This Sunday, September 20, in celebration of the vernal equinox and the bountiful harvest of new TV it has brought to our living rooms, the Television Academy will gather to honor the previous year’s crop of prestige dramas, groundbreaking streaming series, and hopefully not Modern Family. Fox’s telecast of that traditional observance—known colloquially as the 67th Primetime Emmy Awards—begins at 8 p.m. Eastern/7 Central, at which point The A.V. Club will also kick off its commemoration of the Emmys, registering our approval of and disappointment with every trophy’s recipient.
And maybe the approval will finally outweigh the disappointment this year, what with the overhaul of the voting process and the writers’ room that drew from the staff of Comedy Bang! Bang! And if Jon Hamm doesn’t win for his swan song as Don Draper, then we’ll all meet up in the big cornfield and set the wicker effigy of Jeff Daniels aflame, as decreed in the holy scripture of our people, The Complete Directory To Prime Time Network And Cable TV Shows, 1946-Present. And so shall we sing: “Sumer is Icumen in / Loudly sing, cuckoo! / I’d like to buy the world a Coke / and keep it company.” And we shall give thanks for the Emmy winners who deserved it, and retire to our own quarters in order to greet the dawn of a new TV season the next day.