'Orange Is the New Black' Emmys: Why Did TV Academy Almost Completely Snub It? [POLL, VIDEO]
Orange Is the New Black was snubbed big time for this year's Emmy nominations - what went wrong?
Many Orange Is the New Black fans who looked over the Emmy nominations this morning were surely disappointed. That's because the Netflix dramedy received only one nomination this year, for Outstanding Casting for a Drama Series.
While some Emmy experts were predicting that Orange Is the New Black would not get a repeat nomination in Outstanding Drama Series this year, one would be hard pressed to find someone who was predicting last year's Drama Supporting Actress winner Uzo Aduba (who plays Suzanne "Crazy Eyes" Warren) would get snubbed, too.
It's not immediately clear why Television Academy voters chose to mostly ignore the series this year, though this downward trend is not entirely shocking. Orange Is the New Black started off as a huge Emmy favorite, getting 12 nominations for its first season when it was entered in the comedy categories. Then, the Academy voted for a new policy in which all half-hour shows were forced to enter in the comedy categories while one-hour shows had to enter in the drama ones, unless the show made an appeal.
When this happened, the producers behind one-hour dramedies like Glee, Shameless and Jane the Virgin made appeals to the Academy and were all granted access to the comedy categories, while only Orange Is the New Black was forced to stay in drama. When Emmy nominations were announced, the show only received four nominations: for Drama Series, Aduba, guest actor Pablo Schreiber and Casting.
Going from 12 nominations one year to four the next is certainly jarring, but now having only one is even more glaring. It seems clear now that Emmy voters simply like other drama series more, and it will be interesting to see if the more critically acclaimed fourth season gets any love next year, when it will be eligible.
The 2016 Primetime Emmys will air Sunday, Sept. 18 at 8 p.m. ET on ABC, hosted by Jimmy Kimmel.
