{"id":669,"date":"2014-08-25T14:26:39","date_gmt":"2014-08-25T18:26:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.popculturedblog.com\/?p=669"},"modified":"2020-01-21T20:23:52","modified_gmt":"2020-01-22T01:23:52","slug":"emmys-the-series-drama-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.popculturedblog.com\/?p=669","title":{"rendered":"Emmys: The Series: Drama"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The big one.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>You heard my spiel in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.popculturedblog.com\/?p=439\">the video I posted<\/a>, and it\u2019s true: once the nominees are set and they (and their \u201cpeople\u201d and\/or the network) pick the one episode for Emmy voters to judge their past year\u2019s performance on, I watch all of them. Yes, ALL. (Nerd alert!)<\/p>\n<p>I figure, if you\u2019re going to be an armchair awards prognosticator, you need to do your homework. Thank goodness for summer travel and all its trains, planes and subways, because that, my friends, is a lot of TV.<\/p>\n<p>So, after watching nearly 12\u00a0hours of the year&#8217;s great shows,\u00a0here are some musings from the Pop gallery:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>&#8220;Breaking Bad&#8221;:\u00a0<\/strong>The\u00a0final eight episodes of the series were a masterpiece, both individually and collectively. Only six were submitted and distributed in pairs to voters, but no matter the mix they get, judges will be blown away as Walt&#8217;s story comes to a shocking and appropriate ending.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>&#8220;Downton Abbey&#8221;:<\/strong>\u00a0Bereft of a series win since it moved over from the mini-series category in its second season, it doesn&#8217;t look like &#8220;Downton&#8221; will turn the tide this year. Despite beautiful production values, reliable performances and soap-tastic writing and directing, this past season was good, but not its best.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>&#8220;Game of Thrones&#8221;:<\/strong>\u00a0Ignored last year when it should have been a shoo-in for the win, &#8220;Game of Thrones&#8221; came roaring back this season with a\u00a0myriad of richer stories spanning vast corners of the land, leaving us breathless with each episode. If you&#8217;re looking for an eleventh-hour spoiler, this is where your money should be.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>&#8220;House of Cards&#8221;:<\/strong>\u00a0Slightly slower and far more melodramatic in its second season, &#8220;House of Cards&#8221; is a worthy contender, but is pulling up the rear with &#8220;Mad Men&#8221; among a strong group. On a related note&#8230;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>&#8220;Mad Men&#8221;:<\/strong>\u00a0See above. The quality of &#8220;Mad Men&#8221; in the first half of its swan song season took such a negligible dip that I was surprised it made the cut over\u00a0many other worthy nominees. History will not be made with another win this time around.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>&#8220;True Detective&#8221;:<\/strong>\u00a0For all intents and purposes, this should be in the Best Mini-Series category, alongside fellow anthology series, &#8220;American Horror Story.&#8221; The shrewd move by HBO could pay off, though, as a passionate voter base that loves cable&#8217;s newest and brightest offering could elevate it to gold status.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>The Breakdown:<\/strong>\u00a0It&#8217;s the last (and in one case, only) time voters are able to honor &#8220;Breaking Bad&#8221; and the truly fabulous inaugural iteration of &#8220;True Detective,&#8221; so I expect\u00a0them to tick the box of the show\u00a0they loved based on the tapes as opposed to voting for sentiment sake. When the envelope is ripped open, though, I think the night is going to end &#8220;Bad&#8221;-ly&#8230; unless there&#8217;s a vote split and &#8220;Game of Thrones&#8221; reigns victorious.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Is it too close to call between &#8220;Breaking Bad&#8221; and &#8220;True Detective,&#8221; or do you see a spoiler ahead?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The big one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":676,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-awards-season","category-tv","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.popculturedblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Slide54.jpg?fit=960%2C720&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Y92X-aN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.popculturedblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.popculturedblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.popculturedblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.popculturedblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.popculturedblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=669"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.popculturedblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1702,"href":"https:\/\/www.popculturedblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669\/revisions\/1702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.popculturedblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.popculturedblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.popculturedblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}