Mary McNamara: Finally, FX gets the Emmy recognition it deserves

LOS ANGELES — FX is finally having the Emmy race it deserves.

Too often relegated to “also-ran” status in awards season and overshadowed by other players in conversations about the rise of television excellence in the late 1990s and 2000s, FX is currently sitting on top of the world.

For years, HBO dominated the Emmy arms race; in recent years only Netflix has mounted a viable challenge. But this year, FX came out on top in the major categories, with its shows leading among the drama and comedy contenders and second among limited series. (Netflix eked out a lead overall with 107 across all categories, followed by FX with 93 and HBO with 91.)

“The Bear” gave FX a very strong showing at the 2023 Emmys, which were held in January, but in Wednesday’s nominations it was surpassed by FX’s own “Shogun” as the most-nominated show with 25 nods. With 23 nominations, “The Bear” broke the record for a comedy series, a category that also featured FX titles “What We Do in the Shadows” and “Reservation Dogs.”

Obviously, last year’s writers’ and actors’ strikes thinned the field a bit for this year’s awards: Season 2 of “House of the Dragon” was pushed outside the eligibility window and we’re still awaiting the return of critical darlings and Television Academy favorites such as “The Last of Us,” “Severance,” “Yellowjackets” and “The White Lotus.”

Even so, “The Bear” (up for its second season, even though its third just premiered) remains one of the hottest and most acclaimed series by any measure — though debates over whether it is a true comedy continue to rage. And “Shogun,” the kind sweeping historical epic that often wows both viewers and voters, is favored to win big at September’s main ceremony.

More important, this year’s Emmy list puts FX in its proper place in television history — as a crucial and still viable force in the art form’s 21st-century revolution. Long before AMC’s “Mad Men,” “Breaking Bad” and “The Walking Dead” helped revitalize basic cable, FX was pushing the boundaries not only of the platform but also the medium itself with shows including “The Shield,” “Nip/Tuck” and “Rescue Me.”

As the quality of television forced audiences, and critics, to reject the notion of TV as “the boob tube,” FX upped its game as well, in both comedy — “Baskets,” “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” “Wilfred,” “You’re the Worst,” “Better Things,” “Archer” — and drama — “Damages,” “Justified,” “Sons of Anarchy,” “Fargo” and, of course, “The Americans.”

Yet outside of Ryan Murphy’s franchises “American Horror Story” and “American Crime Story,” which always did well in the limited series category but were generally credited as Murphy’s triumphs more than the network’s, FX’s fixed spot on critics’ top 10 lists has never had a commensurate presence at the Emmys. Last year, the cast of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” pointed out it has never been nominated, and the dearth of awards for “The Americans” alone can still drive many TV critics and fans to apoplexy.

Even with a beloved and oft-quoted network chairman, John Landgraf, who famously coined the phrase “peak TV” and is known as “the mayor of television,” FX has never quite gotten the awards attention it deserved.

This was pointed out to me in real time when I was a critic, writing many of those glory days pieces, and I had to admit it was true. Many FX shows were commended — “The Shield” is on most top name-a-number lists of the all-time best TV shows and “Damages” changed television by making room for a female antihero — but the network itself lived in the shadow of the louder forces of HBO and, more recently, Netflix.

Now, as HBO’s brand has been diluted so much that it isn’t even named on its own streaming service and the streamers discover that they actually need in-program ads to become profitable, FX is having, if not a last laugh, than, perhaps, a long overdue one.

FX, wisely, did not attempt to launch its own subscription service during the recent streaming wars, and its deal with Hulu (now owned by Disney) allows it to maintain its brand while broadening its viewership.

Which is one reason this year’s Emmy domination is so important.

It serves as a blessed reminder that while those who consistently do great work are not always the ones who get the most attention, sometimes the clouds part and those who have long deserved it get their day in the sun.

Mary McNamara is a culture columnist and critic for the Los Angeles Times.