Members of the Television Academy are preparing to vote for this year's Primetime Emmy Awards nominations. In the lead-up to the announcement in July, Andrew and I wanted to give our thoughts on the best writing, directing, acting and TV shows that we witnessed during the 2014-15 TV season.
To begin, below I've written about Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series and Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series. I've provided my five personal choices for each, an impossible task given the amount of episodes of comedy TV I've seen this year. To limit myself, I only voted on one show per category -- in other words, even if I think two episodes of Veep are among the five best-directed of the year, I'll only single one out to spread the wealth a bit.
Without further ado, here are my picks for Comedy Directing and Writing...
DIRECTING
The nominees:
Armando Iannucci for “Testimony,” Veep: As told exclusively through videotaped depositions and C-Span coverage of Congressional hearings, “Testimony” poses a substantial creative challenge. Armando Iannucci and his writing staff relocate the point-of-view away from the characters of Veep, rendering the show’s innate absurdity more difficult to convey. But in getting behind the camera of his acclaimed series for perhaps the last time (this is his last season as showrunner), Iannucci masters the balance. It’s the kind of episode a great show of many years earns. Characters that have been fleshed out over four seasons are suddenly placed into a pseudoreality far more recognizable than the one Veep typically operates in. Yet somehow, the vicious back-and-forths, mounting incompetence and brilliantly-constructed puns so consistent to the show fit seamlessly within this new, documentary-like template. It all comes down to Iannucci’s omniscient direction. His vision plays like a perfectly-paced and -pitched newsreel, brilliantly allowing his characters’ well-established idiosyncrasies to pepper the proceedings as needed.
Phil Lord and Christopher Miller for “Alive in Tucson,” The Last Man on Earth: One of the best-directed comedy pilots in recent memory, “Alive in Tuscon” maintains a soft beauty, depth of feeling and meticulous level of detail throughout its 22-minute running time. Phil Lord and Christopher Miller envision their post-apocalyptic landscape with such distinctiveness and specificity (Margarita pools?) that their work, infused with abundant laughs and an undercurrent of melancholy, succeeds as a short film in its own right. No easy feat, considering it’s essentially a one-man show.
Michael Patrick King for “Valerie Gets Down on Her Knees,” The Comeback: “Valerie Gets Down on Her Knees” is an ambitious, disturbing and blackly funny episode of television. To an extent, its effectiveness is rooted in the script, but Comeback co-creator Michael Patrick King maximizes the episode’s emotional intensity through a spellbinding directorial feat. He stages a horrifying blowjob scene with as much confrontational confidence as he does a single take of his lead character, Valerie, standing blankly as she’s surrounded by younger, topless models. The episode works as a visceral visualization of industry sexism and power dynamics, and even more impressively, it doesn’t drop the show’s darkly hilarious edge.
Matt Shakman for “Charlie Work,” It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia: When you’re a relatively formulaic sitcom in your 10th season, how do you stay fresh? As perhaps a masterclass in the answer to that question, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia only gets fresher and more innovative with age -- and “Charlie Work,” its infamous single-take episode, is perhaps the prime example of how. In any directing competition, you’ve always got a leg up when you pull off the kind of “magic trick” TV veteran Matt Shakman does here. (See Birdman.) But the episode works as an exciting, eccentric and raucously funny meditation on the show itself, flawlessly riffing on its basic dynamics via a chaotic and form-bending visual immersion. What results is not only an astonishing technical achievement, but one of the most vibrantly experiential episodes of TV in recent memory.
The winner:
Jill Soloway for “Best New Girl,” Transparent: Look, I could have chosen almost any episode of Transparent and it’d be my choice for the win. The Emmys dole out directing prizes based on episodes, and while that’s fine, it’s also not entirely representative of the medium’s rapidly-shifting paradigm. Last year alone, Cary Fukunaga won for a single installment of True Detective, in part because that episode had -- you guessed it! -- a marvelous single-take shot, but also in part because he really challenged the idea of what TV could be. How? By helming the entire 8-episode season of True Detective with finesse to spare.
Soloway directed 7 out of the 10 episodes comprising Transparent’s first season, including its pilot. From its opening minutes, the season progresses like a five-hour independent film, a big reason why being its incontestable tonal command. Transparent isn’t a comedy in the traditional sense of the term; it’s an effortlessly tragicomic concoction, blending humor, anger, regret and sadness into a voice as singular as it is resonant. (Very.) And in “Best New Girl” -- the season’s main flashback episode -- Soloway is given the opportunity to show off her complete arsenal of abilities. In one stunning sequence, she guides her camera into a cave, the imagery evocative to the point of dreamlike, and carefully tracks a young, genderqueer Abby as she works to seduce an older man. It’s a subtle and humane representation of gender as performance, perfectly indicative of Soloway’s remarkable ability to explore complicated questions relating to gender, sexuality and family through a lens that’s both luminously cinematic and painfully realistic. The whole episode tells its narrative through the camera, identifying the formation of familial roles in a series of beautifully-staged mini-plays. Like the rest of Transparent, it’s powerful, stirring and achingly real.
WRITING
The nominees:
Jill Soloway for “The Letting Go,” Transparent: Transparent impressed with its pilot, but what kind of legs would it have as a series? “The Letting Go,” the series’ second episode, may not be its most memorable, but it touches something deep and true even as it paves the way for the rest of the show. The episode is filled with gorgeously-written two-handers, including, most notably, Maura’s (Jeffrey Tambor) triumphant coming-out moment: she confesses to her daughter Sarah (Amy Landecker), with tears in her eyes, “My whole life, I’ve been dressing up like a man.” It’s sensitive and honest, with prickly humor sprinkled around the edges -- Transparent at its best, in other words.
Andrew Haigh for “Looking for Home,” Looking: Like the rest of HBO’s adored half-hour, the Looking series finale “Looking for Home” is far from perfect. But its central conflict -- the break-up between Patrick (Jonathan Groff) and Kevin (Russell Tovey) -- is among the best-written moments of the season. After nine episodes of the budding relationship slowly coming together, it comes down like a ton of bricks in “Looking for Home” with the intensity of a horror movie. Patrick and Kevin argue, presenting different visions of intimacy, sexuality, monogamy and even love. Haigh’s words alone convey the visceral disappointment quickly being internalized by both characters -- as written, their rapid downfall feels true to human nature and, more importantly, to the show’s own contention with what it means to love, what it means to be gay and what it means to commit.
Carrie Kemper for “Homicide,” Silicon Valley: I don’t think I laughed harder, or cringed more, at an episode of TV this season than Silicon Valley’s “Homicide” -- it’s just a blisteringly funny excerpt of what’s been a blisteringly funny season of TV. In it, Richard (Thomas Middleditch) is dragged to the headquarters of the especially douchey energy drink company, Homicide, in an effort to make a deal to reveal their top-notch software algorithm to the world. The plan, of course, goes horribly wrong, mainly due to a poorly-timed “double asshole” joke and an ill-advised SWOT board analysis of whether or not Dinesh (Kumail Nanjiani) and Gilfoyle (Martin Starr) should let someone plunge unwittingly to their own death. (To be fair, the guy was acting like a dick.) Out of all of this comes a visual gag for the ages, a horrifyingly, uncomfortably hilarious sequence and much, much more. Basically, it’s Silicon Valley, and at this point, whatever it touches is turning to pure comedy gold.
Louis C.K. for “Cop Story,” Louie: What Louie is, exactly, may vary by the week, but the FX half-hour is always, singularly unique as filtered through Louis C.K’s inimitable voice. Take the episode “Cop Story,” which may rank among the multi Emmy-winner’s least quote-unquote funny episodes ever, and yet is especially true to his sensibilities as a comedian and a writer. In it, Louie reluctantly agrees to spend time with his ex-brother-in-law, Lenny (Michael Rapaport). He’s kind of insufferable: his jokes are lame -- and often offensive and mean -- while his sad-sack demeanor isn’t exactly a pleasure to be around. But C.K. turns the tables in this two-hander, fashioning a powerful and illuminative two-hander about decency, friendliness and the fluency of comedy. He explores commonality and difference with necessary grit, and what results is a beautifully-realized parable. It’s a definitive example of his comedic range and emotional intelligence.
The winner:
The winner:
Mark V. Olsen & Will Scheffer for “Turnips… North Day… Yes, Yes,” Getting On: The best episodes of Getting On are also the strangest, and you can’t get much stranger than ending an episode on Nurse Dawn (Alex Borstein) pulling out her newly-purchased cello -- and subsequently playing a mournful tune to her ward -- before cutting to credits, can you? Probably not. “Turnips… North Day… Yes, Yes,” is a stunning, varied episode of TV as only Getting On could pull off. The comedy within it is outrageous, from Laurie Metcalf’s absolutely priceless reading of the line “I’m trapped in a deaf sandwich here” (it’s even better in context) to Dawn and Patsy (Mel Rodriguez) reacting in marvelous confusion to the news that their supposed pregnancy was actually just a “blighted ovum.” But there’s also real, deep emotion here, and it’s integrated without sacrificing an ounce of the absurdly-realized comedy. A dementia-plagued patient confesses her wish to die. A pair of middle-aged women describe the first time they were confronted with death. And yes, Dawn plays the cello.
As one of the season’s very best shows, Getting On defies categorization. It also embraces messiness. It’s loopy and strange, dourly exposed under the hospital’s merciless fluorescent lighting. Mark V. Olsen and Will Scheffer together scribed the entire season, and their odd senses of humor and generous depths of empathy combine in this episode, more than any other, to form a piece of storytelling quite unlike anything else. Their scripts are of the rarest type: they range on ridiculous, heartbreaking and scathingly political almost simultaneously, and yet come together effortlessly. They are drawn with precision and nuance, and consequentially, emerge bigger, brighter and bolder than anything in their path. I could have picked any episode, but “Turnips” is the perfect choice: it’s the weirdest of the bunch, the most affecting of the bunch, and, perhaps not so coincidentally, the funniest of the bunch, too.