Golden Globes TV Nominee Snubs — ‘Homeland’, ‘Mad Men’

This morning’s Golden Globes nominations came just in the nick of time for television industry pundits, who had started to foam over yesterday when the SAG Awards unveiled its round-up-the-usual-suspects TV nominees for a year that had seen so much great new programming emerge. Yes, Homeland got smacked down in a big way by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association this morning, which may cause its producers to consider more seriously all that jumped-the-shark talk. But mostly the chatter this morning was about how remarkable snub-free was this morning’s announcement. The HFPA, which dispenses the Globe Awards, is famously less change-phobic than is, say, the Screen Actors Guild, which Wednesday handed out a snub-pocalyptic list of TV noms in which Kevin Spacey was its only acting nominee from a new TV series, and HBO’s Veep the only TV series to score its first TV Ensemble nom (SAG’s version of “best series”).

HFPA racked up major points with TV pundits this morning when it bestowed on Tatiana Maslaney her first-ever major nomination (sadly, the TV Critics Association’s trophy ceremony is not televised and so, like that tree in the forest, is not heard) for playing half a dozen clones in BBC America’s Orphan Black. Reflecting the Embarrassment of TV Riches Era in which we now live, the HFPA today showered noms on many TV newcomers including Taylor Schilling’s first Globe nom for Netflix’s Orange Is The New Black, Liev Schreiber’s for Showtime’s Ray Donovan, Michael Sheen’s for Showtime’s Masters Of Sex, James Spader’s for NBC’s The Blacklist, Andy Samberg’s for Fox’s Brooklyn Nine-Nine, etc. And, in a sort of Ebineezer Scrooge After The Ghosts Drop By frenzy, HFPA even handed the much not-nominated, six-season-old Parks & Recreation its very first Globe nom for best comedy series (while star Amy Poehler picked up her third for best comedy actress).

Still, a trophy show’s not a trophy show without its snubs. Our list:

– Homeland. Showtime’s two-time best drama winner won’t even be in the running at this Golden Globe Awards; ditto Homeland’s Damian Lewis, who was last year’s drama actor winner, and the show’s two-time drama actress winner Claire Danes. (Don’t mistake this for any sign HFPA has tired of Washington-centric TV programming. Netflix’s political intrigue House of Cards is taking up Homeland’s slack, with noms to the series and stars Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright, as well as supporting actor Corey Stoll. Wright will compete against ABC’s Scandal star Kerry Washington who received her first Globe nom for role as a Washington fixer. And, Julia Louis-Dreyfus is again nominated for HBO’s Veep, though the series itself once again did not snare a nom.)

– Mad Men. Once the darling of the trophy show circuit, the AMC period drama is shaping up as trophy-show season’s most underloved drama. The series, and star Jon Hamm, were missing from the list this morning. Mad Men’s Globes streak had been winding down; last year Hamm was nominated but the show was not, nor were any other cast members — some navel lint gazers blamed Aaron Sorkin’s HBO drama The Newsroom for taking Mad Men’s slot. Yesterday, the two-time SAG-winning drama was missing from the Drama Ensemble category for the first time since the show premiered, and Hamm’s five-year drama-actor streak screeched to a halt.

– The Americans. FX’s Cold War-era spy drama got shut out of the drama-series derby, but with Breaking Bad doing its victory lap, and Downton Abbey being, well, Downton Abbey, there weren’t a lot of slots open for new programs and those nods instead went to newbies House Of Cards and Masters Of Sex on Netflix and Showtime, respectively. Meanwhile, CBS’ The Good Wife has been so well regarded this season, critics aren’t begrudging it the last slot (as they did last year to NBC’s critically derided musical series Smash, which they blamed for keeping Parks & Recreation out of the comedy-series running).

– Robin Williams. Not so much “snub” as “surprise,” the HFPA darling Williams did not bag a Globe nom for his CBS comedy The Crazy Ones. Williams previously had been Globe nommed for Patch Adams, Moscow On The Hudson, Good Morning Vietnam, Dead Poets Society, Awakenings, The Fisher King, Aladdin, Mrs. Doubtfire, Good Will Hunting, twice for his sitcom Mork & Mindy, and also received the group’s Cecil B. DeMille Award. Another HFPA darling with a new TV series, Michael J. Fox, did return to Globe running this morning, for his lead role on NBC comedy The Michael J. Fox Show. HFPA previously nommed Fox in 1986, ’87, ’88 and ’89 for Family Ties, and in 1997, ’99 and 2000 for Spin City, not to mention his 1986 Back To The Future nom.

– Sound Of Music. NBC’s recently aired TV-movie ratings monster, the live re-making of Oscar and Hammerstein’s Broadway hit The Sound Of Music was missing from the noms this morning, to the relief of TV critics, given the HFPA’s high regard for its producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron (see Smash, above).