Cries of “snub” are inevitable during awards season, but the cacophony of complaints reached near-deafening volume following Thursday morning’s announcement of the 2014 Emmy nominations.
Perhaps no group was more outraged than fans of BBC America’s “Orphan Black,” who were reaching for their pitchforks when Tatiana Maslany, who plays close to a dozen different parts in the sci-fi series, was overlooked in the actress-in-a-drama category for the second straight year. She has won fervent critical acclaim for her chameleon-like performance as a group of wildly different clones, but has yet to earn recognition from the famously habit-prone voters of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.
But Maslany and her admirers can take heart knowing that she was passed over in one of this year’s most fiercely competitive categories, where two-time defending champ Claire Danes was nominated once again for “Homeland,” alongside Kerry Washington (“Scandal”), Michelle Dockery (“Downton Abbey”) and Robin Wright (“House of Cards”). Julianna Margulies, who was passed over last year for her work on “The Good Wife,” returned to the category.
This left room for just one new entry, Lizzy Caplan, for “Masters of Sex.”
It also left an unusually talented field of casualties by the wayside, including Keri Russell, whose steely performance as a Soviet spy in the FX drama “The Americans” has (almost) made viewers forget her days as America’s sweetheart on “Felicity,” and Elisabeth Moss, a previous nominee for her role on “Mad Men.”