‘The Walking Dead’ season 5: Would more Emmy love have helped show at all?

We made it no secret throughout the Emmy voting process just how much we loved “The Walking Dead.” We found the second part of the fourth season to be at times brilliant, and we campaigned for both the series to be nominated alongside actors Chandler Riggs and Melissa McBride.

Then, the nominations came out on Thursday, and the show was snubbed again in all major categories. Are we surprised about this at all? Hardly. Successful series often have a harder time, in between the belief that success is its own reward and a sort of anti-populism that takes over that makes voters feel somewhat obligated to help shows that have smaller audiences.

But would a nomination for “The Walking Dead” help it at all? We ask this question mostly because we can envision others doing the same exact thing while they were casting ballots. Is there a need to support something that is the most-dominant drama on TV?

To be fair, we do not believe that “The Walking Dead” would suddenly start to get even more viewers just because of the fact that it was nominated for some awards. It’s more likely that the awards show itself would benefit from its fans tuning in, which is something that we even said in our recent podcast about this.

The major thing that some Emmy love would have afforded this particular show  is an opportunity to have even more credibility as more than just popular entertainment. It’s validation that there are great performances happening here from start to finish, and that you can create artful entertainment with zombies roaming around. The wise will still continue to recognize these things even without a nomination, but anyone would be lying if they said that they cared 0% about the opinions of others in the industry. A nomination is always a nice thing to have.

Eventually, we do believe that a show like “The Walking Dead” will get some of the attention and admiration it deserves. It may just take either several years or even more shows in this vein for voters to realize that quality should be considered the most important factor, and not just responding to particular trends or trying to help a show that “needs” it.

What do you think: Would “The Walking Dead” have been helped in any way by a nomination either when it comes to attention or credibility? Let us know now, and click here to get more news pertaining to the show. You can also crawl over here to get further news and updates via our CarterMatt Newsletter.

Photo: AMC