emmys 2019

How Schitt’s Creek Charmed the TV Academy Into Three Major Emmy Nominations

After years of relative obscurity, Eugene and Dan Levy’s raucously funny family comedy has seen a real breakthrough.
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From Cbc/ITV/Kobal/Shutterstock.

Tuesday morning’s Emmy nominations came, as usual, with several surprises—but perhaps none was as delightful as the Television Academy’s decision to shower the bubbly family comedy Schitt’s Creek with its first Emmy nominations. The CBC–Pop series took home a nod for outstanding comedy series as well as nominations for its leads, Catherine O’Hara and Eugene Levy. It was also nominated for outstanding contemporary costumes. The series, which aired its fifth season this year, spent its earlier seasons in relative obscurity, at least in the U.S. But ever since it debuted on Netflix in 2017, Schitt’s Creek has picked up steam, particularly among internet-savvy comedy lovers. Tuesday’s quadruple nomination feels like the culmination of that momentum.

The show’s team is already ecstatic; its Twitter account has tweeted out a thank-you to the Academy as well as everyone who voted. The account followed that up with an appropriate GIF:

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Schitt’s Creek follows a once-wealthy family as they move to the small town their patriarch once purchased as a joke. The family’s struggle to adjust to life as non-moguls leads the series down wacky and, often, surprisingly empathetic avenues. That might be why Schitt’s Creek is one of the few series that has, over time, grown its viewership—a climb that can probably also be attributed to its addition to the Netflix library in 2017, two years after it first premiered.

Since the series debuted on Netflix, viewers and critics alike have gradually come around to the series. V.F. chief critic Richard Lawson praised Schitt’s earlier this year, writing, “It’s sort of an obvious fish-out-of-water conceit, but what Levy and his cast (including his father and co-creator, Eugene, and sister, Sarah) do with that familiar setup—a rich family moving to a small town after going suddenly bankrupt—is somehow both sophisticated and quaint.”

The daffy charms of this series are pretty much undeniable. As former actress Moira, O’Hara soars to previously unseen heights of privileged insanity. Her inscrutable accent and never-ending collection of wigs and gaudy jewelry merely accentuate a career-redefining performance. As Johnny, Eugene Levy often plays the bewildered straight man to the chaos around him. Then there are Dan Levy and Annie Murphy, whose turns as entitled adult-children help pull the series in unexpected directions as they explore career options and come into their own as self-sufficient grown-ups.

More than anything, it’s Schitt’s Creek’s warmth that makes it relentlessly watchable—a characteristic that likely helped charm Emmy voters as well. The series could have been a facile take on class tensions, but instead it opts for curiosity and kindness. Even the characters routinely made the butts of the show’s jokes—like the town’s mayor, Roland—are shown to have positive qualities as well. (Roland, for instance, is generous enough to put Johnny and his entire family up in a local motel for free.) The show’s writing is also sharp and snappy, with serialized plots and one-liners coalescing to form a show that’s satisfying both as a focused watch or as background noise during a fifth rewatch. With the series set to end with its sixth season next year, the Academy picked just the right time to give Schitt’s Creek its due.

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