California unceremoniously made the leap to winter last week with about as much grace and foresight as the Trump White House transition team, bringing to mind the chilly red carpets and rained out FYC events of years past, all of which served as hallmarks of TV’s other awards season.
With the Emmys firmly in the rearview mirror, it’s time for the Golden Globes and its ilk to shine, offering insight into the best that TV had to offer over the last year, using a slightly different lens — specifically, a working calendar that structures its eligibility from January 1 to December 31, as opposed to the Emmy Awards’ eligibility timeline of June 1 to May 31.
While that’s the predominant difference between Emmy season and the Winter TV Awards season, there are plenty of other distinctions which make the latter a robust and entirely different animal from the former, not the least of which is the elevated number of awards distributed by specialty organizations and guild groups. Who better to discern the highest caliber work the industry has to offer than those working every day in the trenches?
And so, it’s the perfect time to start checking in on the state of the race(s) that will populate the calendar through next April — just in time to switch our focus back to the Emmys.
This week, critics are buzzing about Netflix’s “The Crown,” so let’s take a look at the streaming giant’s top series. A longtime awards favorite, the series drops its fourth season on November 15 and early reviews are positive — consistent with the show’s marks for previous seasons. For some, including IndieWire Executive Editor Ann Donahue, Season 4 serves as a high water mark for the series, in no small part thanks to some key performances introduced this year.
“With the addition of [Margaret] Thatcher, played to gritty, galling Iron Lady perfection by Gillian Anderson, and Diana [Spencer], a near-impossible role that Emma Corrin makes look effortless without descending into hagiography, ‘The Crown’ gives a riveting look at a decade that codified callous excess in the characters’ public and private lives,” Donahue wrote in her review.
This makes for great odds at the Golden Globes, where the series has seen six nominations for its actors over the previous three seasons, as well as wins for each Queen Elizabeth to date — Claire Foy in 2017 and Olivia Colman earlier this year. It remains unclear if Corrin can make a big enough splash as Princess Diana to breakthrough in the Supporting Actress category at the Golden Globes, in large part because so much of her competition will be coming from her co-stars. Not only was Helena Bonham Carter nominated for her work as Princess Margaret at the Globes for Season 3 — her eighth career HFPA nomination — Anderson also has her own glittering reputation with the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, having earned five previous nominations and one win.
Jason Bateman and Laura Linney in “Ozark”
Courtesy of Netflix
Where “The Crown” continues to thrive, however, another Netflix drama contender appears to be flagging. After a disappointing Emmys performance, things have been pretty quiet with regard to buzz for “Ozark.” Despite receiving its best critical reception to date for Season 3 of the series, only scoring one Emmy win out of 18 nominations was a devastating blow for the series. At a point when chatter about any series that debuted outside of the last six weeks is practically non-existent, it’s not a great position for any show released in early 2020 to be in, but particularly painful for “Ozark,” given that just months ago, it seemed primed to make the leap to the next level of prestige TV shows.
But the streaming giant does have another queen lurking in the background and positioning itself to be crowned in future months: limited series “The Queen’s Gambit.” An adaptation of the 1983 eponymous novel by Walter Tevis, the series follows an orphan chess prodigy (a fascinating Anya Taylor-Joy) in the 1950s attempting to become the world’s greatest chess player. Though high drama in the world of chess might not seem like it would make for riveting television, the series is luxuriant and bewitching, finding a way to derive stakes from the protagonist’s inner journey in ways that lesser shows regularly fail.
Much like “The Crown,” the lush production values mean that “The Queen’s Gambit” could be a regular player throughout awards season, with all eyes on Taylor-Joy whose performance deserves all the accolades it can get.
With the Emmys firmly in the rearview mirror, it’s time for the Golden Globes and its ilk to shine, offering insight into the best that TV had to offer over the last year, using a slightly different lens — specifically, a working calendar that structures its eligibility from January 1 to December 31, as opposed to the Emmy Awards’ eligibility timeline of June 1 to May 31.
While that’s the predominant difference between Emmy season and the Winter TV Awards season, there are plenty of other distinctions which make the latter a robust and entirely different animal from the former, not the least of which is the elevated number of awards distributed by specialty organizations and guild groups. Who better to discern the highest caliber work the industry has to offer than those working every day in the trenches?
And so, it’s the perfect time to start checking in on the state of the race(s) that will populate the calendar through next April — just in time to switch our focus back to the Emmys.
This week, critics are buzzing about Netflix’s “The Crown,” so let’s take a look at the streaming giant’s top series. A longtime awards favorite, the series drops its fourth season on November 15 and early reviews are positive — consistent with the show’s marks for previous seasons. For some, including IndieWire Executive Editor Ann Donahue, Season 4 serves as a high water mark for the series, in no small part thanks to some key performances introduced this year.
“With the addition of [Margaret] Thatcher, played to gritty, galling Iron Lady perfection by Gillian Anderson, and Diana [Spencer], a near-impossible role that Emma Corrin makes look effortless without descending into hagiography, ‘The Crown’ gives a riveting look at a decade that codified callous excess in the characters’ public and private lives,” Donahue wrote in her review.
This makes for great odds at the Golden Globes, where the series has seen six nominations for its actors over the previous three seasons, as well as wins for each Queen Elizabeth to date — Claire Foy in 2017 and Olivia Colman earlier this year. It remains unclear if Corrin can make a big enough splash as Princess Diana to breakthrough in the Supporting Actress category at the Golden Globes, in large part because so much of her competition will be coming from her co-stars. Not only was Helena Bonham Carter nominated for her work as Princess Margaret at the Globes for Season 3 — her eighth career HFPA nomination — Anderson also has her own glittering reputation with the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, having earned five previous nominations and one win.
Jason Bateman and Laura Linney in “Ozark”
Courtesy of Netflix
Where “The Crown” continues to thrive, however, another Netflix drama contender appears to be flagging. After a disappointing Emmys performance, things have been pretty quiet with regard to buzz for “Ozark.” Despite receiving its best critical reception to date for Season 3 of the series, only scoring one Emmy win out of 18 nominations was a devastating blow for the series. At a point when chatter about any series that debuted outside of the last six weeks is practically non-existent, it’s not a great position for any show released in early 2020 to be in, but particularly painful for “Ozark,” given that just months ago, it seemed primed to make the leap to the next level of prestige TV shows.
But the streaming giant does have another queen lurking in the background and positioning itself to be crowned in future months: limited series “The Queen’s Gambit.” An adaptation of the 1983 eponymous novel by Walter Tevis, the series follows an orphan chess prodigy (a fascinating Anya Taylor-Joy) in the 1950s attempting to become the world’s greatest chess player. Though high drama in the world of chess might not seem like it would make for riveting television, the series is luxuriant and bewitching, finding a way to derive stakes from the protagonist’s inner journey in ways that lesser shows regularly fail.
Much like “The Crown,” the lush production values mean that “The Queen’s Gambit” could be a regular player throughout awards season, with all eyes on Taylor-Joy whose performance deserves all the accolades it can get.
