A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE FROM A&E

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Cynopsis Media presents 
Before the Ballots:

Non-Fiction Series,
Non-Fiction Special
2012 Primetime Emmy® Award Pre-Nomination Special Report

By Daisy Whitney

Good morning. It’s Monday, June 4, , 2012, and this is the second of a five-part series predicting the nominees for this year’s primetime Emmy® Awards.  Today’s installment looking at the potential nominees for Outstanding Reality Host, Reality Competition Series, Reality Program.

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A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE FROM A&E

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One of the easiest and hardest Emmy awards to predict are in the non-fiction category. Easy, because shows like PBS’ American Masters are perennially strong, and hard because programmers and studios produce so many high-quality non-fiction programs.

Each year networks such as PBS, HBO, History, ESPN, Travel Channel, Discovery and others craft shows that are often worthy in the outstanding non-fiction series and outstanding nonfiction special categories. Those Emmys are separate from the reality competition and reality non-competition candidates, and the non-fiction awards usually go to shows that are more documentary or news-style programing. Nominees will be announced July 19, and here’s an early look at who’s likely to land nods.

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A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE FROM A&E

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The Horse to Beat

Last year, the nonfiction series award went to American Masters on PBS, for the 8th time in 11 years. The show will be the frontrunner this year too. “American Masters is just about as good as TV gets,” said Al Norton, who writes the column Two Tivos To Paradise at pop culture site 411mania.com. The show’s high-profile episodes this year included explorations of Johnny Carson and Woody Allen, among others.

Fellow PBS show American Experience, which has won the award twice before, will also vie. The program boasted episodes this past season that delved into the history of the American West and the Amish People, but its leading contender will likely be its four-part series on Bill Clinton. The Emmys don’t offer a non-fiction mini-series awards, so series with only a few episodes usually contend in the serues category. That will also include PBS’ Prohibition from acclaimed director Ken Burns, chronicling that era in American history and its impact on the country.

Travel Channel’s Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations has been twice nominated in this category and could corral a third nod. Discovery also has a strong entrant in Frozen Planet, which documents the earth’s polar regions and drew million of viewers this spring. That series was created by the makers of Discovery’s past mega series Life and Planet Earth. Other programs in the running include PBS’ America in Primetime, according to the TV critic site LordoftheFilms.net. That series explored the evolution of character types on TV.

Norton said he’d like to see a nomination for Food Network series Crave, a creative history of the food people crave and where it comes from. He also added that the Academy may soon have to address the eligibility prospects for worthy Web documentaries, such as Morgan Spurlocks’ A Day in The Life that ran on Hulu.

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A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE FROM A&E

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HBO and Everyone Else

HBO has long been acclaimed for its films and documentaries, and this past season included many potential award winners on the schedule. LordoftheFilms.net is betting the ballot for outstanding nonfiction special will include four films from HBO in Bobby Fischer Against the World; Hot Coffee; Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory; and Saving Face; as well as History Channel’s: 9/11: The Days After.

Then there’s ESPN, which earned many critical kudos for its film The Announcement about the day Magic Johnson announced he was HIV positive. “That was a phenomenal piece of filmmaking,” Norton said.

Sports documentaries abound on other networks too. Showtime proffers A Game of Honor, digging into the football rivalry between Army and Navy. “With our armed forces out in the world and so many veterans coming home, it’s hard for people to not know someone who has recently served and using football as a way to dive in and see these younger people is really compelling,” Norton said.

Also on the sports front, HBO may land a nomination for Namath, its documentary on Joe Namath who was perhaps the country’s first football superstar.

As for the other HBO contenders, Bobby Fischer Against the World tells the story of the chess master; Hot Coffee examines tort reform in the aftermath of the spilled cup of coffee lawsuit; Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory is the conclusion of HBO’s trilogy on the Memphis Three; and Saving Face won an Oscar earlier this year for documenting women in Pakistan who’ve been victims of acid attacks.

History’s 9/11: The Days After has been well regarded for its editing together of amateur film footage and news b-roll footage shot in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.

Later —
Daisy Whitney for Cynopsis
daisywhitney@gmail.com
06.04.12

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