Emmy Category Shake Up Effects 'Downton Abbey'

The Emmys have made some category changes that will effect Downton Abbey should it be nominated again this year. Last year, it won the award for 'Outstanding Miniseries', beating the highly-regarded HBO's Mlldred Pierce and Too Big To Fail. However, should the show be nominated this year, Deadline is reporting that it will be placed in the 'Outstanding Drama Series' category:

...Downton (a co-production of NBCUniversal’s Carnival Films in the UK and PBS affiliate WGBH/Boston) is about to find out how the other half really lives. Because it’s no longer a miniseries but a plain old drama series in its second season, it won’t be competing for Emmys this time with longform projects like HBO’s Mildred Pierce, Too Big to Fail and Cinema Verité as it did in 2011, but instead against American TV’s real aristocracy, which will include some combination of AMC’s Mad Men, Breaking Bad and The Killing, Showtime’s Homeland and HBO’s Game of Thrones and Boardwalk Empire. That’s assuming, of course, that Downton earns second invitation to the party as it’s expected to.


“We’re going to be in a whole other orbit,” acknowledges Rebecca Eaton, executive producer for PBS’ Masterpiece and Downton Abbey. “We won against some very stiff competition last year from HBO, for which we all remain enormously proud. But in American TV, the drama series track clearly is the faster track. It’ll be interesting to go toe-to-toe with those very different shows and see how we do.”

Indeed, it’s highly unusual – but not quite unprecedented – that a series like Downton would start out as just another miniseries import, only to shift to Emmy’s version of the heavyweight division for its second go-around. It happened as recently as 2007-08 with USA Network’s The Starter Wife. What it means is that Downton was never really a miniseries but clearly benefitted from being able to call itself one for a year.

Read the full article here.

How do you think this will effect Downton's chances of being nominated for an Emmy? It was nominated for Best Drama at the 2012 Critics Choice Awards along with Mad Men, Game of Thrones etc, so I think that proves it can hold its own against those shows.