COMEDY SERIES
Louie (FX) – Season 5
Modern Family (ABC) – Season 6
Parks and Recreation (NBC) – Season 7
Silicon Valley (HBO) – Season 2
Transparent (Prime Video) – Season 1
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (Netflix) – Season 1
Veep (HBO) – Season 4
Should have won: Silicon Valley
Not even nominated: Community (Yahoo! Screen)
Veep was certainly the most ruthless comedy on TV at the time, and the final run with Armando Ianucci at the helm was spectacular. (That it thrived in its later seasons under a showrunner with wildly different sensibilities is a discussion for another time.) But as you know if you’ve been reading these columns over the years, I like to spread the love. At this point Silicon Valley is frankly underrated. Though it was critically acclaimed, did well enough ratings-wise to earn seven seasons, and racked up a lot of Emmy nominations, it never won anything. It almost seems like science fiction, since its final season imagined a world where tech bros actually put the needs of society over their own bank accounts. And this second season – which focused on the legal battle between the guys and Gavin – is where it took the leap. It ended with one of the most nail-biting finales ever committed to screen.
It’s still a miracle we got a sixth season of Community, but bless Yahoo! for deciding to piss away millions of dollars on a streaming platform no one used (except for me, and only to watch this show). That it lost two regular and two recurring cast members, only to turn out its best season since before Dan Harmon was fired, is even more of a miracle. Obviously if one of the four major broadcast networks ignored it for almost its entire run, no also-ran streamer had a prayer. But it absolutely deserved more recognition, even in a stacked line-up.
COMEDY ACTOR
Anthony Anderson, black-ish (“Sex, Lies and Vasectomies”)
Don Cheadle, House of Lies (“It’s a Box Inside a Box Inside a Box, Dipshit!”)
Louis C.K., Louie (“Bobby’s House”)
Will Forte, The Last Man on Earth (“Alive in Tucson”)
Matt LeBlanc, Episodes (“Episode Five”)
William H. Macy, Shameless (“A Night to Remem… Wait, What?”)
Jeffrey Tambor, Transparent (“The Letting Go”)
Should have won: Well…
Not even nominated: Andy Samberg, Brooklyn Nine-Nine
Transparent was an often wonderful, thoughtful show about deeply flawed people that hopefully taught cis people about trans people. That’s a beautiful thing. But there are a lot of problems here, starting with a cis actor playing a trans character. Not ideal. Then there are the many incidents of misconduct that led to Tambor’s dismissal from the show. Not the kind of person you want to be rewarding. But I won’t take this award away from him for two reasons: 1. He’s marvelous in the show, especially in his submitted episode, where he comes out to his eldest daughter. 2. Tambor should have already had one (if not two) Emmys for The Larry Sanders Show (and Arrested Development).
So let’s put in a good guy playing a good guy for a little balance. Somehow in an ensemble as rich as Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Andre Braugher was the only one to get nominated (and he never won!). So let’s give some flowers to Andy Samberg, who had to be the straight man, the goofball, or the romantic lead, depending on the scene. As solid as the ensemble is, if Jake comes off as a jerk, the show doesn’t work.
COMEDY ACTRESS
Edie Falco, Nurse Jackie (“I Say a Little Prayer”)
Lisa Kudrow, The Comeback (“Valerie Is Taken Seriously”)
Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Veep (“Election Night”)
Amy Poehler, Parks and Recreation (“One Last Ride”)
Amy Schumer, Inside Amy Schumer (“Cool with It”)
Lily Tomlin, Grace and Frankie (“The Vows”)
Should have won: Lisa Kudrow
Not even nominated: Jane Fonda, Grace and Frankie
Julia Louis-Dreyfus was on her fourth win for Selina Meyer, so I’m turning a loser into a winner. I’m talking of course about Valerie Cherish, the wonderfully pathetic star of The Comeback. Perfectly played by Lisa Kudrow, this belated second season finds her star sort-of ascending again after the writer of her failed sitcom begins production on a prestige TV series about his struggles with addiction, with Valerie playing herself. It’s extremely meta and extremely cringy, but absolutely hilarious.
Like another pair I’ll get to later, it just seems wrong to nominate one half but not the other. While Tomlin was certainly the wackier of the titular duo, Fonda certainly earned plenty of big laughs herself, even while she could often be the curmudgeon.
