Let’s face it: In the last decade, the Emmy categories of “comedy” and “drama” have become a joke.
For much of TV history, the dichotomy served the industry well. How could you compare “Cheers” and “The Golden Girls” with “L.A. Law” and “thirtysomething,” right? But streaming has broken down many of the conventions that were quite necessary in the broadcast-dominant era, including the time and genre constraints that made scheduling and ad sales possible.
As a result, confusion has now reigned in the Emmy nominations process. Case in point, “Orange Is the New Black,” the women’s prison tale that the Television Academy nominated as a comedy in 2014 and as a drama one year later.