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BENJAMONSTER AWARDS 2022: Outstanding Drama Series

Today's award is Outstanding Drama Series!

Check out past results from 2020 and 2021!

This year's nominees are...

AS WE SEE IT (Amazon)















EUPHORIA (HBO)













SEVERANCE (Apple TV+)













SUCCESSION (HBO)











THIS IS US (NBC)













WINNING TIME: THE RISE OF THE LAKERS DYNASTY (HBO)













YELLOWJACKETS (Showtime)











And the Winner Is...
THIS IS US
NBC
As I mentioned in my Mandy Moore post, This is Us was not on a great trajectory after its very strong first couple seasons. The fifth season (the "COVID" season) in particular was a mess. It did get nominated last year by me because of a strong ending and lack of better competition. This year, it earned its nomination and win with a very compelling and focused final season. The show did great service to its many characters. Major arcs like the Kate/Toby divorce and Rebecca's death were handled beautifully and given the time to breathe (benefits of a network episode count!) while one-off episodes (such as the Nicky episode, the Beth episode & the Jack and his mother episode) were also very satisfying as closure for the characters we have grown to care about a lot since 2016. This is Us has been slammed for manipulating the audience to the point of tears and really being nothing more than a melodrama told in different timelines. But at its best (and its final season was often at its best), it was a very ambitious, very clever, very thoughtful drama. With it gone now, there's nothing left like it on Broadcast TV.

Thoughts on the Rest of the Nominees:
Despite dramas as a whole being a much weaker field than comedy, this was still a very strong Top 7. But let's get the ones out of the way that earned their nomination but didn't really have a chance to win. Euphoria is such a fascinating show. It's such a mess sometimes but it's a glorious, beautiful-looking mess that's hard to turn away from. Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty was a very entertaining ride told with a unique style even if it sometimes couldn't focus as much as I wanted it to. Yellowjackets is not the kind of show I like most of the time but it proved to be a very rich character drama in both its timelines. Among the serious competition, there was Severance, which had the most exhilarating season finale of the year. It was a slow build to get there but I even enjoyed the build and especially what it led to. Succession continues to chug along as a brilliantly written satire that is sometimes more of a comedy than some of the comedies in contention. Finally, As We See It was a pretty small show but I would stack it against any of these heavyweights because it was so true to the experience of people with autism and those around them and the many ups and downs that come with that.

Tomorrow: The final award - Outstanding Comedy Series!
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