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BENJAMONSTER AWARDS: Outstanding Directing of a Comedy Series

Today's award is Outstanding Directing of a Comedy Series!

The nominees are:

IAN BRENNAN, The Politician "The Voter" (Netflix)






JAMES BAGDONAS, Modern Family "Paris" (ABC)











RUBEN FLEISCHER, Superstore "Sandra's Wedding" (NBC)











DAN GOOR, Brooklyn Nine-Nine "The Blackout" (NBC)










DANIEL PALLADINO, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel "Marvelous Radio" (Amazon)









MICHAEL SCHUR, The Good Place "Whenever You're Ready" (NBC)











AMY SHERMAN-PALLADINO, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel "A Jewish Girl Walks Into the Apollo" (Amazon)









JOHN TURTELTAUB & ADAM DAVIDSON, Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist "Zoey's Extraordinary Dad" (NBC)










And the Winner Is...
DANIEL PALLADINO
The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel "Marvelous Radio" (Amazon)
The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel ended its season with its two best episodes, both of which were nominated in this category. I gave the edge to Daniel Palladino's direction of the penultimate episode, "Marvelous Radio," for a couple reasons. First of all, the direction throughout the episode as Midge and Susie race from advertising spot to advertising spot is very impressive. It captures all the hustle and bustle of New York City but with a very early 60s flair. The other reason is the end of the episode when Sophie Lennon's Broadway debut goes bust. Daniel Palladino was able to direct Jane Lynch into not being over the top even though her character is wildly over the top. Although Sophie was proudly going for laughs instead of what she was supposed to be doing, the direction (and writing) made it clear that Sophie was scared, terrified in fact. Top to bottom, this was an extremely well done episode and Daniel Palladino gets a lot of credit considering he was both director and writer.

Thoughts on the Rest of the Nominees:
As mentioned, the season finale of Mrs. Maisel was also very well directed with the difficult scenes on stage and backstage at the famed Apollo. "The Voter" episode of The Politician was told entirely through a character we never saw before or after and was a completely different perspective on the show. Modern Family's "Paris" episode took a difficult task (trip episodes are prone to fail) and got some gorgeous visuals and tight storytelling. Both "Sandra's Wedding" in Superstore and "Black Out" in Brooklyn Nine-Nine had a zillion different things going on and managed to stay on top of it with some hilarious shots and crisp choices for how to tell a convoluted plot. The season finale of Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist elicited some great performances and navigated a difficult closing musical number to perfection. Finally, the series finale of The Good Place, which won for writing, also had some great directorial choices by Michael Schur to aid in his compelling script.

Tomorrow: Outstanding Directing of a Drama Series!
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