Emmy Nomination: 6 Best Actor, 3 Outstanding Comedy Series
Why It's Egregious He Hasn't Won: The Office is one of the best comedy shows that has ever existed and Steve Carrel's portrayal of Michael Scott is just genius. The character of Michael Scott is both unlikable and likable at the exact same time. He is a childish and selfish ass, but is a damn fine salesmen and just wants everybody to like him. Even though he makes mistakes that make you cringe because he's so awkward, you still want this oaf of a man to win. After all the horrible things Michael Scott has done, you still root for him. Very few actors could have successfully pulled off Michael Scott, yet Carrel was able to do it.
Carrel lost Best Actor (Comedy) once to Tony Shalhoub (Monk) and Rocky Gervais (Extras) and twice to Alec Baldwin (30 Rock) and Jim Parsons (The Big Bang Theory). I think you can make a legitimate argument that Carrel should have lost in his first five years, but not winning in his final year on The Office is inexcusable. Not only did Jim Parsons not need a second Emmy (Plus, he would undeservingly later go on to win again in 2013), but Carrel did his best acting during his last season on The Office/The Michael Scott Farewell Tour.
Emmy Nominations: 4 Best Supporting Actress (Vergara), 3 Best Supporting Actor (O'Neill), & 4 Best Supporting Actor (Ferguson)
Why It's Egregious They Haven't Won: I'm conflicted about Modern Family. When it first came out, I absolutely loved it. But then as it started to get more popular and just dominating the Awards scene, I backed off of the show. I also felt like the ABC sitcom was repeating the same tropes. I got off the bandwagon once it started getting too crowded. I think I've come full circle now and have accepted (and realized) that Modern Family is just a damn funny show. I don't know that it deserves the amount of praise it gets, but that doesn't mean it's not funny.
As I mentioned earlier, Modern Family just destroys the Awards circuit. Every adult actor on the show has earned an Emmy nomination each of the last four years, with the exception of Ed O'Neill who didn't get a nomination in his first year because he "selfishly" threw his name in the Best Actor category instead of the Best Supporting Actor category. Modern Family has also won many Emmys, including 5 in acting categories. Eric Stonestreet and Julie Bowen each have two golden statutes and Ty Burrell has one. The issue though, is that no actor on Modern Family does inherently better than the other.
Taking aside the notion that for some reason the adult actors get nominations while none of the child actor are deemed worthy, there's nothing that separates one adult actor from the other. There's nothing Julie Bowen does so spectacularly better than Sophia Vergara (speaking English aside). In fact, Vergara's absence seems the most egregious, because she only has to compete against one other Modern Family star whereas the boys have to compete against three. However, if the Emmys are going to say that a Modern Family actor deserves to win (which I can begrudgingly get on board with), then they should spread the wealth. I believe that once a Modern Family actor wins an Emmy, they shouldn't be eligible to win until everyone else has won at least once. Surprisingly, the Emmy's seemingly got on board with this notion as Eric Stonestreet failed to earn a nomination last year.
If Eric Stonestreet, Ty Burrell, and Julie Bowen are Emmy winners, then there's no reason that Sofia Vergara, Ed O'Neill, and Jesse Tyler Ferguson should also be winners.
Emmy Nominations: 4 Best Actress, 2 Best Supporting Actress, 2 writing nominations, and 1 Outstanding Comedy Series
Why It's Egregious She Hasn't Won: In my humble opinion, Parks and Recreation is the second best sitcom of all time behind Seinfeld. I know that opinion is extremely controversial, but very few comedies have been as great as the show has been for six seasons. Part of the main reason for Parks and Rec's success is because of the amazing comedy stylings of Amy Poehler.
Poehler earned her first two Emmy nominations for her work on Saturday Night Live where she lost to Jean Smart for her work on Samantha Who and Kristin Chenoweth for her work on Pushing Daisies. It's tough to say that a SNL cast member deserves to win over a season/series long character, so even though I'm confident Poehler was probably better (full disclaimer: I've never seen Samantha Who or Pushing Daisies) her loss wasn't that terrible.
Then Poehler left SNL for Parks and Rec where she would lose four consecutive Best Actress in a Comedy Series awards to Edie Falco (Nurse Jackie), Melissa McCarthy (Mike and Molly), and twice to Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Veep). Julia Louis-Dreyfus is an extremely talented actress, but the Emmy's obsession with her is just ridiculous. She has 14 acting nominations for her work on Seinfeld, The New Adventures of Old Christine, and Veep- in which she's won an Emmy for each of those shows. Edie Falco also has a previous win for her work on The Sopranos, but considering Nurse Jackie is mostly a drama, her win over Poehler isn't that egregious. However, Melissa McCarthy's win is. She fine on Mike and Molly, but her win mainly came from her amazing work on the movie Bridesmaids and the Emmy's having Little Brother Syndrome to the silver screen.
Now Parks ad Recreation is still going strong, and there's still plenty of time for Amy Poehler to win an Emmy, but it's still pretty insulting that she hasn't won an Emmy yet.
Emmy Nominations: 2 writing nominations
Why It's Egregious The Show Hasn't Won: The Wire is considered one of the 4 greatest television programs ever made along with The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, and Mad Men. Now I'm not going to debate where The Wire falls among these shows, but it's clearly one of the best. I don't even enjoy The Wire all that much, but even I know how genius and ground breaking it was. The Sopranos, Mad Men, and Breaking Bad all have an Outstanding Drama Series win, yet The Wire does not. It's ridiculously embarrassing how little Emmy nominations the HBO show received. I understand that rarely anyone watched the show at the time, but Breaking Bad and Mad Men were also poorly rated and they won Emmys.
However, this list is not about nominees who should have both been nominated and won (that's probably for another post) because that list would be significantly longer than this post. This list is about nominees who should have won the time they were nominated. Therefore, I'll stop discussing how ludicrous it was that The Wire only received two Emmy nominations- and they were both for writing- and start discussing how The Wire should have won both of their actual Emmy nominations.
Well, actually, the show deserved to win only one of it's nominations, because one of their nods was up against the Mad Men pilot- which is brilliant. However, the show's first nomination was against House's "Three Stories." Albeit that's a great episode, but no episode of House, M.D. could compare to The Wire.
Emmy Nominations: 6 Best Actor, 3 Best Guest Actor in a Comedy Series, and 2 Outstanding Drama Series
Why It's Egregious He Hasn't Won: Jon Hamm is the poster child for this category. The fact that Jon Hamm doesn't have an Emmy is beyond insane. It's proof that the Emmy's are worthless and we should just give up on the entire institution of awards altogether. I really believe that the reason Jon Hamm has never won an Emmy is because voters don't believe he's truly acting. All they see is a pretty face and a brilliant script and assume he's just barely competent. I (obviously) disagree with that notion wholeheartedly, as Hamm brings such incredible nuance and emotion to the portrayal of Don Draper.
Hamm had the unfortunate opportunity to go up against his AMC brethren Bryan Cranston between 2008-2010, and even though I think Hamm's performance in Mad Men is just a smidgen better than Cranston's performance in Breaking Bad, I don't know that it's terribly egregious that Hamm lost those first three years. Let's be honest, Breaking Bad deserves everything. However, there was no excuse for Jon Hamm not winning Best Actor in 2011. Breaking Bad took a long hiatus between their 3rd and 4th seasons, and therefore was technically ineligible for anything that year. That means Hamm was free to win this award. Plus, Hamm's submission episode that year was "The Suitcase," which was arguably the best acting he's ever done on the show. Yet the Emmy's decided to give a big "Eff You" to Hamm and awarded Best Actor in a Drama Series to Kyle Chandler in his last year of eligibility of Friday Night Lights. Chandler is really good on the show and a talented actor, but he's not in the same league as Jon Hamm (or Bryan Cranston). Hamm would later go on to lose to Damian Lewis in Homeland in 2012 (which I'm fine with) and Jeff Daniels for The Newsroom in 2013 (which is unacceptable).
Hamm would eventually get 2 extra nominations for being a producer on Mad Men, but he became a producer after the show won 4 straight Outstanding Drama Series and the show hasn't won since he became a producer. It's like he's cursed or something!
Lastly, Hamm has earned three Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series nominations for his work on 30 Rock (two for playing Dr. Drew Baird and one for his work on the show's second live episode). But even still, Hamm came up short. Jon Hamm has proved through his work on SNL and in movies like Bridesmaids that he's a good comedic actor, and he was good during his stint on 30 Rock, but even still, Jon Hamm failed to win an Emmy.
Hopefully, Jon Hamm will win an Emmy in 2015 as that will be his last year of eligibility for Mad Men, but one can only dream. I honestly don't know what Jon Hamm will have to do to win an Emmy.
BONUS: Giancarlo Esposito. Esposito played Gus Fringe on the show Breaking Bad. He earned a Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series nomination in 2012 for his work on the show's fourth season. Esposito lost that year to his Breaking Bad co-star Aaron Paul. Aaron Paul is a great actor and his work of Jesse Pinkman devolution during the show's fourth season really was excellent, but Paul had already won an Emmy the year before. Sure, it's nice to have two, but at the the end of the day, Esposito should have one as well.
WHAT ACTOR OR SHOW WAS NOMINATED FOR AN EMMY YET UNDESERVINGLY FAILED TO WIN?
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