Genre TV Is the Best TV — Despite Awards Show Snubs
The best new show of 2022 was completely snubbed by this year’s Emmy nominations. AMC‘s Interview With the Vampire is adored by critics and fans alike, but it received no recognition from TV’s highest honor. The show has had a new surge in popularity a year after its release thanks to AMC+’s limited-time-only streaming deal with Max, bringing the series to new audiences who are now taking to social media to express their disbelief over what they’ve been missing. (Tony-nominated playwright Jeremy O. Harris gave it a glowing endorsement just this week.)
This sumptuous Anne Rice adaptation that features arguably the best TV writing we’ve seen in years (plus acting performances from Game of Thrones‘ Jacob Anderson and The Newsreader‘s Sam Reid that are worthy of wins, not just nominations) is not alone in its awards show snubs. In fact, it’s just the latest addition to the long list of genre shows that awards voters criminally ignore due to an inexplicable genre bias — a bias that has excluded Interview With the Vampire from its well-earned seat at awards show tables.
For those unfamiliar with the term, a genre show is a TV series that falls within the categories of sci-fi, fantasy, and horror — subjects that are presumed to only entertain niche audiences. By looking through the shows that win Emmys, Golden Globes, SAG Awards, etc, you see that most of the time, the shows are stories depicting life as it is — no dragons, zombies, vampires, lightsabers, or superheroes.
There have been outliers through the years, such as The X-Files (sci-fi), which has 15 Emmy wins to its name, and Game of Thrones (fantasy), which has a staggering 59 (it still holds the record for most Emmy wins of any fictional series). And among the 2023 Emmy nominees are the Game of Thrones spinoff House of the Dragon, Andor, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and The Last of Us, which given that it’s a dramatization of a video game, you’d think awards show snobbery would immediately ignore it as a viable option for nominations.
It’s necessary to note that more often than not, when a genre show is nominated for major awards, it’s an HBO production. This is no insult to HBO (please, never stop making genre shows!). Rather, I point it out because it’s not the only TV channel making award-worthy genre stories, but it is the only one consistently being celebrated for making them. And I think that’s just bogus.
AMC has been producing stunning work on this front for years. Interview With the Vampire is the latest example, but it’s sometimes easy to forget how much of a cultural phenomenon The Walking Dead was when it first debuted. Never had a zombie show transfixed viewers at large like the first of this franchise. It wasn’t just made to scare by showing the horror of societal collapse as humans turned into zombies. It was about the stubbornness of the human spirit and its will to not only survive, but to keep on connecting and rebuilding through community. It’s not a stretch to say that The Walking Dead walked so The Last of Us could run.
Andrew Lincoln and Jon Bernthal‘s performances in that first season were worthy of nominations at the very least, and the way Danai Gurira carried that show for years was worthy of recognition (she and Lincoln will return in the Rick and Michonne spinoff, The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live). Despite its popularity and praise, The Walking Dead has only two Emmy wins (for prosthetic makeup) and no acting nominations.
I’m always left scratching my head when thinking about why shows like these are constantly snubbed. Genre stories are a fantastic way to explore every corner of the human spirit through metaphor. Why do shows have to be set in real life for them to be award-worthy? Is it not harder to create a series that’s entertaining, moving, and relatable when it’s not set in our reality? Shouldn’t it be more impressive if it’s a hit, in that case?
Despite being raked across the coals by fans and critics when it came out, the final season of Game of Thrones (Season 8) received a record-breaking 32 Emmy nominations and won 12. Do you mean to tell me that the worst season of Game of Thrones — the one fans hate the most, the one whose ending the cast itself (including IWTV‘s Anderson) cringed at — is better than Interview With the Vampire Season 1? Be serious. Its Emmys snubs would have me believe that, though. (You can’t make me!)
On the comedy side, let’s be real: Ted Lasso‘s final season was a disappointment. And yet, Season 3 is no doubt a contender for the January Emmy’s top awards. Meanwhile, What We Do In the Shadows (FX‘s vampire mockumentary) isn’t nominated against Ted Lasso Season 3 in the Outstanding Comedy Series category for its note-perfect Season 4. Make it make sense!
There’s no logical explanation for the industry’s genre bias, but it could boil down to voters simply not paying real attention to all of the eligible nominees. In school, how often did you blank on a test answer and just went with the answer that gave off the most correct vibe? That’s how I explain Don Cheadle‘s Emmy nomination for The Falcon and the Winter Soldier in 2021. The lack of attention awards voters pay to the eligible series was on full display with that one. Cheadle is a wonderful actor, don’t get me wrong. But he was literally in two minutes of that show, and half of that time was spent listening to Anthony Mackie talk. Cheadle’s own response to the nomination was “I don’t really get it either.”
Awards show voters, if you’re not going to do your homework during voting season, why are you even bothering casting a vote? Why should genre shows and its fans have to suffer from your laziness? Give genre shows some of your precious time, and you may just realize, like the new Interview With the Vampire fans above, that you’ve long been missing out on the best that TV has to offer. If you aren’t being negligent with your voting, feel free to try and change my mind.
