Sorry, what?! All the terrible Emmy nominations making us SMH

The 2018 Emmy Award nominations are here! And they’re as controversial and divisive as ever – at least in the Film Daily newsroom, anyway. Though many of our faves have received the nominations they quite rightly deserve, there are a few names on the list which made us shake our heads so sharply, they near enough gave us whiplash. Here are all the Emmy nominations that made us drop our jaws for all the wrong reasons.

This Is Us

Now look – there’s a place for cry-wanking soapy drama and we’re not too proud to admit we’ve watched this misery porn series – and enjoyed it – more than a few times. But it isn’t an “outstanding drama” by any stretch of the imagination. The show offers little more than a manipulative chokehold of sadness and sentimentality, making it more of an extreme laxative for emotions than a solid semblance of storytelling. There are better shows.

Milo Ventimiglia

We’re loathe to admit this because we’re honestly fans of the actor and have been ever since his role as bad boy fantasy fodder Jess Mariano in Gilmore Girls, but we just can’t get behind his nomination for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series for his performance in This Is Us. His co-star Sterling K. Brown is similarly nominated for the show in the same category and we think he belongs there. But Ventimiglia? Not so much.

His performance as troubled father Jack Pearson is warm and charming and that moustache does strange things to us, but we don’t see anything “outstanding” about his overall performance. Particularly not by comparison to an actor like Kyle MacLachlan, who played three characters in Twin Peaks: The Return and was seriously outstanding as all of them. Yet he has been snubbed by the Emmys, regardless.

Alexis Bledel

Ventimiglia’s former Gilmore Girls co-star is nominated in the category of Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series for her performance as Emily (a.k.a. Ofglen) in The Handmaid’s Tale. We still struggle to see how or why (despite her winning an Emmy last year for the same role). Like Ventimiglia, Bledel is a pleasure to watch on screen due to her charisma and the most magnificent eyes on television, but her performance often lacks depth and feels completely one-note in a show demanding far more.

The Late Late Show With James Corden

Corden is like the Freddy Krueger of comedy – if we all stop giving him attention, maybe he’ll stop tormenting us all and fuck off back to the old stinking furnace of a career he came from. For some reason the Emmys keep giving him awards and we keep worrying that he’ll continue to enjoy a thriving career despite being absolutely awful.

Jason Bateman & Ozark

The Netflix Originals series makes for an entertaining bingewatch, but it hits many familiar beats in terms of narrative and characterization. The show has received two nominations in the category of Outstanding Directing in a Drama Series, which we can get behind because even if you can find fault with the story or characters, there’s no denying the show had some serious tension and momentum to it. But we just don’t think Jason Bateman’s performance is a standout in the series as the Breaking Bad-esque suburban dad Marty, making his nomination for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series a little questionable.

Curb Your Enthusiasm

It genuinely pains us to say this, but the ninth season of Larry David’s legendary meta comedy show just wasn’t very good and yet it’s nominated for Outstanding Comedy Series. Curb Your Enthusiasm is genuinely one of the greatest comedy shows of all time, but S9 felt formulaic and predictable, highlighting that it may be a series that has finally run out of the energy and ingenuity that made it such an enjoyable watch for the first eight seasons.

Nikolaj Coster-Waldau

The dude who plays Jaime Lannister basically dials in a soap opera performance for Game of Thrones – in S7 he also grew a beard. Which is fine – it’s a fantasy soap opera, after all, and beards are very in right now. But the idea he thusly deserves a nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series is laughable.

Alec Baldwin

We understand that this particular nomination likely boils down to politics more than anything else, with Baldwin’s nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series for Saturday Night Live being an easy way to take a sly dig at the POTUS. But the Donald Trump impression – though very funny and very spot on – has run its course. We know its good and we’ve all celebrated the shit out of it. It’s time to move on.

Benedict Cumberbatch

Everyone loves the guy, but we’re completely burned out on all the hype surrounding him and we don’t believe any of it. Cumberbatch is nominated for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series for Patrick Melrose and we couldn’t disagree with the nomination more. Maybe it’s his plummy British accent that convinces people he’s seriously acting real good, but as the titular alcoholic fuckup of a protagonist, Cumberbatch revealed he has only four skills in his wheelhouse: making his face squish into a drunken grimace, shouting very loud, swearing very loud, and wearing a lot of fine suits while acting like a total dick.