Creative Arts Emmy Winners Include Ru Paul, 'Making a Murderer,' 'People vs. OJ'

I never bother predicting the tech Emmys, since there are so many of them and they all take place in a separate ceremony, one that happened just over the weekend (actually in two separate ceremonies). Sometimes they have predictive power for the big winners at the televised show, sometimes not. But some notable wins here this year were Game of Thrones in things like casting, stunts, costumes (should have been Outlander for that!), visual effects, etc., Ru Paul for outstanding host (awesome, but that should have been on the main show!), Netflix's Making a Murderer documentary series, John Oliver's Last Week Tonight for variety series writing and James Corden's Carpool Karaoke Special over both Adele and Beyonce's variety specials (he actually won two awards at this ceremony- might he upset in talk show over John Oliver?). I'm not going to list everything here, so here's what I think are the most significant categories among the hundreds of tech awards given out:

2016 Creative Arts Emmy Winners

Outstanding Casting for a Limited Series, Movie or Special
The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story

Outstanding Casting for a Comedy Series
Veep

Outstanding Casting for a Drama Series
Game of Thrones

Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series
Amy Poehler & Tina Fey, Saturday Night Live

Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series
Peter Scolari, Girls

Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series
Hank Azaria, Ray Donovan

Outstanding Children's Program
It's Your 50th Christmas, Charlie Brown!

Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series
Margo Martindale, The Americans

Outstanding Informational Series Or Special
Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown

Outstanding Special Class Program 
Grease: Live

Outstanding Choreography 
America's Best Dance Crew and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (tie)

Outstanding Structured Reality Program 
Shark Tank

Outstanding Unstructured Reality Program 
Born This Way

Outstanding Host For A Reality Or Reality-Competition Program 
Ru Paul, RuPaul's Drag Race

Outstanding Animated Program
Archer – The Figgis Agency

Outstanding Short Form Animated Program 
Robot Chicken – Robot Chicken Christmas Special The X-Mas United

Outstanding Variety Special 
The Late Late Show Carpool Karaoke Prime Time Special 

Outstanding Writing For A Variety Series 
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver 

Outstanding Directing For A Variety Series 
Inside Amy Schumer 

Outstanding Documentary Or Nonfiction Special 
What Happened, Miss Simone? 

Outstanding Documentary Or Nonfiction Series
Making a Murderer

Some other things that might be worth pointing out are the fact that the CW won its first ever Emmys, for Crazy Ex-Girlfriend in Picture Editing and Choreography, while Netflix's superhero shows also got their first, for Jessica Jones's main title theme music. Can I just also question why in the world Margo Martindale keeps winning Guest Actress for The Americans over and over again? Look, no one loves that show more than me, or wants it to do well more than me, but she is NOT the thing about it that makes it great. Like, at all. She's barely ever there. It's totally baffling why she keeps winning that- do they love her THAT much from her role on Justified five years ago? What is going on there? And Amy Poehler finally wins her long overdue Emmy, but it's for a lame episode of SNL she co-hosted with Tina Fey. Bleh. And lastly, take a look at the casting winners. All three of those shows will win the top series awards at this Sunday's main event, calling it now.
 

'Game of Thrones' dominated the tech awards again

New Footage from 'The Fall' Season 3

Now comes an actual mini-trailer for Season 3, which shows us a bit of of Jamie Dornan's serial killer character's fate, after what happened in the Season 2 cliffhanger. I can't wait for this, but I still have no idea when it starts. Not sure what the UK's aversion to announcing premiere dates is exactly...over here we get those months in advance, but it seems like there they just like to spring 'em on you at the last second. 

'Masters of Sex' Trailer Brings Masters and Johnson Back Together for Season 4

Masters of Sex has been off the air for a whole year and now its fourth season is finally starting up again this Sunday night. I don't know if all the buzz seems to have left the room on this one, but I'm still watching it. I just hope they don't take too long to put Bill and Virginia back together, because I'm more interested in seeing them get to their married years now than I am in watching them try to date other people. It also looks like they may have gotten rid of Ginny's demonic daughter Tessa this season, which can only be a wise move.

Haunting New Look at HBO's 'Westworld'

Another new trailer for this show premiering on October 2nd makes it look very cool, but just about anything HBO advertises can look cool. The question is if it can deliver on the admittedly very heavy concept. But they obviously have a great cast and some amazing production values going on here. 

Gillian Anderson Returns in Season 3 of 'The Fall'

YES!!! I feel like I've been waiting years for this! Wait, have I? I guess it has been almost two years since the last season aired. Now it's time for the cat and mouse game between Detective Stella Gibson and serial killer Paul Spector (Jamie Dornan) to come to an end. Sadly, this is the final season, but I'm glad it gets to go out on its own terms, which I understand is usually the case for BBC series. No premiere date yet, but they usually announce that a couple weeks before it debuts over there. I'm guessing early October. It will come to Netflix soon after these five episodes air on the BBC.

Samira Wiley in the New Promo for 'You're the Worst' Season 3

Here's a show you haven't seen me mention on this site yet, right? Well, that's because I just caught up with the first two seasons, and I LOVE IT. Seriously, this is my only real issue in this era of Peak TV. Good shows are slipping through the cracks, even for a certified TV buff like me. This is one of them- it's hilarious, romantic, outrageously frank and sweet yet unsentimental at the same time. Like Catastrophe, another one of my favorite comedies, it's a rom-com that has brought the genre into television and revitalized it, since they simply don't make these kinds of movies anymore. You should catch up with it if you can. And Kether Donahue steals every single scene in the "best friend" role- she's a completely unexpected character that fits none of the stereotypes that role presents.

REVIEW: "UnREAL" Season 2

The second season of UnREAL was just as deliciously dark and entertaining as the first, although it may be true that this season might have bitten off way more than it could possibly chew. To be honest, the criticisms that the second season suffered in the press were every complaint that I had about the show in its first season. And this year undoubtedly doubled down on the out of control pacing issues over a flat ten episode run. Still, the fact that it did so while never allowing itself to become the least bit dull is something to give it credit for.

The nasty and biting satire of a drama that took us behind the scenes of a Bachelor-type reality show, while essentially being every bit a soap opera in and of itself, did more or less the same thing this season, but without the novelty of revealing the secrets of how reality shows are produced, the soap antics seemed to take center stage completely this time around. Early on in the season, our antiheroines Rachel (Shiri Appleby) and Quinn (Constance Zimmer) decide to break new ground by having a black “suitor” for the first time in Everlasting’s history, and since the real life Bachelor franchise has never once put forth a suitor of color (male or female) this did seem like somewhat daring ground, since creator Sarah Gertrude Shapiro couldn’t pull from her own experience on these shows to bring up the kinds of racially tinged stories an event like this might produce behind the scenes. But Shapiro and the writers tried anyway, diving headfirst into issues of race and dating and image, without necessarily hitting on any specific insights along the way. It also treads into what may be far too serious real life waters for this show, as it tackles a police confrontation that turns violent with suitor Darius and his manager Romeo, only for that event to be used primarily as a driving force for our white female lead (and oddly, to have no lasting impact in terms of character development on Darius or Romeo), which inadvertently feeds the age old problems of black stories being used only to service white characters.

Darius has to choose from a new group of contestants

It also didn’t help that this year’s suitor, football player Darius Beck (B.J. Britt), comes across as more of a non-entity than last season’s Adam (Freddie Stroma) did, which makes investment in his choice a little harder to come by. The real meat of the season comes from behind the scenes with Rachel and Quinn of course, but the story veers in way too many directions at once. My complaints with the pacing of last year’s plots is increased tenfold this season, as Rachel and Quinn go from friends to enemies to allies to friends and back again within the first half of the season alone! The same kind of whiplash happens for key supporting characters like Chet (still a delightfully douchey Craig Bierko) and Jeremy (Josh Kelly), who do battle with each other, Rachel, Quinn and the network at various points, and with such dramatically rushed plot crammed into too few episodes, it feels like personalities and motivations do 360 degree turns at rapid velocities, which is more of a problem than the rushed plot itself. As long as you can keep yourself invested in the characters, plot overload can be tolerated well enough, but the show nearly goes off the rails in this area early on.

Eventually though, the show settles into the story of Rachel’s romantic relationship and alliance with new show runner Coleman Wasserman (Michael Rady), who does turn out to be the season’s real antagonist, as there can be no such thing as a truly decent person behind the scenes of Everlasting. When the show lets itself breathe it remains as entertaining and wickedly fun as ever, helped along hugely from pitch perfect performances by Appleby, Zimmer, Bierko and most of the new batch of contestants, especially black lives matter activist Ruby, sensitively played by Denee Benton. There’s no line that the producers of Everlasting won’t cross, and the barbs aimed at beefcake on-camera host Graham (Brennan Elliot) and launched by Zimmer towards everyone at every turn keeps each episode a rollicking, funny and occasionally off the rails soap that never fails to feel original, fresh and entertaining, despite its failings. I can forgive stuffing your face with dessert when the major complaint afterward is feeling way too full, but not necessarily sick. I’d advise slowing down the plot and sticking with maybe two or three directions next season, instead of six or seven (especially when we’re only dealing with ten episodes total), but then again, I can’t deny that some of the plot twists and revelations were indeed fun to keep up with in a way. My hat’s off to the writers of the show for pushing the limit and reaching for the stars here, even if it didn’t always work. I’m still as pumped as ever for next season, to see what more the evil little Everlasting family can get away with.

Grade: B+

Quinn and Chet battle for control of 'Everlasting'

Action on the Streets of Harlem in Full Trailer for 'Luke Cage'

A longer, deeper look at the upcoming Netflix shows reinforces the awesomeness of it all. Can't wait to see this, guys. Yes, that's Rosario Dawson again, making her regularly scheduled appearance in a Netflix Marvel superhero show, but I hear she actually has a much more significant role on this one. I'm personally hoping for a Jessica Jones cameo by Krysten Ritter as well, which the showrunner won't confirm. I'll take that as a sign that we probably will see her at least once. 

'People vs OJ Simpson' Tops the TCA Awards

No big surprise here, as the Television Critics Association announced its winners last night. They picked some good choices, but since everyone knew People vs OJ would win Program of the Year, I feel that they could have thrown Fargo a bone in the Movie/Mini category. Otherwise, I can't argue anything here. Yay for Samantha Bee especially, who should be winning the Emmy this year. Hmph.

2016 TCA Winners

Program of the Year
The People v. O. J. Simpson: American Crime Story

Outstanding Achievement in Comedy
Black-ish

Outstanding Achievement in Drama
The Americans

Outstanding Achievement in Movies, Miniseries and Specials
The People v. O. J. Simpson: American Crime Story

Outstanding New Program
Mr. Robot

Individual Achievement in Comedy
Rachel Bloom, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend

Individual Achievement in Drama
Sarah Paulson, The People v. O. J. Simpson: American Crime Story

Outstanding Achievement in News and Information
Full Frontal with Samantha Bee

Outstanding Achievement in Reality Programming
Making a Murderer

Outstanding Achievement in Youth Programming
Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood

Heritage Award
The Mary Tyler Moore Show

Career Achievement Award
Lily Tomlin

Trailer for Final Season of 'Rectify'

As you might know, Rectify has consistently been one of my favorite shows on TV, and now the fourth and final season is premiering on October 26th, for an eight episode run. I cannot wait. And hey, there's Masters of Sex's Caitlin Fitzgerald, as a possible new love interest for Daniel? I may be the only person on the planet besides critics who watches this show, but I hope it gets discovered in the future. If you want to catch up, all three seasons are currently on Netflix. Like Hannibal or Mad Men, it's the kind of show that really is unlike anything else on television, and cannot fit into any genre. Television as art.