Today's Emmy nominations prove that the American people's power to choose freely in an open market forces that market to produce excellence. This may very well be one of the finest times in history for brilliantly written, produced, and performed TV dramas, and we have the free market to thank.
As viewers are increasingly in the position to exert their power over what to watch, how to view it, and when to view it, the market has responded with brilliant programming across multiple platforms.
Netflix and cable scooped up most of the nominations, especially in the coveted Best Drama category. Meanwhile, the archaic network TV model born out of a government-controlled monopoly was shutout.
Here's a quick look at the nominees for Best Drama and what makes them so great:
Game of Thrones: (HBO)
Brilliant writing, powerful acting and production values that only a subscription based business model could sustain makes each episode feel like a miniature feature film. And the over-the-top evil of the bad guys in the plot actually makes viewers even more loyal week after week as one waits for the glorious day the bad guys get what's coming.
Fargo: (FX)
The performances of Martin Freeman and Billy Bob Thorton are phenomenal and the writing is adult and never condescends. Each episode has a consistent mood of doom hovering over each scene but the viewer has no idea why. And, above all, Lorne Malvo kicks butt.
House of Cards: (Netflix)
The drama that shows just how soulless Washington, D.C., is, House of Cards deserves to win a special Emmy for being the Netflix trailblazer that it is. By delivering their entire season on one day, it has encouraged binge-viewing addicts to plow through 13 hours of murder, sex, and legislation in just one sitting. And the central Kevin Spacey character of Frank Underwood became an instant icon after episode one.
Mad Men: (AMC)
It may have started out as its weakest season, but the first half of Mad Men's final year ended brilliantly and the life journey of every guy's hero, Don Draper, is headed toward a fantastic finale. The production qualities in each season has been top notch with the era playing just as central a role in the plots as the characters themselves. Also, Draper and 1%er Roger Sterling waged the war on women decades before it was cool.
Downton Abbey: (PBS)
Since it is broadcast on a government-supported station, I find it very hard to praise Downton Abbey, however, I count myself among the very few obsessed devotees of this show who is not a woman or a gay man. If you are neither a woman nor a gay man, your reaction to Downton Abbey is probably something like the meme above.
True Detective: (HBO)
I only caught a couple episodes of this show and I never really got what so many of my obsessed friends saw in this show. To me, every scene was like the above meme.
Which brings us to Breaking Bad's final, record-breaking season. So much has been said in praise of this program and its brilliant cast. The case has already been made for rewarding AMC and the creators of this ground-breaking series for producing, quite possibly, the best 5 years of TV drama ever broadcast.
I'll leave it at this: Breaking Bad should win because it provided us the greatest explanation of the 4th Amendment ever depicted.
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One final piece of good news from today's nominations: The awful, horrible, terrible HBO series "Girls" was snubbed for the Best Comedy award. Did I mention this show is awful?