2015 Emmys: Why ‘Better Call Saul,’ ‘Outlander,’ ‘Sons of Anarchy’ are worthy of Drama Series nods

The nominations for the 2015 Primetime Emmy Awards are not going to be revealed until July 16 at 8:30 a.m. Eastern time. However, that’s not going to stop us this month from embarking on what is a long-standing tradition of naming our own nominees!

These choices were picked by the CarterMatt team, and in addition to sharing them, we of course want to hear from you who you’d like to see nominated! We’ll have a poll attached to all of these articles, and to go along with that, you can also leave some of your personal picks in the comments. We are beginning today with one of the big ones, and that is the overall Drama Series category.

Our nominees

“Better Call Saul” (AMC) – A tremendous prequel-of-sorts to “Breaking Bad” that somehow managed to meet many of the expectations that we had going in. Specifically, we would put “Hero” and “Five-0” as episodes up against almost anything that the original Vince Gilligan series did in terms of quality.

“Empire” (Fox) – The populist effect will ensure that the show gets nominated, but it also deserves it based on pure entertainment alone. It’s so well-written and acted that even if you don’t like the music, you’re still probably going to be compelled to keep watching to see what happens with Cookie and Lucious Lyon next.

“Justified” (FX) – A final season that is truly deserving of every bit of love that it gets. Walton Goggins gave a sensational performance one last time as Boyd, and what we give Graham Yost the most credit for here was coming up with a way to end the show that was satisfying, and at the same time a complete surprise.

“Mad Men” (AMC) – One of the finest shows ever ends in a strong way. While it has won the overall prize before, we are still completely stunned that it has yet to receive any major acting honors from the Television Academy. Maybe this will be the year for Jon Hamm?

“Outlander” (Starz) – One of the boldest shows that we’ve seen make it to the air. Ronald D. Moore has managed to adapt a book series that is extraordinarily complex, and has made it appeal to an even wider audience that the source material. Beautiful scenery, strong performances, and also some of the most controversial material that we’ve ever seen in this medium. You can tell that these people put their all into this.

“Sons of Anarchy” (FX) – Yes, it’s probably a longshot given the lack of Emmy love that Kurt Sutter’s motorcycle opus has received over the years … but that doesn’t change that the final season was epic and sensational, culminating in a final two episodes that were an almost-constant cavalcade of tears and heart palpitations.

Honorable Mentions – “Game of Thrones” (HBO), “The Knick” (Cinemax), “Halt and Catch Fire” (AMC), “The Americans” (FX)

Photo: AMC