Although last year's award season saw three best picture nominees come from the early-year festival circuit, it's a hard-fought battle when a film can maintain momentum for almost a full 12 months. Because few films have emerged from sometime-bellwethers like January's Sundance Film Festival and May's Cannes Film Festi…

Now that the "official" film-awards season seems to start the minute the previous year's best picture Oscar acceptance speech ends, voters (and awards watchers) can't afford to wait until the fall to start seriously evaluating the year's offerings. While most eyes are on the Emmys and the July 16 nomination announcemen…

Having her first recurring TV role on a third-season cable series is probably enough to keep Caitlin Fitzgerald busy, but the Masters of Sex star has another first this year. As a first-time Emmy voter, Fitzgerald is juggling playing the long-suffering wife of a sex researcher with digging through hundreds of…

Although history-based stories were once considered too stodgy for TV audiences, the period drama is all over broadcast, cable and streaming services these days. Just five years ago, the 1960s-set AMC series Mad Men was the only series among the five Emmy drama nominees that wasn't set in the modern era. Compare that…

Now that HBO's tech-startup comedy Silicon Valley just finished its second season and has been renewed for a third, its star Thomas Middleditch jokes that he'd like to see his entrepreneur character go through a big transformation sometime soon. "Skip ahead, and it's almost like a Breaking Bad story," says the actor…

Creativity is what it's all about when it comes to For Your Consideration campaigns, but this year's crowded Emmy race is forcing strategists to take things to even greater heights with special events, guerrilla tactics and ever more panel discussions. Streaming services like Amazon, Netflix and Hulu have brought more…

When Ryan Murphy's creepy-sexy series American Horror Story was submitted as a miniseries for its first season in 2012, it caused a stir among pundits that lasted well into the 2013 Emmy race. Cynics said it was a way to avoid competing in the more-competitive drama race, despite how Murphy's concept of putting new…