Emmy awards: Samantha Bee and other deserving women snubbed

Shortly before Samantha Bee’s essential late-night talk show, Full Frontal With Samantha Bee, premiered this year on TBS, Vanity Fair published a story spotlighting “all the titans of late-night television.” The group of 10 talk show hosts was entirely male and made up of the usual suspects — Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, Bill Maher, among them — and also included Trevor Noah, who hadn’t yet taken the reins at The Daily Show.

That tired boys club scenario was shockingly repeated on Thursday as Emmy voters ignored Bee’s bold, electrifying series in favour of a show in which Jerry Seinfeld drives around with his celebrity pals in fancy cars to grab a cup of coffee.

Most embarrassing snub: ‘Full Frontal With Samantha Bee’

Maybe with most members of the Television Academy living in LA, there was a simple-minded inclination to reward variety shows — Seinfeld’s Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee and James Corden doing his carpool karaoke thing on The Late Late Show — that featured people stuck in automobiles.

Or maybe the predominantly male Emmy voters couldn’t yet wrap their heads around the idea that a woman such as Bee could dominate and enliven the cultural conversation with her late-night platform.

Whatever the reason, Bee’s snub — and her omission merits the use of the overworked word — is an embarrassment for the television academy.

Of course, with so much terrific TV, it wasn’t the only voter lapse on nominations morning. For every pleasant surprise — the deserved breakthrough for FX’s Cold War spy drama The Americans and its stars, Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell — there were several grievous oversights.

Gina Rodriguez and Rachel Bloom snub: Network bias or is the TV academy’s age showing?

Too often, the failings involved shows starring strong, interesting women. Once again, Emmy voters shut out the CW, ignoring Jane the Virgin and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, shows that spotlight the considerable and irresistible (well, to most people, anyway) talents of their leads, Jane’s Gina Rodriguez and Ex-Girlfriend’s Rachel Bloom.

These women won the last two Golden Globes for lead comedy actress. And yet, somehow, they can’t manage even an Emmy nomination for playing two of television’s most fully formed characters. Call it a case of network bias. Or maybe the series’ youthful energy is just a little too much for some TV academy members.

‘Outlander’ is too beautiful to ignore (but the Television Academy did anyway)

There was also some thought that Outlander, Starz’s immersive, intelligent period wartime drama, would break through with voters for its superb second season. Bold, romantic and beautifully shot, the series ranks among the best dramas on television, featuring superb work from leads Caitriona Balfe and Sam Heughan. But outside of nods for production design and costumes, it was ignored. Gorgeous, sexy shows can be awards-worthy too. Maybe Starz can put that credo on a billboard next year.

Why the (sudden) lack of love for ‘Orange Is the New Black’ or ‘The Good Wife’?

Strange, too, how Orange Is the New Black and The Good Wife fell so far out of favour. After 16 nominations for its first two seasons, Orange earned just one this year — for casting. And voters failed to send CBS’ celebrated Good Wife out in style for its final season, shutting it out in the major categories. Admittedly, it wasn’t the show’s best run of episodes. But you probably won’t hear too many people making that claim for “House of Cards” either, a series that, inexplicably, Emmy voters can’t stop rewarding even though, outside the Beltway, nobody is really talking about it.

Maybe the best explanation for some of these snubs lies in something that Robert King, who created The Good Wife with wife and writing partner Michelle King, told me a couple of years ago when lamenting their choice of a title for the series.

“All my writer friends, they’ll watch any episode of something they consider tough and manly,” King said. “But they will not be caught dead watching something called The Good Wife.”

Broaden that out to late-night talks shows, the CW and sumptuous costume dramas and you have a pretty tidy summary of this year’s Emmy omissions.