Emmy Predictions: The Miniseries

We'll finish off the Emmy predictions with a look at the Miniseries/TV Movie categories, the categories that always get a bit of a brush through at the ceremony, but feature the people whom you actually expect to see at an awards show (the movie stars), so it's hardly something you can relegate to the Creative Arts Emmys.  If you missed earlier this week, don't forget to check out the Drama and Comedy predictions:

Best Limited Series

1. Olive Kitteridge
2. American Crime
3. American Horror Story: Freak Show
4. The Honorable Woman
5. Wolf Hall

The Lowdown: This is always the place to over-bet on HBO, not only because they campaign the hardest, but usually because they have the legit best contenders.  As a result, we've got Olive Kitteridge, the likely victor, on the top, though the network's only other major contender (The Casual Vacancy) has no buzz and I'm taking out for now.  Instead, I've got the rare nominee from a major network (American Crime), the perennial nominee American Horror Story (only at the Emmys could a perennial nominee be in the Limited Series category), the prestige-y Wolf Hall (PBS usually slices a nod here too), and the Sundance hit The Honorable Woman.  I suspect that there will be love for Texas Rising in other Emmy categories, especially in the tech slots, but both it and The Missing seem too small to take out this quintet.

Best TV Movie

1. Bessie
2. Derek: The Final Chapter
3. Nightingale
4. Killing Jesus
5. Agatha Christie's Poirot: Curtain, Poirot's Last Case

The Lowdown: Eww, this category looks awful.  No wonder Bessie seems so out-in-front here, there's nothing really to choose from (someone seriously dropped the ball here as every decent contender seems to be in the miniseries category).  Derek made it before and if The Big C and 24 are any indication should have no trouble scoring a couple of nods in an easier slate of nominees, and Nightingale may be largely forgotten but with an up-and-coming star and a weak bench to compete against is a certainty (David Oyelowo should succeed here where he couldn't at the Oscars).  The final two slots I'm going with Killing Jesus because apparently it's a frontrunner (ugh though-Bill O'Reilly with an Emmy?  Blech!) and Agatha Christie's Poirot, a swan song for a famed series.

Best Actor in a Miniseries/TV Movie

1. David Oyelowo (Nightingale)
2. Richard Jenkins (Olive Kitteridge)
3. Mark Rylance (Wolf Hall)
4. Bill Paxton (Texas Rising)
5. David Suchet (Agatha Christie's Poirot: Curtain, Poirot's Last Case)

The Lowdown: I am near certain that Oyelowo wins this one, so it's really just four guys going for an "honor just to be nominated."  That means that Richard Jenkins, who is the well-noted lead of Olive Kitteridge will make it, as will Bill Paxton who is enjoying a nice resurgence in TV movies at the moment (at this rate he might well win an Emmy soon), and Mark Rylance, who has owned Broadway for the past decade and seems likely to be both an Emmy and an Oscar nominee by year's end.  The final slot I'm going to do my true random prediction of the bunch (I haven't really gone out on a limb quite yet in any of these predictions) and go with David Suchet, who has been a TV icon as Poirot for years now without ever being cited, and it's not like Ricky Gervais or Timothy Hutton really need points for largely forgotten work this year.  Either of them make more sense (or perhaps even Oscar-winner Adrien Brody in Houdini), but Suchet seems like a nice way to honor a longtime TV trouper.

Best Actress in a Miniseries/TV Movie

1. Frances McDormand (Olive Kitteridge)
2. Maggie Gyllenhaal (The Honorable Woman)
3. Queen Latifah (Bessie)
4. Jessica Lange (American Horror Story: Freak Show)
5. Felicity Huffman (American Crime)

The Lowdown: In this category, "always go with the Oscar nominees" is a solid maxim, and it's completely true this year.  While some of these women are more known for television than film (namely Felicity Huffman, though lately Jessica Lange as well), all five have at least one Oscar nomination and in two cases a number of them.  Each of them have dominated the conversation so much that the only other person who could remotely compete appears to be Frances O'Connor in The Missing, but I don't think she'll have enough fame to get past this list (maybe if it had been Frances Conroy).  The best question here is whether Frances McDormand will actually show up to pickup her Triple Crown, or will she bow out on the off-chance she's going to lose to Gyllenhaal or Latifah?

Best Supporting Actor in a Miniseries/TV Movie

1. Bill Murray (Olive Kitteridge)
2. Stephen Rea (The Honorable Woman)
3. Joanthan Pryce (Wolf Hall)
4. Damian Lewis (Wolf Hall)
5. Finn Wittrock (American Horror Story: Freak Show)

The Lowdown: If there's one rule in doing any sort of awards' predictions, it's to ignore your own personal opinions and always just go with the buzz.  Most of the time this is easy, as frequently the buzz and my own opinions are easy to separate.  For example, I can see that Damian Lewis and Jonathan Pryce both have that aura of former nominee and prestige, or that Stephen Rea's an Oscar nominee which should help him for The Honorable Woman, or that Bill Murray is a movie star icon in a major production, likely meaning not only a nomination but a win.  However, I just cannot buy the buzz behind Michael Chiklis, who was in every channel imaginable worse than Finn Wittrock in Freak Show.  It makes sense that the Emmy-winning Chiklis beats the ingenue and part of me is expecting it, but it will break my heart not to predict Wittrock for the performance of a lifetime, and so I am going with him, wrongness be damned.

Best Supporting Actress in a Miniseries/TV Movie

1. Mo'Nique (Bessie)
2. Sarah Paulson (American Horror Story: Freak Show)
3. Kathy Bates (American Horror Story: Freak Show)
4. Janet McTeer (The Honorable Woman)
5. Susan Sarandon (Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe)

The Lowdown: I got a little bit off-the-track in the past category, but won't be in this one.  I know what side Emmy's bread is buttered on, and big names mean nominations (just ask Ellen Burstyn).  Susan Sarandon may be in a tiny film that got minimal plaudits, but she's also Oscar winner Susan Sarandon, who has never won an Emmy in four nominations and she's competing in supporting not the more competitive lead, so that should be enough to make it short of Alfre Woodard being in a show I haven't heard of yet.  The rest of the nominees seem set-Cynthia Nixon, Angela Bassett, and Zoe Kazan all have potential, but Sarandon makes the most sense on-paper, and that's where I'm headed.

Those are my final nominations (I don't really do the reality categories).  What are your thoughts?  Who do you agree with and who are you thinking has no shot?  Share your thoughts in the comments!