A director’s job generally involves telling people what to do, so it stands to reason that directors would have a well-informed opinion on what things are worthy of awards. After all, what is an award but an attempt to tell people what to do or watch on a grand scale? That might not be the real reason that the Directors Guild Of America Awards exist, but it’s certainly a reason for why they deserve attention. These are people who should know their stuff, and based on this year’s nominees for the DGA’s TV-based categories, that does seem to be the case.
The drama nominees include the the Duffer Brothers for Stranger Things, Ryan Murphy and John Singleton for two separate People V. O.J. Simpson episodes, Miguel Sapochnik for Game Of Thrones’ thrilling “Battle Of The Bastards,” and Jonathan Nolan for Westworld, all of which are pretty tough to argue with. For comedy, the nominees are Alec Berg and Mike Judge for two Silicon Valley episodes, Donald Glover for Atlanta, and Becky Martin and Dale Stern for two Veep episodes.
If that seems like a lot of nominations for HBO, it also grabbed a few in the TV movie/miniseries category for All The Way and The Night Of, as well as one in the variety/talk category for Real Time With Bill Maher. Other talk/variety nominees include The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, Dave Chappelle’s Saturday Night Live episode, and Full Frontal With Samantha Bee. Also, the children’s category includes the Amazon film An American Girl Story—Melody 1963: Love Has To Win, which is still one of the best titles for anything ever.
The full list of nominees is available at The Hollywood Reporter, and the awards themselves will be given out in February.