Big Little Lies to be judged as ongoing drama series
You might remember how a few months ago we felt more betrayed than enthusiastic about the news of a second season of Big Little Lies. The feeling we were left with was bemusement as to why Hollywood refused to understand the concept of miniseries. Digging into it deeper, we found out the true reasoning as to why Hollywood keeps selling TV shows with ongoing narratives as miniseries. As we wrote in that article:
it also helps to win some awards. See, submitting your show in the Emmy’s limited series section makes it a lot easier to run off with an award, than in the very competitive comedy or drama sections where the rest of peak TV is present.
With the news that Big Little Lies is officially picked up for a second season, we were wondering how this was going to affect the nominations around the current season. Good news: it seems like award shows have had enough of this shit as well.
The PGA (Producers Guild of America) awards responded to news about a second season by moving the show from the limited series category to drama series. As Deadline reported, this is a decision that will eat up time from its voters, as it means all previous votes cast in the two categories will be annulled, and voting has to restart. The guild released an official statement saying Big Little Lies was dropped from limited series, as it no longer qualified within the category.
The move has already had a ripple effect on other shows, with HBO releasing a statement defending Big Little Lies‘ nomination in the limited series category:
Big Little Lies was conceived, produced, and aired as a limited series. The implication of impropriety regarding HBO’s awards submission of ‘Big Little Lies’ in the Limited Series category is irresponsible and uninformed. The idea to continue the story came about only after the show aired. None of the cast or filmmakers had holdover contracts. Each deal had to be renegotiated, which is proof that no ongoing series was contemplated. Additionally, no source material beyond Liane Moriarty’s novel existed. The accusation that HBO was ‘gaming the system’ is baseless and undeserved.
It will be interesting to see how this one plays out. With more and more TV shows starting as off as miniseries, it makes sense to us that award shows are starting to tighten the rules. As far as we’re concerned these continuations also qualify as good reasons to stop watching TV shows. What are your thoughts?
