Emmy preview, my name is Chris Ryan.

Oh, my name is Andy Greenwell. Hey, buddy, how you doing? I thought you were going to introduce me. Andy, we're here to talk about the 2016 Emmy Awards.

And I think the Oscars, we know what that's all about. Every year, the best movies that come out are celebrated at the Oscar Awards. And there's a new set of movies every year. It's very convenient.

Right. At the Grammys, whether or not you care about the actual awards, you're guaranteed to see some interesting performances. Why did the Emmys matter? Why did they matter?

Yeah, because I feel like we have hit a point where peak television, there's 400 scripted shows or whatever on TV right now. How did the Emmys wrap their arms around that? Well, I think there are two points to be made. One, I think of all the award shows.

I think the Emmys are the closest to relevance, or at least reflecting what a lot of people enjoy watching. Every year we go through this with the Oscars, where the nominees generally are not the same things as the biggest grossing films of the year. Or even the most critically appraised films. Yeah.

So there's always a big argument of including more, including less, who's making these decisions. I think the Emmys generally celebrate shows that people like are excited about talking about when they are happening and when people are excited about them. I mean, the best drama last year was Game of Thrones, which obviously you and I are very engaged in. Huge swats of the world.

The game of the thrones. You should check it out. It's about castles and swords. The other argument to be made is I think the Emmys, this year really did something impressive.

And I don't know whether it was because they changed the makeup of the Academy or whether people took their jobs more seriously or in a more open minded way. But I was really floored by the nominations this year, because in addition to obviously big series like Game of Thrones and Modern Family getting the expected nominations. Game of Thrones. It's a really fun game.

It's about chairs. Is there any incest in it? A soup song. Just enough to make you happy.

And to keep the parents thrilled. So I think in addition to the shows that we expected to be there, Game of Thrones and Modern Family, the bigger shows on television, the Emmys really did a remarkable job throwing their arms around the television to capture the breath of where TV is today. They were really surprising, like really, really drilled down nominations that I would never have expected to see. Obviously I'm a big part of the Americans on FX.

Never thought I would break through. I got a number of nominations this year. Mr. Robot, new shows aren't generally recognized by the Emmys.

Usually takes a few years. Mr. Robot's first season nominated multiple times on Sundays awards, but also smaller quirky nominations. Like Louie Anderson is supporting Roll for Baskets.

Nissi Nash on Getting On, Constance Zimmer, Your Girl. I love Connie for Unreal. Yeah, these are starting to sound more like critics, top 10 picks or critics nomination picks than what you think of the Emmys. So I think the important thing to remember about Sunday nights awards is the awards are really kind of the end of the story.

The nominations are a little bit more. Yeah, they're a mile marker. I think that that's what people are kind of reacting to sometimes, is that the conversation around television, and just like the furious pace of production of television, is such that we talk about this on our podcast all the time, where you can barely keep up with the release schedule of shows, much less properly, and no one shows for winning any awards or being more worthy. That being said, what's in it for a show to win an Emmy?

Well, I think that the metrics and the economics of TV are changing so rapidly, that people kind of can't keep up. But there are still some benchmarks that matter. Ratings ratings don't matter unless they get good ratings, in which case they do. Emmys are still something that these companies value very, very highly.

So for Netflix to get nominated for best comedy, this year, for example, for Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Netflix likes making Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. It's a funny show. It is not a world-changing show, but they like being in business with Tina Fey and Robert Carlock. The fact that it gets nominated for Emmys, that keeps it on the air.

Upstart networks like FX like Netflix. Not Upstart isn't their new, but networks that are still trying to establish themselves against HBO's, CBS's. It still matters in terms of the prestige and in terms of what they invest in, in terms of how they carry themselves, and attract other talents to the network, be a part of it. But you were right in pointing out that the metrics have dramatically changed.

A couple of years ago, I would have said the only thing that would guarantee the Americans getting five or six seasons would be if it finally got some Emmy. Sure, of course. Before the Emmy nominations even came out this year, FX announced that it was going to renew the show 45th and six or five season. They know.

That's the people versus they do. When did they know? So all of it is in flux, but people still think these things are very, very, very, very, very important. OK, well, let's get to the actual awards and the nominations themselves.

We're going to start. We're going to go through each of the major categories for shows and for acting. And we're going to talk a little bit about what kind of major storylines you should expect from Sunday night's show. And we'll start with best drama.

And Andy, a couple of familiar titles here and a couple of newcomers. So we have Game of the Front, so here is an excellent program. And that's on HBO. You should check it out.

Fantastic. House of Cards Netflix, Dout Navi from the Public Broadcasting Service. Better Call Saul, AMC, Mr. Robot, which is on the USA network, Homeland, and of course, the Americans on FX.

This is, to me, in some ways this is the least interesting category. And it's interesting that it's so uninteresting. You were talking about how the Emmys could possibly get their arms around the scope of television. What we're seeing here is how they're trying to.

And also by doing so highlighting the lack of a consensus show, basically. There were a couple of years where one show was not only clearly better than other shows in the category. It was also clearly more popular, more dominant in the culture. And then going from the West Wing, say, to Mad Men, to Breaking Bad, this year, it's kind of not like that.

So we get this weird potpourri of shows, some which are deserving, some of which are more reflective of an older voting block. Which show could you possibly be talking about? I actually mean more than one. I think that, I think, Dout Navi, obviously.

By the way, spoiler possibility here. Because much like the Oscars, Fellowship of the Ring, one Best Picture Oscar, they like bringing things to a close. Right. Dout Navi's final season.

So this is actually worth mentioning for our viewers who don't know this. The Emmys honor a very specific time period in the television years. It can often be used. I think it was a fall to spring kind of cycle of television where the shows would come back in the fall.

There would be sweeps. And then there would be the shows that will end around the screen. It's all very Genpiel. Almost like the Eldred Count is designed.

Much like Dout Navi. This is in honor of Dout Navi, which I feel ended five and a half years ago. But it was probably just at some point last summer. Well, our interest in it.

I was super busy last summer. Because we were big cousin Matthew Sam. Once he was gone, we were gone too. The any eligibility period for the 2016 Emmys was June 1, 2015, until May 31, 2016.

And further complicating that is, to be eligible for this Sunday night, you had to begin airing a season prior to that date. So, Game of Thrones, I'm sorry to bring it up again, I know it's an obscure show. But the season that is eligible on Sunday is the most recent season. It was season six.

Even though it didn't finish that season until after the eligibility date. So that's why you have the most recent season. For battle, the bastard is up for writing a little correct. That's why you have the most recent season of Game of Thrones up against the last season of Mr.

Robot. Incidentally, I know that Dout Navi is over. Like, are you sure? I think with the success with any voters, what if they just set it kept going?

And it was just like people reacting poorly to the invention of the Beatles. And Maggie Smith never ages. Yeah, exactly. She's always there.

She's like, what is this? The Beatles. When people beat up sets, if a new suit arrived in a Tesla with a cell phone, and everyone inside the house was still exactly the same. I don't think they make any difference.

Anyway, we're looking at this category. I'm thrilled to see the Americans here. I think it's the best drama on TV. I'm so happy that it's nominated.

It has no chance in hell of winning. I think that if you look at these, that you could make these sort of factual arguments for any one of these shows, even Homeland, which is the other one I was going to say is representative of an older viewership. I think this is Game of Thrones' award to lose. It's Game of Thrones' award to the game.

We both think Game of Thrones will win. I think Mr. Robot should win. I think that first season of Mr.

Robot is about as perfect as I say with the enormous upset, partly because I think I don't think it will win because the voting period coincided with Mr. Robot's second season, which has not nearly been as warmly received. But I also think the Emmy still won the Emmy's, and they still won the arbiter of what matters and what serious, and Mr. Robot won the Golden Globes.

And Golden Globes always likes the flashier and newer thing because everyone in the room is drunk. Sure, the racial bloom, they give maybe getting a little earlier. They get a little early. The Emmy's traditionally getting a little late.

This category suggests that there's a little bit of a conflict in the voting block, but the Emmy's is the only thing we have left that's close to a consensus show and I think it wins. So one of the things that we've noticed in television, from the various new streaming platforms, all the different places you can find television these days, is the changing of what a television show is. Like air quotes. Since True Detective, we've seen in Black Mirror, we've seen an explosion of anthology or limited series where eight episodes, they typically can attract much heavier talent, bigger names because it's less of a commitment.

You're not signing up for 22 episodes of The Good Wife. You can just do eight episodes of, say, the People vs. Ojissum. And we were talking about the changing financials in the industry.

These things make sense now before the best model to make money long term on TV was to create something that could run for multiple seasons. You develop the interests, you develop the fan base, and you keep them coming back again and again. Now, since all these networks, whether they're online streaming or over the top or whatever, they're devoted to making content libraries. Even if you only make one True Detective, I would argue maybe you shouldn't have made any True Detectives.

But even if you only made one, the one that you like, that would live forever in the HBO universe. I'm starting to come back around on season two. Are you really? That's for another entirely over video series.

Not nominated for any of these this year. That's your point about the idea of, you know, usually you would only go with a series if you could have multiple seasons of it. It's interesting. Keep an eye on these limited series that we're going to talk about because a lot of them have something, something colon, something.

The thing that happens before the colon, the American crime story, whatever it is, that's the important piece of intellectual property for these networks. It wouldn't be surprised if you see a lot of these shows have other lives as different stories going forward. So yeah. Yeah, almost all the ones in this category have other, and the night manager stands out.

We'll go to the list. But it's the only one that hasn't already been in existence or isn't coming back again. But you almost, they could have had John Lickari mysteries presents the night manager. From your lips to the bottom.

To the M.C. God's ears. All right. Not needed for limited series.

And I think it's worth noting, I think you and I both agree that this category is a lot more interesting than the drama category. Yes. For sure. I feel like a lot more people care about on TV this year.

ABC's American crime, FX's Fargo, AMC's Night Manager, FX's The People versus OJ Simpson, and History Channel's Root Screenache. This is a really big category that for a long time was overlooked. Root's, I think, was worth noting was enormously popular, and enormously well received. Night manager, I mean, did more for the sale of Lao C.

Lin and Shirts in the man's category than just about anything. And if you looked at it as the last pre-Hiddle Swift document. I think that's a really good point. R.I.P.

All of our hearts. American crime is kind of a prestige thing for ABC, because they're thrilled to be in the conversation. So few of the old networks are even in these categories at this point. One of the more interesting experiments of these series, because it's essentially taking a repertory theater and trying out different stories each year with Felicity Huffman.

Yeah. Well, it's taking the American Horror Story model, because that often has the same cast. But bringing it to a network with John Ridley writing it. Oscar nominee John Ridley.

So it's a worthy show. But I think you and I both agree, this is a two-show race. And it kind of really isn't even a race at all. Look, we both love Fargo.

I think Fargo season two was kind of a masterpiece. But sometimes you just have to bow down to what's coming at you. And this has been the year of OJ. Not that it doesn't fill me with great joy to say that.

But between four was kind of the year. For Ethelman's documentary and the mini series here, this limited series, it's been the primary talking point in popular culture this year. This will be the night of OJ at the Emmys. I'm pretty confident that people versus OJ Simpson is winning this category.

And many of the categories it's nominated in. If I could just take a moment to make the case, if given the choice between something pulled from the headlines, a nonfiction story and pure fiction, I'm always going to go pure fiction for storytelling. I think Fargo is representative of so much of what is great about TV in this era in terms of creativity, storytelling, just taking chances and great performances this year too. It was one of the best things on TV in a long time, better than season one.

But I think that you're right. I think that the Emmys can echo zeitgeist's opinion and just excitement. People were really excited about the people. And this is the cool thing about television.

It's replaced a lot of other popular art forms, like probably even movies, as the de facto water cooler conversation topic. But, but, but, but, but, yeah. You come in on Monday, you talk about what was the Big Sunday Night television. And that was what was happening with OJ's.

Around conference tables, around lunch tables, all across America. A little podcasting tables. Yeah, everybody was talking about this. Everybody was reliving it in their minds.

Everybody was reliving the Bronco chase. And all the little details from this show, like the interruption of the NBA finals, to David Schwimmer's performance, which became this huge meme on the internet. The show this year. It's interesting to know the beginning of our conversation is that you talked about how hard it is for shows to stand out, how hard it is for shows to get noticed, something like the Emmys.

The lesson here seems to be, you know, grab a third rail of news and current events and things people are actually talking about to get back in the conversation, because you're making a show about things that have never really left the conversation. I think that's a really good lesson for networks going forward. It's one I worry they're going to use and start to steer television away from the fictional long form storytelling that we come to. To grabbing the John Benet kind of stories, right?

And the John Benet stories being made. Yeah, by multiple people, I think. OK, Andy, let's go to the Comedy Series award, because I think you and I both agree, and this is something of drum you've been being for a while, is that it is within the 30-minute show, the 30-minute format, that the most interesting, creatively vibrant television is being made today. Now, the rules of what constitutes a comedy and not are a little bit Byzantine.

Do you explain it to him a little bit? This is a little bit tricky, and I still think it's something that not everyone is happy with, because as you just said, I think that half-hour shows generally have been more emotionally rewarding than the last year or two than the hour-long shows. The best show on television right now is probably Atlanta, which is a perfect example of this. And Transparent, which is nominated in the Comedy Series category this year, is as dramatic and is emotionally wrenching as anything that last 16 minutes.

Basically, in order to try to sort this out, the first they made a designation that people have been being a drum for a while, which was to say that dramas are an hour-long, commies are half-hour long. But of course, nobody was completely satisfied with that. Particularly, some shows like Shameless and Orange of the New Black, who felt that they were always going to get overlooked by the big, hulking, prestige dramas today and had a better shot in the Comedy category. And so the Academy then made a smaller panel where you could then petition to be considered in a different category.

Last year, for example, who's on the panel? I want to know, who's in the room? When do they know it? I think last year the panel and its initial out.

Is it the cast of Shameless? What do you think of Shameless? Who's adding themselves to the back room for 50 minutes? That's what I've been talking about when we say Emmys the entire time.

I know, that's what we're here. Is that what we're doing? Jane the Virgin and Shameless and I think Glee were allowed to compete as comedies, Orange of the New Black. They brought the hammer down.

No. You are a drama Orange of the New Black. And I believe it was nominated last year, was not nominated. Correct.

This year. So these things are still amorphous and fluid, but they're trying the best to make them rigid. And so the Comedy series category is a really fascinating petri dish of shows that are the new model, and shows that are very, very, very special. Let's go through the Comedy series nominees.

You got Veep on HBO, Trans Perri from Amazon, Silicon Valley, HBO, Modern Family, ABC, Master of None, Netflix, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Netflix, and Blackish on ABC. Can I just say, this is an unimpachable category. There are other shows that could have been added to this mix, potentially. But all of these shows deserve to be here.

I mean, I think that I'm not alone in saying Modern Family's probably past its sell-by date, but it's not as a way to speak to us. But all the networks sitcoms right now is probably the gold standard. I think the terms of longevity and consistency, yeah. And that makes the category feel like the way the category used to be the first three seasons, especially.

And then, that will mean, right? Did it? I never thought that. It curdled a little bit.

Am I the only one who thinks that? All right, the point being, I think it's not going to win. Veep finally broke its strangle of the nomination last year. Can you explain to me at all why that happens, where there will be basically a changing of the guard?

I agree with you. I think Veep will win. I think Trans Perri should win, because it's the best show in this category. I don't necessarily think it's the funniest show in this category or the best comedy.

I think that Veep was really remarkable this year. I think it was incredible. I think the transition from show from The Creator, Armando Eunuchi to The New Show, Rene Deva Mendel. I mean, shows can't pull that off.

And then basically, you still get to say level, and yet somehow Veep did. I think that, yes, I think Veep is going to win again. I would love to see a big Z change happen with the Emmys in this category, whether that's Transparent Winning or something like Master None, which is really just exceptional independent filmmaking, such an idiosyncratic voice, such an notorious vision, and such surprising content. It was a really triumphant season.

But I could also see you make the argument. I couldn't see you make the argument. But I could see one make the argument for something like which the way Modern Family once was, I think, is the gold standard for network sitcom writing these days. It is funny and is dependable for jokes and performances Modern Family.

That's actually weirdly traditional in the sense of the way that craples with current events in a way that is familiar to sitcom fans. Yeah, so the normal leadership tradition of social activism and social engagement with sitcoms I think those are both incredibly rewarding and deserving shows. But everything in this category is deserving, probably except Modern Family, I think Veep takes it again. OK, let's get through these actor nominations.

This is actually quite easy to breeze through, because there's just a lot of consensus, I think, not only between us, but between who the Emmy is going to go. I kind of wrench to throw you for this first time. I can't wait. So best actor in a drama.

The nominees are Kyle Chandler for Bloodline, Romney Malek for Mr. Robot, Bob Odenkirk for Better Call Saul, Matthew Reese for the Americans. And we have Schreiber for Ray Donovan and Kevin Space of Cross of Cards. Interesting.

I think that in the same way we looked at the drama series nominees, and we had Game of Thrones sitting there to fall back on as the obvious one consensus showed here, there are no Game of Thrones actors in this category. I'm shocked the dude who plays the Mountain didn't get it this year. I really got to come, especially with that tear-jur because I speak for everyone in America and in Croatia when I say that. OK, but so back to the best of this category, best actor drama.

There is no one favorite. There is no one safe consensus. Kyle Chandler is beloved by the Emmy's one for Far Night Lights. I don't think people like Bloodline.

I'm sorry, Tate. I just feel like nobody like Bloodline season two. Yeah. Everyone loves Kyle Chandler, but he's not going to win for the show.

Bob Odenkirk, I think people love him and they love his performance, but I think the show isn't as big of a deal as Breaking Bad or as Aimsi wants it to be. I don't think he wins here. I want Matthew Reese to win. I think it's an incredible performance.

But hear me out here. I know we both think that Romney Malek actually has an inside track to be the first outside winner of the whole evening. Yeah. It would be surprising that performance is amazing.

But I think enough people have such a good opinion of it. He's going to win. This is your worst take. But I am afraid of something here.

I'm speaking not as a TV fan. Are you afraid of the fixer? I am afraid of Lee F. Shriver winning this category.

Now, no disrespect to Lee F. Shriver. Nobody broods like Lee F. Shriver.

Nobody carries the weight of 1,000 years. Lee F. Shriver is hard knocks like Lee F. That's true too, but he's not nominated for that, unfortunately.

That's a snub. Here's the thing about Ray Donovan. I don't know anybody who says that it's good, but moms love Ray Donovan. But do moms vote for Emmys?

Moms? And I mean moms with love because we love our moms. Everyone loves their mom. A mom in this case isn't someone's mother.

A mom is the same person that puts down Navi down when they're trying to get the nominations. It is a safer TV viewer, someone who wants a different kind of experience, who wants to be cradled in Lee F. Shriver's leathery mitts. And I just feel like you're looking down this list, someone's going to check his name here and it's going to be an upset.

You're projecting. I think you want to be cradled on his leathery mitts. Listen, I've shaken hands with him and lost my hand in the universe of his palm. I'm just saying this weekend Emmys are kind of a battle between the old Emmys and the new Emmys.

And it could go category by category. And I think watch this category to see which direction we're going. If Rami Malekwins is going one way, if we have Shriver, it's expressly into the past. I love that that's incredible fortune telling.

All right, best actress in a drama. The nominees are Viola Davis for How To Get Away With Murder. Claire Danes for Homeland. Taraji P.

Hemson for Empire. Tatiana Maslani for Orphan Black. Keri Russell for the Americans. And Robin Wright for House of Cards.

Let me just make my small argument here. Keri Russell deserves this award. She deserved it for the last three years. I think her performance is truly astonishing.

I think a lot of people thought she was doing one thing in the beginning. I mean, for me, you know this. You've heard this. She says long form storytelling and long form acting.

It's not like anything else on TV. She, season one, she began an ice pick. I'm going to do a weird metaphor here. She's actually kind of like an ice bird.

She's slow. A lot's below the surface. She's slowly melting. Is she going to sing a boat too?

I think there's going to be a boat. Yeah, I think it's going to be what was the submarine called in the hunt for Red October? Was it called the Red October? We could be cross over coming.

I would watch the Americans if that happened. If Sean Connery drove a boat to suburban Washington DC in 1984, would you watch this show? Yeah, he's like, one ping for targets. That's not Sean Connery's accent.

In the same regard, I would also like to see Robin Wright win this. I've really enjoyed her over the last few seasons on House of Cards. As the show has gone on, her character has taken on more and more of Lady Macbeth. He's kind of role.

Possible to admire her performance, but hated at the same time. Do you hate Robin Wright's performance? She's also a style icon. She is.

She is speaking of ice pick. You could definitely break up some cubes with her chin bones, her, this part, the clavicle part. I hate watching that show. I hate watching that character, but I think she's astonishing.

That means we both think Viola Davis is going to win. I think Viola Davis is going to win. Okay. Best actor in a limited series.

This is one of the put your house on this. Go to Vegas. This is for the people versus OJ Simpson. He has nominated for playing Johnny Cochran.

Other nominees include Tom Hiddleston for the Night Manager, Cubular Jr. for people versus OJ Simpson playing the titular OJ Simpson. It is Elba for Luther, Benedict Cumberbatch for Sherlock, and Bryan Cranston for all the way. I know there are some favorites in there.

There are some big names in there. People love to see those guys up on stage. Courtney B. Vance.

It's really interesting that when you read it out loud, those are movies that category. This is a huge category. But I cannot see this going any other way because there's maybe no better example of TV supremacy at this moment than if you look at this category. Because for a long time, even during the Golden Age of TV, TV still acted like the Red Head Except Child, no offense to my co-host here.

I have the pair for that. When movie stars would just show up on TV, they would immediately be showered with the words. Just for daining to set foot in the lower the kiddie pool, basically. We are so far past that now where movie stars are in this category, but Emmy voters are so flush with choices that they can say, these guys, we get how great they are as actors.

We're grateful to have them at the party. But Courtney B. Vance, who is not necessarily household name, gave one of the best performances on TV last year. I think that's the best performance of last year.

It's certainly the most exciting, most inspiring performance. And I think all the people you mentioned, the bigger stars will stand up and applaud when he wins. Oh, absolutely. I think that's the best performance we have in for American Crime.

Audra McDonald for Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill. Sarah Paulson, the people who are so too sims. They added the grill later because people needed something to stop up the alcohol. I didn't know that.

Is that true? Yes. Lilly Taylor, American Crime, Carrie Washington confirmation. I think we are both in agreement here that Sarah Paulson will win this award.

I would like to shout out, as Andy said earlier about Fargo season two, one of the best things about that season was the awesome performance of Kirsten Dunst. The return of Kiki. Kiki, man. She really killed it.

You betcha. She was great. This is an example of Fargo almost getting punished for such a deep bench. Yeah.

So many great performances last season. Yeah. I think that Sarah Paulson and Courtney Vans did things that are really, really, really hard to do which is take very familiar figures from the public record and imbue them with a complete inner life and make them seem like people we never seen before. Yeah.

Well, let's get to best actor and comedy. So we both think Sarah Paulson. Yeah. Best actor, comedy, Anthony Anderson for Blackness, a season sorry for Master of None, Will Forte for the Last Man on Earth.

William H. Macy for Shameless, Thomas Middleditch for Silicon Valley, Jeffrey Tambor for Transparent. This is pretty much Jeffrey Tambor's to lose. I agree.

It's hard for me to argue that he shouldn't win. No, I think every Tambor will win. I think he should win. I think it's worth noting that maybe we're like any voters are bringing a certain kind of comedy versus drama prejudice category.

I think a lot of the people you mentioned give terrific comedic performances. I don't know if I would call them acting performances in the same way. Yeah, exactly. I mean, Aziz Ansari is terrific in a show that he wrote himself to be basically too distressed.

More or less autobiographical character. I think Anthony Anderson is doing great, great, great sitcom work. He's funny. He's engaging.

He's wonderful on the show and the show orbits around him. Did a Will Forte in a very different direction. But none of them, it's not a slight to say none of them are doing what Jeffrey Tambor is doing. None of them are being asked to do what he's doing.

Yeah. For Best Actress for a Comedy, we've got Ellie Kemper for Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Julia Louis-Dreyfus for Vee, Lori Metcalf for Getting On. She mentioned earlier, Tracy Ellis Ross for Blackish, Amy Schumer for Inside Amy Schumer, and Lily Tomlin for Grease and Frankie. This is also kind of secretly a murderous row.

Fantastic. I would say Shout-out is so good on Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. The show is impossible without her and is built around her and she's terrific and she's not going to win. Let's be honest, this is category she's just being the best Julie Louis-Dreyfus in a leading role.

It's hard for me to imagine anyone else winning this award while Vee does on the air. Me neither. She is one of the greatest comedic actors of our time in what is quickly becoming now her signature role. Which isn't the same thing when you think about what else she's been on.

It's really shocking. I hate saying any year she's out for this role, she probably deserves it. When I say that I want someone else to win, it's only because he wants some fresh blood. I feel like Tracy Ellis Ross is enormously overlooked on Blackish.

the glue that makes that show work, it'll be great to see her win. But she's not going to, right? Because Julie, we drive this as it's been a win. So we've gone through the nominees, we've gone through all the major acting and show categories.

What is the thing that people are going to be talking about on Monday, the day after? What's the major takeaway from the show? I think the major takeaway from the show will be the live show that you and I are doing after the Emmy. So people are just like, I can't believe those guys got all their picks right, and we're so charming and funny and suits after the show.

Right. Other than that. Yeah. I think we'll just be, the argument I made before, whether this is pointing TV's way forward or clinging to the past is basically going to be the storyline.

And I worry that just a handing out of the awards, the awards like when we have on our table here, are going to obscure the real work that was done in the nominations. If the takeaway on Monday morning is Game of Thrones repeats, V. I think everybody's going to talk about OJ. I think we'll look back and we'll just be like it was the year of OJ, it was OJ's year at the Emmys.

And I think actually, if it hasn't already, and we've talked about this Jambineh shows that are coming on, that the rip from the headlines murder mystery is going to become a major thing that gets produced over the next two years. We saw that with Homeland a few years ago with the explosion of espionage shows that came out usually about a woman who was possibly in... A lot of whiteboards. Yeah, there was just a lot of, like, there was that show with Catherine Heigl, we were still getting shows like, Quantico.

So there's a copycat town and you'll see people imitate, I think right now somewhere in production studios, in Hollywood studios, there's somebody literally just paging through newspapers looking for a sensational murder mystery that they can then rebuild into a show. Because think about it, the logical conclusion of where we've been headed for a few years with exploitable IP, things that people know, something about going in. So that's why you have all those superhero shows on TV now and only getting more in the next few months. That's why Sherlock gets made again and again.

The logical conclusion of that thinking is, well, what else do people already know going in? Well, things rip from news and rip from the headlines. And I think the other reason why that exists is because you cannot put someone in the room in the bottom floor of an agency and say, bring me another Atlanta, bring me another Master of None. Because those are personality.

Those are personality. And they come fully sprung from people with very strong opinions and a really deep understanding of a world and of their own artistic intentions. You can't master reproduce that, but an American crime story will there. They write those every day.

Let me put you on the spot. We're on camera. Let's say we are sitting here in 2017. We're still here?

Yeah, it's just for... That's nice. What show are we talking about going into the Emmys in 2017? Boy, that's a really good question.

I want to say that we're talking about some of the shows that we are talking about this year, but maybe they're, you know, their favorites this time. I want to say the Americans are still in the conversation and Mr. Robot and Master of None and transparent and these shows that have become favorites or continue to build on what they've done. But I want to say this as guilelessly as I can't.

I don't know if we know because if the Emmys are getting more nimble and adapting to things as they come out and willing to embrace new television shows, Netflix and Amazon particularly, and to a lesser degree who are making so many shows so fast. You could literally do a Netflix Awards that nominated shows and left other Netflix shows out. Yeah, so I think if you think about the phenomenon on TV of 2016 so far with Stranger Things on Netflix, I don't think Stranger Things was on anybody's radar two weeks before it premiered. And honestly, I hope that it's still on people's radar when the Emmy nominations come out a year from now.

But we don't know that it is. So the turnover is so great and so fast. And so that makes it a little tough to play guessing games that makes it exciting to be a viewer of TV. Yeah, I think that shows like Atlanta will be in the mix.

And it'll be interesting because I do believe that Game of Thrones will air after the Emmys emmett eligibility next year. That's a great point. So there will be two drama spots. If there's no doubt in it and there's no thrones.

There will be two holes there for drama. It'll be interesting to see what steps up and get started on each. Especially as the talent and the interest and the quality migrates to the other categories. What's going to fill in.

The bigger question is if Game of Thrones is nominated, then the next year is after show might not be eligible next year either. So we probably shouldn't get Tuxedos yet. Is that true? I did put a down payment on mine and it's not refundable.

That's too bad. You did get the green Scottish tartan cover fund. But I know maybe I can trade it for a samurai sword or something. So thanks for watching our Emmys preview.

You can listen to the watch on iTunes SoundCloud Stitcher. Wherever you get podcasts, just subscribe to the watch. Andy and I will be back on Sunday night on facebook.com. We'll be doing a post show live after the Emmys from right here in the after the throne studio.

Until Sunday night, man. Bring your tucks.