- 2 years ago
In Variety Awards Circuit, TV Editor Michael Schneider and Senior TV Editor Emily Longeretta discuss the Emmy contenders for Best Limited/Anthology Series including "Baby Reindeer", "Ripley", "Fargo" and more.
Variety Awards Circuit presented by Paramount+.
Variety Awards Circuit presented by Paramount+.
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00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 - Hi everyone, I'm Emily Longoretta.
00:09 - And I'm Michael Schneider,
00:10 and welcome to Variety's Awards Circuit,
00:12 where we're looking at some of the key television categories
00:14 in this year's Primetime Emmy race.
00:16 And this time we're looking at the outstanding
00:17 limited series/anthology category.
00:21 And Emily, why don't we kick things off with a show
00:22 we had never even heard of, like literally a month ago.
00:26 - Absolutely no one saw this coming, Baby Reindeer.
00:29 - The woman's stoking it.
00:30 - Yeah, like six months maybe.
00:32 - Why'd it take you so long to report it?
00:33 - I think she needs help.
00:34 She comes to my work, my house.
00:36 She sends me emails like all the time.
00:38 - Of course, this was created by Richard Gad,
00:40 and it has become the talk of the town.
00:42 I mean, you can't walk into a room
00:44 without someone talking about Baby Reindeer.
00:45 - Yeah, yeah, and it's become sort of a news story as well,
00:48 because the real life people who are depicted
00:50 in Baby Reindeer are now going public
00:52 and complaining about their depictions.
00:54 - Yeah, exactly.
00:55 Because this is based on a true story,
00:57 the whole no press is bad press sentence
01:00 kind of gets into the conversation.
01:02 I think that people are talking about this,
01:04 and people have a little bit of a question mark
01:06 of what is real and what isn't,
01:08 and then they're watching the show more.
01:09 So I think it's just causing people
01:11 to continue to watch the show, which is the whole point.
01:14 - Yeah, no, absolutely.
01:15 And a lot of conversations, I think,
01:17 are being had as a result of this, and that's a good thing.
01:19 It's a powerful television when you are able to do that.
01:22 And by the way, there's actually no Baby Reindeer
01:24 in Baby Reindeer.
01:25 - There is no Baby Reindeer.
01:26 It's a really important note.
01:27 - Just like Fargo doesn't actually take place in Fargo.
01:29 But it's a fantastic show as well, and Fargo is back.
01:34 - I claim it never happened.
01:35 - Never what now?
01:36 - She's a wolf in sheep's clothing, that one.
01:39 - Honestly, I'm embarrassed by all the fuss.
01:42 - This season is probably one of my favorites of the bunch.
01:45 Noah Hawley did a really fantastic job of resetting it,
01:48 and of course with this cast, starting with Juno Temple,
01:51 who kicks some major butt, of course.
01:54 Jon Hamm as well, who, as we mentioned before,
01:56 is in every episode of "Awards Circuit" this season
01:58 because he's on every television show.
02:00 But he is brutal in this.
02:02 - There is no one on God's green earth
02:04 who is a greater enforcer of the laws of this land
02:07 than Roy Tillman.
02:08 - This is a show that's been nominated already at the Globes.
02:11 Overall, the Fargo franchise has won six Emmys,
02:14 and I do feel like it's definitely in
02:17 for a few more this time out.
02:18 - 100%.
02:19 I think they added so many incredible people to the cast,
02:21 and one of the ones I wanted to throw out there
02:23 in the supporting character category was Joe Keery,
02:25 because he really shined, in my eyes,
02:27 in a world that a lot of people saw him in "Stranger Things"
02:30 and thought that that was kind of what he did,
02:31 but this show and Noah Hawley's writing and creating of this
02:35 really made him shine, and that's just something
02:38 that the power of the Fargo universe has.
02:39 - All these folks, though, Jennifer Jason Leigh,
02:41 and you had Lamorne Morris and Sam Spruill
02:44 playing a, whew, character.
02:46 If you have not watched this season of "Fargo,"
02:49 the character that Sam Spruill plays is unlike any others.
02:52 It's only through the mind of Noah Hawley
02:54 that we would get a character like that.
02:55 - Exactly what I was going to say.
02:57 - So I'm so glad "Fargo" is back,
02:58 and that's definitely a front runner,
03:00 and it was the definite front runner
03:01 until "Baby Reindeer" came along.
03:02 - That's right. - And now it's a race.
03:04 - Yeah, absolutely.
03:05 - Those were not the only two,
03:06 because there's another show that's--
03:08 - Another one that came out was "Ripley."
03:10 - You just wouldn't go away.
03:12 - You like art, Tom?
03:14 You're in the right place.
03:17 You like art, Tom?
03:19 Boy, you're in the right place.
03:20 - Taking on the world that we all saw in the film years ago,
03:24 the talented Mr. Ripley, a bit of a different take on it,
03:26 but it was also nominated for Breakthrough Limited Series
03:29 by the Gotham TV Awards.
03:30 This means people are talking about it
03:32 and people are watching.
03:33 It's all in black and white,
03:34 which is something that stands out in a way.
03:36 It makes you really want to keep watching it.
03:38 I would say this one surprised me the most,
03:40 as when I turned it on, that I had to keep watching it.
03:43 The situation that they put Andrew Scott
03:45 and Dakota Fanning in,
03:46 in a light that we hadn't seen either of them in before,
03:48 is something that really is why
03:50 this is part of this conversation.
03:51 - Yeah, and it's gorgeous.
03:52 Every shot looks like a painting
03:54 or it looks like an amazing photo.
03:56 It's a shot unlike anything else.
03:58 It makes you definitely want to go to Italy,
04:00 if not for the murder.
04:02 - Maybe we'll skip over the murder.
04:03 - Yes.
04:04 All right, let's move on to another franchise that's back,
04:06 True Detective Night Country.
04:08 - In this new case, a missing scientist
04:11 found on the edge of the village is frozen solid.
04:14 - And I gotta say, I love what Issa Lopez did
04:18 with this franchise.
04:19 She reinvented it and put the focus
04:21 on Jodie Foster's character and Callie Reese,
04:24 who's a real revelation, who is a boxer who can act.
04:28 - You cannot look away from her when she is on the screen.
04:30 - So fantastic.
04:31 And the relationship between the two of them,
04:33 I mean, it is watching a boxing match,
04:34 the sparring between those two,
04:36 but also just that setting, that cold setting,
04:39 shot all the way in Iceland.
04:41 It's set for a small town in Alaska
04:43 that's in the middle of dark.
04:45 So you don't know what time of day it is.
04:46 It's so disorienting.
04:48 But these characters and the relationships, it's brutal.
04:51 And it's really not even so much about the murder
04:53 at the heart of it.
04:54 It's about these characters and the predicament
04:57 that they're all in in this land at the end of the world.
05:00 - The True Detective world is something
05:02 that people have seen before, like Fargo,
05:04 but once again, it needed a reinvention
05:07 and she did it very well.
05:08 - Welcome to the night country.
05:09 - That's right.
05:11 Next up, we're gonna talk about an Apple TV+ show,
05:14 Lessons in Chemistry.
05:15 - The only constant variable is the unexpected.
05:18 We can't control it.
05:20 It's only when you look backwards
05:21 that you see how it was all connected.
05:24 Let's begin, shall we?
05:25 - This one aired a while ago,
05:27 so I feel like a lot of people
05:28 may have kind of forgotten about it a little bit,
05:30 but it is definitely still in the conversation,
05:31 thanks to, I would say, Brie Larson and Lewis Pullman,
05:34 who portray such incredible characters,
05:37 especially Brie Larson,
05:38 because the empowering woman that she plays
05:41 is something that in today's world
05:42 we need to see more of on screen.
05:43 It's a really timely series to watch right now.
05:45 - Yeah, it's a period piece,
05:46 but the fact is that a lot of the issues
05:48 that they deal with in Lessons in Chemistry
05:50 are relevant today.
05:51 Some of your best period pieces
05:53 are really, really relevant now.
05:55 Brie Larson's already been nominated for SAG, for Globes.
05:58 This is a series that's already sort of been
06:01 well-recognized.
06:02 - Yeah, and she is very, very beloved
06:04 by most of the awards pundits out there,
06:06 so I think that there's a good chance
06:07 that we could see her at least earn a nomination,
06:09 but I really hope the show overall gets that love,
06:12 because again, Lewis Pullman also really pulled it through.
06:15 - Well, when we're talking about period pieces,
06:16 Masters of the Air.
06:17 - Came from every corner of the country
06:19 with a common purpose.
06:21 - Go, go, go, go, go, go!
06:24 - To bring the war to Hitler's doorstep.
06:26 - The third installment of the trilogy
06:28 that started way back with Band of Brothers
06:30 and then moved on to The Pacific,
06:32 and we know those two were Emmy catnip.
06:35 - Yes.
06:36 - Both of those won miniseries,
06:38 and they won several awards,
06:39 some of the most awards of all time,
06:41 so that automatically puts Masters of the Air
06:43 in the conversation,
06:45 and then you have a cast like Austin Butler
06:47 and Callum Turner and Barry Cogan,
06:49 so right there, you know,
06:51 reason enough to expect them to get some love
06:53 with the Emmy voters.
06:54 - And it comes off of Austin Butler
06:56 having such a huge movie career recently
06:58 that I think people are talking about this
06:59 and people have been watching him and what he's doing,
07:02 and so he, of course, might be the reason you start watching
07:05 and then there is so much else
07:06 because the entire supporting cast,
07:08 I mean, Anthony Boyle in that blew me away,
07:10 so I think there's certain people in it
07:11 that really draw you in,
07:12 the characters, the writing, it's all there,
07:14 the same way that The Pacific and Band of Brothers
07:16 drew you in, the writing is just so incredible.
07:18 - And World War II seems to be never-ending,
07:19 I mean, people are still obsessed
07:21 with World War II stories.
07:22 - More than ever.
07:23 - The fact that it's also telling the story
07:25 of the birth of the Air Force
07:26 and how that impacted things in World War II
07:28 is a fresh way to take that Band of Brothers,
07:31 Pacific formula, and do it with a special twist.
07:34 - Yeah, absolutely, and another show
07:35 that's very beautifully shot,
07:37 and it's gorgeous to watch.
07:38 - Absolutely. - And devastating,
07:39 but also very gorgeous.
07:40 - Devastating.
07:41 Now let's give our picks for shows bubbling under
07:43 that we'd like voters to consider, Emily.
07:45 - All right, I'm gonna kick off with Fellow Traveler.
07:48 - These people are dangerous to this country.
07:51 - I look out at that city
07:52 and think about what it denies us.
07:54 - We lie about who we sleep with.
07:56 - Not who we sleep with, it's who we love.
07:58 - Now this is a Showtime original
08:00 with Matt Bomer and Jonathan Bailey,
08:02 and I will say this story,
08:04 while it does not take place in present day,
08:07 it tells such a powerful story
08:09 that is still so relevant today.
08:10 It's a really great love story, but very devastating,
08:13 and we've been wanting to see this story on TV
08:16 for a long time, and they both put on quite a performance.
08:19 - Yeah, absolutely.
08:20 - What about you?
08:20 - So I mentioned how Night Country,
08:22 True Detective Night Country, is at the end of the world.
08:24 Well, so is a murder at the end of the world.
08:27 - You're afraid.
08:28 - Terrified.
08:29 - There's something going on
08:32 that we don't fully understand.
08:34 Just another guest in a retreat.
08:36 Also shot in Iceland.
08:37 In some ways, it is a trend.
08:40 This was a whodunit with Emma Corrin at the heart of it,
08:42 who was fantastic in this.
08:44 Great mystery that touches also on wealth,
08:47 it touches on power.
08:49 Clive Owen is a perfect baddie in this as well.
08:51 You could feel the cold while watching this,
08:54 and the mystery was really enveloping,
08:57 and really kept you going throughout the entire series.
09:00 - Yeah, and it was a nice way
09:01 to see a different side of Emma Corrin,
09:02 because we hadn't since The Crown.
09:04 So it was really, really great to see Emma in that role.
09:06 - Yeah, I feel like not enough people
09:08 ended up talking about it,
09:09 but I think if you haven't revisited
09:10 a murder at the end of the world, you definitely should.
09:12 - Absolutely.
09:13 - All right, I think that's it for now.
09:15 Join us again next time for another edition
09:16 of Award Circuit.
09:17 - Thanks for watching.
09:18 (upbeat music)
09:21 (upbeat music)
09:24 (upbeat music)
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