2016 Golden Globes: ‘Hannibal,’ Sam Heughan, Caitriona Balfe, ‘Undateable’ among reader picks

Over the course of the past several weeks, over a million votes have been cast in our CarterMatt – Golden Globes series, and we’re pleased now to be presenting the reader picks one day before nominations for the actual show are announced by the Hollywood Foreign Press.

In doing this series for the first time (we’ve been actively doing it for years with the Emmys), our hope was simple: To bring some more attention to shows that are worthy of awards recognition and may not always get it. There’s no tangible prize for getting the most reader votes on the site, but we like to think that these sort of online polls facilitate discussion and get more buzz out there. Maybe seeing some of these shows get so many votes will inspire someone, regardless of if they’re an awards-show voter or not, to sit down and check a program or two out that they wouldn’t otherwise. If that happens, a goal has been achieved; it’s exposing more people to great TV.

These results are as of the official closing of the pools at noon Pacific time on December 9. While some polls may remain “open” on their respective pages, they will no longer qualify for our announcement. The official nominations are coming starting at 5:15 a.m. Pacific on December 10.

(One quick asterisk before we get to the winners: Since we had not seen “Luther” or “Transparent” at the time we began conducting these polls, we could not gauge their quality and include them for consideration.)

Drama Series – “Hannibal.” By far, the most contentious race this year. We saw plenty of passion from multiple camps, with the canceled NBC show and “Outlander” leading the charge. Why the strong “Hannibal” support? We chalk it up to two things: The show is absolutely stellar, and awards attention really matters to a show hoping to continue its story someday.

Drama Actor – Sam Heughan, “Outlander.” In another showdown with “Hannibal” (namely, Hugh Dancy), this time the Starz series and Sam scored the top spot for a brilliant, at times gut-wrenching performance.

Drama Actress – Caitriona Balfe, “Outlander.” We could’ve predicted the race coming between Balfe and Gillian Anderson of “The Fall,” but the woman behind Claire Fraser took home the reader title with an impressive 54%.

Comedy Series – “Undateable.” We praised the show for having a brilliant cast and injecting new life into a creative / unpredictable format, and the fans followed in giving it a landslide victory over most of the competition.

Comedy Actor – Dwayne Johnson, “Ballers.” It’s a little bit of an upset as Johnson, who isn’t being mentioned by many critics other than us, throttled his next-closest competitor Joel McHale by more than 5%.

Comedy Actress – Ellie Kemper, “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.” One of our closest races, as Kemper won by around 2% over Emma Roberts (“Scream Queens”) for this brilliant Netflix comedy.

Limited Series / TV Movie – “Fargo.” We didn’t think that there would be any doubt here; the only thing more surprising would be if UFOs were to suddenly show up. (Hey, it’s a timely “Fargo” reference!)

Limited Series / TV Movie Actor – Colin Farrell, “True Detective.” We weren’t sure where this would fall given the polarizing nature of season 2, but Farrell won handily with more than 73% of the vote.

Limited Series / TV Movie Actress – Kathy Bates, “American Horror Story: Hotel.” This was relatively close, as she was able to beat out Kristen Wiig by about 5%. Now if only there was some sort of way to give her more air time on the show…

Supporting Actor – Tobias Menzies, “Outlander.” It was a fairly tight race throughout with Vincent D’Onofrio of “Daredevil,” but once again the “Outlander” fans reign supreme. Everyone else barely registered, and we’re slightly bummed out that Christopher Eccleston from “The Leftovers” couldn’t even muster 1% given his amazing work this season.

Supporting Actress – Mayim Bialik, “The Big Bang Theory.” Aided by some strong material in recent weeks, the actress behind Amy Farrah Fowler did enough to overtake Lena Headey of “Game of Thrones.” We’d be shocked if at least one of them is not on the ballot come Thursday.