Though the dearth of content resulting from the actor and writer strikes—along with the end of a number of popular, award-winning shows—have made for a more muted Emmy season, April (the month when many Emmy hopefuls debut) is not without its glossy prestige TV. On this week’s Little Gold Men, hosts David Canfield and Richard Lawson are joined by VF Hollywood editor Hillary Busis to discuss three new series, all debuting this week, that put big names in the hunt for awards.
On Netflix, the hotly anticipated series Ripley (based on Patricia Highsmith’s novel The Talented Mr. Ripley) puts Sherlock breakout Andrew Scott back in the villain seat, after some time spent in the world of sensitive gay drama and as TV’s most famously hot priest. Creator Steve Zaillian takes a more restrained approach to the material than did Anthony Minghella in his brilliant 1999 film adaptation, but the show has its own kind of heat—in an economical, buttoned-up way.
Going more classically broad, Julianne Moore tears into her material on Mary & George—a Starz series about the courtly drama of early 1600s England, when gay King James I rather openly kept the company of handsome young noblemen. His favorite was George Villiers, who used his royal connection to rise in political ranks and land a dukedom. Moore plays George’s scheming mother, a role that requires the right calibration of camp and genuine mettle. Ever an adaptable actor, she finds that balance. But is the show perhaps a little too frothy (and, maybe, too gay) to find favor with the Television Academy?
Apple’s Sugar, meanwhile, could be too strange. A modern noir with a seriously odd twist, Sugar stars Colin Farrell as a private investigator traversing Los Angeles in search of a Hollywood mogul’s missing
granddaughter. Farrell’s character, John Sugar, is competent and clever but never flashy. He has an almost otherworldly calm, a placidness of demeanor that is actually the key to the show’s true nature. Farrell capably renders a peculiar character, but is that excellently realized quietness enough to compete with Gary Oldman’s voluble antics on Slow Horses, or Dominic West as the future kind of England on The Crown?
These are but three potential contenders in what is shaping up to be a very curious Emmy season indeed—one that Little Gold Men will continue covering in the lead up to the nominations announcement on July 17.