One Compulsive TV Watcher’s 2012 Fantasy Emmy Noms

Outstanding Drama Series

Game of Thrones (HBO)

The Good Wife (CBS)

Homeland (SHO)

Justified (FX)

Luck (HBO)

Mad Men (AMC)

WINNER: Mad Men

One of the chief complaints about the Emmys is how often they get stuck in repetitive holding patterns and reward the same thing year after year. Normally I’d find it boring that a show has won four years in a row, but here I am hoping that Mad Men manages to extend its streak to become the most winning drama series in Emmy history. Although this was an excellent TV season, I felt that most of television’s shows took a slight step down in quality from the year before. The Good Wife (my pick last year) still bristled with clever plotlines and the best casting on television, but lost a little momentum without the advantage of a political campaign storyline to give the show a larger scope and context. Justified and Game of Thrones certainly didn’t disappoint considering how often each was able to deliver some of the most exciting scenes in television, but they both also might have been too sprawling in ambition to really establish a firm seasonal narrative. Two new series really impressed me this year, including HBO’s woefully unlucky Luck, which really did a fantastic job of developing its own language and distinct sense of place and character. With the show cancelled, this is Luck’s only shot at the category, even though one gets the sense it was on the path to becoming on of TV’s all-time great series. If anything challenged Mad Men this year it was Homeland, which took a seemingly played out concept of post-9/11 paranoia and turned it into something unbelievably involving and tense without coming at the expense of fully shaded characters. Still, it was Mad Men that kept its grip on my heart this year, delivering week after week of masterful (and at times, highly experimental) writing and beautifully rendered character work that sought to explore the mystique of human fulfillment. Never go away for that long again.

NOTE: If people are going to get mad at anything on this list, it’s that I left off Breaking Bad from this category. I get why people like the show (I honestly do too) but I’ve never been able to nail down the intention of its tone and this last season seemed packed with one too many implausible and goofy “fuck yeah” moments that made me feel like the show wasn’t really grounded in anything real anymore. Don’t worry, most disagree with me, including Emmy voters.

For the rest of the categories, visit the full article on The Tangential or Marcus’ Tumblr.