The Golden Globes 2015: is TV shining bright gold?

(source: nbc.com)

72nd Golden Globe Awards graced our screens this month with ultimate female comedy-duo Amy Poehler and Tina Fey returning to host their third and final ceremony. It was only two years prior that they introduced the grand event by describing it as the one place “the beautiful people of film rub shoulders with the rat-faced people of television”. Now with an increasing number of Hollywood actors garnering critical acclaim for their performances in television, it might be time to eat those words. In fact this year almost all the wins in all the categories in television came from first-time winners, proving that unlike the film categories you just can’t predict the Golden Globes straight from the outset.

The best mini-series award was one of the early openers this time and it provided a hot-contest straight out of the gate: Fargo vs. True Detective, with the other nominees unfortunately playing second fiddle despite their excellence. Fortunately for the FX show, Fargo’s expansive scope and idiosyncratic cast outmanoeuvred True Detective’s pealing grimness and nihilism all the way onto the stage, taking home the award and deservedly so. The crowd-pleasing crime saga that saw Martin Freeman, Billy Bob Thornton, Alison Tolman and Colin Hanks battle it out against the snow-covered backdrop of Minnesotan vastness, brought the most exciting elements from a number of great Coen brothers films without losing any of the charm. It was then particularly peculiar and funny that the other nominee in this category was Olive Kitteridge – a fantastic mini-series led by actress Frances McDormand who won the Academy Award for her leading role in the original 1996 film Fargo. I’m sure her husband, director Joel Coen, must have sat there with the irony that he just watched her lose against the very idea he created 19 years ago.

One of the biggest surprises of the night was Billy Bob Thornton winning over Matthew McConaughey. Don’t get me wrong Thornton’s role as the menacing hatchet of terror Lorne Malvo was endlessly fun to watch, but it was McConaughey who undisputably gave us one of the most bizarrely solemn and philosophical characters this year elevating True Detective to a higher form. Nonetheless, it seems to many this was not completely fortuitous given the Hollywood Foreign Press likes awarding to new actors and McConaughey already bagged an award the previous year for Dallas Buyers Club. Following on the streak of famous Hollywood actors taking over the silver screen, Maggie Gyllenhaal nabbed the award for her role in the BBC/SundanceTV spy-thriller The Honourable Woman. The devilishly handsome and inexcusably beautiful actors Matt Bomer and Joanne Froggatt rounded off the supporting wins for their roles in The Normal Heart and Downton Abbey respectively.

The comedy nominations this year did the fantastic job of removing stale and mediocre comedies like Modern Family and The Big Bang Theory in favour of new, more daring and exciting shows like Jane the Virgin and Transparent – the latter of which rightly won the award for Best Comedy on the night. Expertly treading the fine line of both comedy and drama like its fellow nominee Orange Is The New Black, Transparent was by far the most complex and uncompromisingly human show of the bunch. Jeffrey Tambor’s performance in Transparent as the patriarch of a troubled family who comes out as transgendered in his sixties was a career best (and he’s had a hell of career) that opened up a humorously empathetic look into a community that is often marginalised and oppressed. Don’t worry though, Jane the Virgin didn’t end the night empty handed as Gina Rodriguez won for her endearing turn as the titular Jane, beating off awards heavyweights Julia-Louis Dreyfus and Edie Falco.

(source: www.independent.co.uk)

The Drama category this year was filled with a number of notable omissions. Other than the always on-form The Good Wife and moody newcomer The Affair (both shows that play heavily into the older white woman demographic which mirrors the Golden Globes itself), the nominees were severe disappointments. It’s undeniably clear that the Globes prefers flashier multi-million dollar budget shows like Game of Thrones and House of Cards over arguably better dramas like Mad Men, The Americans, Hannibal and Rectify. With regards to shows from across their pond, the Globes are obviously going to pick something glitzy and Clooney-filled like Downton Abbey over a much harder but more impactful pill to swallow like the BBC’s Happy Valley. Nonetheless, on the night The Affair took home the prize with Ruth Wilson and her devilish smile following through with a Best Actress win. A surprising but interesting win for the any Brit to witness given that the show is yet to air to here, despite it including two of our beloved actors (the other being Dominic West). After his inevitable win this year for House of Cards after losing to Heisenberg last year, Kevin Spacey ended the night with a beautiful tribute to legendary film director Stanley Kramer, resolving himself to tears and perfectly sealing this celebration of great television.