BENJAMONSTER AWARDS 2024: A Look Ahead

For the fifth annual year, I will be presenting an extended end of season awards show. It will have some similarities to the Emmys in terms of categories and eligibility but will of course be completely based on my preferences and what I have watched. 

Here are the rules for eligibility:
- Shows had to have aired the majority of its season between June 1, 2023 and May 31, 2024.

- A show is considered eligible if I watched at least four episodes of it. Many of them I have watched the full season, but four episodes is the cutoff for eligibility.
- I am making my own calls for whether an actor/actress fits into a leading or supporting category as well as genre categories (comedy, drama, limited/anthology). That will often align with Emmy categorizations but that is not always the case. For example, I am classifying The Bear as a drama and Hannah Einbinder as a Lead Actress for Hacks.
- A limited series is any series that was designed to be close-ended. An anthology series is any series that airs as an anthology either season to season OR episode to episode.
- For Guest Actor or Actress, they can appear in up to four episodes

There will be a new post for every day in the month of July, posting every morning at 7am EST. Here is the schedule to look forward to!

July 1 - The Limited/Anthology Series Nominees
July 2 - The Drama Series Nominees
July 3 - The Comedy Series Nominees

July 4 - Outstanding Technical Design of a Limited/Anthology Series
July 5 - Outstanding Technical Design of a Drama Series
July 6 - Outstanding Technical Design of a Comedy Series

July 7 - Outstanding Guest Actor or Actress in a Limited/Anthology Series
July 8 - Outstanding Guest Actor or Actress in a Drama Series
July 9 - Outstanding Guest Actor or Actress in a Comedy Series

July 10 - Outstanding Writing of a Limited/Anthology Series
July 11 - Outstanding Writing of a Drama Series
July 12 - Outstanding Writing of a Comedy Series

July 13 - Outstanding Directing of a Limited/Anthology Series
July 14 - Outstanding Directing of a Drama Series
July 15 - Outstanding Directing of a Comedy Series

July 16 - Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited/Anthology Series
July 17 - Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series
July 18 - Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series

July 19 - Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited/Anthology Series
July 20 - Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series
July 21 - Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series

July 22 - Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited/Anthology Series
July 23 - Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series
July 24 - Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series

July 25 - Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited/Anthology Series
July 26 - Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series
July 27 - Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series

July 28 - Outstanding Limited/Anthology Series
July 29 - Outstanding Drama Series
July 30 - Outstanding Comedy Series
July 31 - Recap

BENJAMONSTER NEWSLETTER: June 17, 2024

Welcome to my Monday newsletter! This week, I am looking at Presumed Innocent and the Emmy Race for Lead Actor in a Limited Series! 

Please note there will be no newsletter next Monday, it will return on July 1!

PRESUMED INNOCENT

Presumed Innocent is a new limited series on Apple TV+ based on the very successful 1987 novel and moderately successful 1990 film. Jake Gyllenhaal takes the Harrison Ford role of a prosecutor who becomes embroiled with, and then a suspect in, a grisly murder case. While that may have been a unique premise in 1987, we have seen things like this a bazillion times in recent years. And this series, which comes from David E. Kelley, offers a few strengths but often failed to meet its potential in the first two episodes, which dropped last week. 

First of all, the series is supposedly set in Chicago. Now I'm no expert but it's the least Chicago-looking show I've ever seen. We have seen a recent hit show (The Bear) make great use of its Chicago location. Even the NBC Chicago shows capture the city pretty well. This is so clearly Los Angeles. Not just the locations but even the sun-soaked visual palette and the whole vibe of the series. Why in the world did they set the show in Chicago only to do that? Why not just set it in Los Angeles? You may think I'm nitpicking on something that doesn't matter but it speaks to the whole series seemingly not paying attention to detail. The series wants to talk around topics, O-T Fagbenle is using a very strange accent, the quick flashbacks are adding very little to the story. These are all things that more detail-oriented people in charge may have (should have?) flagged.

BENJAMONSTER NEWSLETTER: June 10, 2024

Welcome to my newsletter! This week, I am looking at Clipped and the second season of Criminal Minds: Evolution plus previews of the Tony Awards and the Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series Emmy race!

"CLIPPED"

Clipped is a new FX/Hulu series focused on the 2014 scandal that brought down long-time Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling. It's one of the first shows that feels like a period piece from the 2010s. The show takes a lot of care in really trying to create the world of Los Angeles and online circa 2013-2014 and it is effective at doing so. Going into this miniseries, I knew the broad strokes of this story from when it happened, but I'm not a close followed of basketball so I didn't know the ins and outs or the characters involved.

When I watched the trailer, I was worried it was going to be hyper stylized - perhaps a bit like that other basketball drama Winning Time - and the first episode sort of was but then I felt like it grounded itself by midway through the first episode and into the second. Helping ground the show is a truly fantastic cast. Laurence Fishburne is given some of the best material he's had in a while as Doc Rivers. Ed O'Neill is pitch perfect as the completely off-his-rocker billionaire Donald Sterling. Cleopatra Coleman is intriguing as V. But the MVP through the first two episode has to be Jacki Weaver as the long-suffering, but also insufferable, Shelly Sterling. Weaver was perfect casting because she so thoroughly captures the conflicted feelings we often have about the wives of terrible men.

BENJAMONSTER NEWSLETTER: June 3, 2024

Welcome to my Monday newsletter! This week, I am looking at the season finale of Hacks, my most anticipated Summer 2024 shows and my Emmy nominations preview for Supporting Actor in a Limited Series.

HACKS "Bulletproof" (Season Finale)

Hacks concluded its terrific third season with another banger of an episode. Spoilers abound in this post of course. It took awhile for the episode to ramp up. For the first half of it, I was thinking "not much has really happened" as Deborah ramped up to becoming a late night host. But then we got the bombshell moment, courtesy of Helen Hunt's network executive, that Deborah lied to Ava and it was Deborah making the choice to not make Ava head writer, not the network's. That catapulted the show to a really brilliant finish.

I have been skeptical of the late night arc in general and I've been kind of worried that Ava's character seems to sometimes be stuck in neutral, especially when she's apart from Deborah. Well the last couple minutes of the third season finale put both those concerns to rest. The show has done Ava vs. Deborah plenty of times but, for the first time, it seemed like Ava had the upper hand and Hannah Einbinder's take no prisoners face right before the credits rolled as she basically blackmailed Deborah was a side we have never seen from that character and she reached that place so organically. It made me wish the fourth season started right now because it will be a fresh dynamic between the two lead characters.