So What Happened With The Geminis and GAS?

Why didn’t Corner Gas get nominated for any Gemini Awards at all (which you’ve got to admit is pretty weird, even in the unlikely event that all the shows nominated ahead of it were better)? It seemed so unexpected that I originally figured there must be some kind of eligibility issue or a mistake of some kind, but apparently it wasn’t; it just got left out of every category.

This is a bit different from the way such things usually happen at the Emmys. The Academy may be worried that not enough popular shows are nominated in the big categories, but there are usually plenty of nominations for popular shows, if not necessarily in the main categories, then in the smaller ones. Two and a Half Men is the most popular comedy in the U.S., and while it doesn’t deserve to win much of anything, it’s gotten lots of nominations over the years. Even Three’s Company got a well-deserved Emmy for John Ritter. It just seems implausible that a show could be that popular and important in the industry and not be among the five best at anything, even if it’s not listed among the five best shows of its type. It’s very subjective to say that not recognizing a particular show devalues the awards, and so I’d be very reluctant to make that argument. But it certainly does seem very strange.

– Star/creator Brent Butt is puzzled by the apparent snub, finding it “kinda goofy”:

“I understand not winning any awards. If we went to the Geminis and didn’t win any awards, you’d kind of roll with it and go, ‘Oh, all right, whatever.’ But to not even have a nomination, that is kind of goofy. I’m not angry or outraged, I’m too busy trying to wrap my head around it, you know? To kind of go, ‘Really? Not a nomination? In 99 categories, after 107 episodes? OK.”‘

– Denis McGrath attributes it to the way the juries are set up, and in particular the demographics of the people doing the selecting:

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.