What Corner Gas' Gemini Snub Means

IT'S INTERESTING TO contemplate a tale of two awards shows and what they reveal about the industries they celebrate -- or attempt to.

A few weeks ago the Emmys got into a flap when the producer wanted to bump some awards -- the writing awards among them -- off the live broadcast. A storm ensued, with over a hundred showrunners signing a petition against the move, and the Guilds threatening not to allow the use of no-fee clips.

The Producer backed down, but lost in the back in forth was the reason why he'd tried to institute the change in the first place: Ratings for the broadcast are way down, and he thinks it's the shows that get nominated.

There's no question that in the last few years, the quality baton has passed out of the hands of the networks and to some of the edgier cable shows. The Sopranos and HBO was one thing, but when AMC is picking up more statues, it's an "uh oh." Because, critical darlings that they are, huge tastemakers and drivers of fashion spreads in magazines -- shows like Mad Men, Damages, and Breaking Bad are not being watched by tens of millions of Americans.

This turn of events is in itself, interesting, since the knock on the Emmy's has been traditionally that they were out of touch -- rewarding the same programs year after year, instead of celebrating the new; being sentimental and attached to comfort shows instead of really celebrating the best.

But whatever the year's controversies may be -- people know the shows, and those who like to follow awards shows have plenty of fodder. The Emmys are a known quantity, and the faces that pop up in the audience are familiar to Americans, like old shoes.

Now let's contrast that with the Gemini Awards.

The Geminis came out of the old Actra awards about a quarter-century ago. The idea was always to raise the profile of the Canadian industry by honouring our best talent and brightest programs and personalities.

It's always been a harder road, of course, because so much of the TV viewership in this country is directed south, all the time. There's also not nearly the breadth and depth of material from which to draw nominees. Sometimes, in some categories, it seems like every possible show that could be submitted, is. That can lead to grumbling that we're now giving out awards to celebrate baseline competence -- "Yay! It Got Finished!" -- instead of excellence.

There are bright spots. Take a look at the Best Drama Series nominees:

Being Erica, The Border, Flashpoint, The Tudors, ZOS: Zone of Separation.

Those are five great shows. All of them are well-made, though very different in execution and subject matter. (And yes, I know, I should say here that I did indeed work on The Border last year.)

They're also shows that have varying degrees of audience familiarity. Flashpoint leads that pack and ZOS inevitably trails it, but still, these are all shows that it would be difficult to quibble about the nomination.

When the noms were announced yesterday, it took a while before anybody noticed the big, missing link. Corner Gas was not nominated in a single category.

Not for acting, direction, writing -- nothing. And this, for the show's last season.

That's the thing about the Emmys. They do listen to their history and make sure to venerate the things that came before.

So what happened? Why did Corner Gas -- a show that was consistently both a critical and a ratings favorite over its run, a show that finished up in April with the astounding figure of nearly three million Canadian viewers tuning in?

I've heard lots of grumbles. Some suggested some sort of organized backlash for the plug being pulled on the show early. Some saw a typical Canadian response, "there's nothing we won't do to punish a success here!" But the true answer is probably a lot simpler, and it lies in the way that the Gemini winners are selected.

It's a juried award, which means that a volunteer group screens all the entries and decides on the nominees. That jury has a lot of power, and a lot of sway, and depending how it's made up, you can favor certain things, favor your friends, or fulfill vendettas, say what you will.

I've been on at least a half a dozen Gemini juries over the years, and served as chairman of one. When I was chair, I tried to balance my jury with writers (it was a writing category) of different perspectives, ages, and experience levels, so that we really could give everything a more or less fair shake. I was aware of my own biases, and compensated accordingly.

Comedy is subjective. And Corner Gas comes from a particular school of gentle humor. And it's not necessarily the kind of humor that, say, a lot of young comics might celebrate.

I have no doubt that the juries deciding Corner Gas' unsuitability for a nomination approached their task earnestly, and really tried to nominate what they thought were the best shows. But now we're stuck with a credibility problem and a particularly thorny one for the Canadian industry:

The Geminis do NOT have a high profile. Many Canadians already haven't heard of the shows that are nominated. But now we're in a place where even people who work in the industry haven't heard of some of the shows getting nominations! And the show that's been both a success critically, and with the audience, doesn't make the cut for its swansong season? I'm afraid that gets us optically right back into the camp where people can point at people in the TV industry and say, "see? they don't care about the audience."

I was talking to a friend of mine who did get a comedy series nomination, and we agreed that the shutout of Gas is unfortunate because it taints the whole category. If you competed against Gas, and won, that would be great. If you lost, fine. But to know that it wasn't even in the running is to somehow put some fatal asterisk beside the nomination you did get. And that's very unfortunate.

The Geminis have a whole host of very serious problems, that it's time the Academy dealt with. Bloated beyond belief, the fact that there are now 99 categories is pretty scandalous.

Four nights to hand out the trophies is indulgent, and if you read the category lists, the distinctions are so hard to understand, so completely outside the ken of the average person, that the PR value in them is lost. I mean, I work in the industry and I have a hard time telling you what the difference between best Lifestyle Information Segment and Best Magazine Show would be. And that goes for the endless slices of Acting Categories and yes, writing categories too.

We're simply not that large an industry. Everything shouldn't get an award. On some of those juries, I've sat through stuff that was barely competent, which makes you think that the game of submitting for an award is fatally flawed, too.

Frankly, the whole thing seems to be a bit of a cash grab. And the fact that the Academy has not been successful in bringing CTV back into the fold in the News Categories gives an unforgiveable taint to all of those awards. This isn't the Golden Globes, where it doesn't matter if the whole thing's corrupt because big stars are getting drunk in the audience... this is, at least partially, our industry making its case that we can be popular and relevant.

But right now, the Geminis are neither.

If the Geminis are ever going to be anything other than a punchline, they need to take a look at the jury procedure. They need to streamline the categories to a more manageable number -- even if that DOES mean fewer entry fees. They need to come up with a workable and new system for the News awards so that everyone feels they can participate and the deck isn't stacked against them. (They should also consider moving the News Awards to a different time of the year -- nothing's being gained by having them all lumped together like that -- except maybe a deal on chicken dinners and venue -- and yeah, that's a problem too.)

The idea of the different-night galas kind of burns me a bit too. I never meet anybody I used to work with when I was Producing lifestyle stuff, because that's a different night. Don't we want a bit of cross pollination? Shouldn't that be one of the goals?

In the end, you have to ask is this a trade show? Or is it supposed to be something that the public can care about, too? We all say we want the latter, but it's ludicrous to deny that what we've really got is the former.

Blanking the show that reached 3 million fans, and redefined the notion of a successful Canadian show?

Not a great way to make our case.