For the last 12 years, Outstanding Variety Series has been won by either The Daily Show with Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert’s The Colbert Report. Emblems of 21st Century political discourse, the duo has managed an unprecedented winning streak, one that can be attributed to their comedic zeal and incontestable cultural capital. Their utter dominance has been far from unwarranted, in other words. But it sure has made for a boring awards cycle. (You know: what really matters.)
This year is markedly different. Hardly a marker of (or reason for) Stewart and Colbert’s success, the Television Academy nonetheless is faced with a legitimately difficult question: which legendary late-night variety program is most deserving of a swan song? Remarkably, the category’s winners of the last 19 years combined – in leading up to Stewart, David Letterman won five consecutive prizes – are all, suddenly, competing for the last time. It might come down to a preference of extravaganza type – the official goodbye to Letterman’s agitating, legendary comedy; the active and probing farewell address of Stewart; Colbert’s star-studded à plus tard, giving up the edgy indie stage for CBS’ corporate promotion.
Letterman had fallen out of the Variety category years ago – Jimmy Kimmel turned hot, Jimmy Fallon succeeded with his Tonight Show, John Oliver revitalized the format and Bill Maher, a similarly divisive veteran, was able to better maintain cultural steam with his HBO-level freedom. But the emotion that coursed through his final weeks on-air was overwhelming, and the show itself felt re-energized. A nomination was likely; it came, at the expense of Maher as expected. So there’s Letterman, Colbert and Stewart, two decade’s worth of format dominators whittled down to three names, competing against the younger guys: Kimmel, Oliver, Fallon.
Because they finally decided that shows like Saturday Night Live and Inside Amy Schumer didn’t make much competitive sense alongside Colbert and Letterman and all the rest, the Television Academy has finally split the “Variety” label into separate categories: Variety Talk Series and Variety Sketch Series. In the former, there’s an arbitrary nostalgia battle going on – who are we going to miss the most, or who over this decade-and-some was the best – but more intriguingly, in the latter category is a demonstration of the exact opposite.
Variety Talk Series is down to six white guys, most of whom are brilliant and all of whom have been immensely influential in comedy and/or politics. The differences between the Gen-X intellectualism of Oliver, the celebrity viral video immediacy of Fallon and the intense political satire of Stewart are clear as day. But the field is defined by its most distinguished competitors being on their way out. It’s hard not to consider the exits of these three personalities in tandem with a format losing lustre, or at least impact, at this point in time. Oliver has generated substantial enthusiasm, but he’s on once a week; Kimmel and Fallon each have a successful brand, but both play relatively safe and broad. (Kimmel played a thrilling part during the most recent Late Night Wars, but as Joe Adalian recently theorized, we’re in a post-War era right now.) This category will undoubtedly honor one of the three men competing for the last time (or in Colbert’s case, at least for the same show), and the odds favor Stewart, having exited on a creative high. If the nostalgia factor dominates, Letterman should not be discounted. But in any case, it should make for one grand, final farewell.
On the other side of things, you have Inside Amy Schumer, Key & Peele, Portlandia – brands of humor which are far more niche, but also more diverse and cumulatively representative of contemporary progressive voices. This was the year Schumer really broke out, and her show included stand-out, instantly-viral episodes “Last F***able Day” and “12 Angry Men Inside Amy Schumer.” Her brazen feminist comedy runs nicely alongside Key & Peele’s astute racial commentary – which is often conveyed in sketches of surprisingly high production values – and Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein’s hipster-y, granola satire. The category is rounded out by Drunk History, an inspired but uneven Comedy Central sketch series, and perennial variety blockbuster Saturday Night Live. All bets are on Schumer, unexpectedly: the category split seems all but designed to give breakout comedic voices like hers an opportunity to reap rewards, and the chance is finally here.
Talk and Sketch series are still grouped for the purposes of honoring Writing and Directing, two categories which have featured the uncontested dominance of The Colbert Report and Saturday Night Live, respectively, for years. Colbert and his staff are in a good position to win a final time, but their predecessor, Mr. Stewart and the Daily Show writing team, could certainly sweep the Primetime telecast and take this one as well. The competition is more interesting on the Directing front. Don Roy King wins for Saturday Night Live virtually every year, but shockingly, he didn’t even make the cut this time around. He has a likely successor. Rarely does the Variety Directing category feature such an obvious deserved champion, and Amy Schumer – a credited co-director on Inside’s brilliantly precise parody of 12 Angry Men – is it. Her name alone will surely eat up a healthy share of the votes, and the episode’s visual panache should be enough to overpower grieving Daily Show or Colbert fans.
The Primetime Emmys round out with a pair of isolated awards: Outstanding Reality-Competition Program and Outstanding Variety Special. Variety Special should easily go to the tired but popular SNL 40, unless voters once again show their love for Mel Brooks. (Not impossible.) Reality, meanwhile, is a dramatically outdated award; it held esteem in the glory days of Survivor and The Amazing Race – and it justly recognized The Voice that one year it was popular – but at this point, the field is thin and the degree of interest severely diminished. The Amazing Race has won this award in all its years of existence save two, and given the competition – past-their-prime veterans So You Think You Can Dance, Top Chef, Dancing with the Stars, The Voice and Project Runway – there’s no reason to think it won’t again. I’m just not sure why anybody, at this point, is supposed to care.
PREDICTIONS
Outstanding Variety Talk Series
Predicted winner: The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Runner-ups: The Colbert Report; The Late Show with David Letterman
Should win: The Daily Show
Should have been nominated: Real Time with Bill Maher
Outstanding Variety Sketch Series
Predicted winner: Inside Amy Schumer
Runner-up: Saturday Night Live
Should win: Inside Amy Schumer
Should have been nominated: Kroll Show
Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series
Predicted winner: Stephen Colbert et al. for The Colbert Report
Runner-up: Jon Stewart et al. for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Should win: Stephen Colbert et al. for The Colbert Report
Should have been nominated: David Letterman et al. for The Late Show with David Letterman
Outstanding Directing for a Variety Series
Predicted winner: Amy Schumer & Ryan McFaul for “12 Angry Men Inside Amy Schumer,” Inside Amy Schumer
Runner-up: Chuck O’Neil for The Daily Show
Should win: Amy Schumer & Ryan McFaul for “12 Angry Men Inside Amy Schumer,” Inside Amy Schumer
Should have been nominated: Key & Peele
Outstanding Reality-Competition Program
Predicted winner: The Amazing Race
Runner-up: Top Chef
Should win: The Amazing Race (I guess)
Should have been nominated: Survivor
Outstanding Variety Special
Predicted winner: SNL 40
Runner-up: Mel Brooks Live at the Geffen
Should win: Louis C.K. Live at the Comedy Store
Should have been nominated: Key & Peele Superbowl Special