CarterMatt Awards 2016 results: Matthew Gray Gubler of ‘Criminal Minds’ wins Underrated Actor

Over the past several weeks, we’ve seen hundreds of thousands of votes come in our annual CarterMatt Awards, which has been a really fun celebration of some of the best that TV has to offer over the course of the year. In what’s been a difficult year for so many people, this has been a nice way to see some enthusiasm, passion, and fun come from so many fans out there.

For the category of Underrated Actor this year we saw a lot of passion, but at the same time, we also had our first runaway winner of the awards this year in Matthew Gray Gubler from “Criminal Minds.”

In looking purely at the data from the voting this year, Gubler’s win was incredibly dominant, with more than 70% of the votes in his favor. Grant Gustin of “The Flash” was in second place with slightly over 18% of the vote, and the remaining candidates failed to register the same sort of overall enthusiasm.

In looking at why Gubler was able to take this home, we think that an episode like “Entropy” is a great jumping-off point for seeing everything that he brings to the table as Spencer Reid. He’s this incredibly-smart guy who uses his brain as his superpower, and we do think that there is a certain percentage of the audience out there that likes to look at him as a sort of intellectual superhero. If you add to this his resourcefulness and vulnerability, you’re building a character who is all the more complete and can do an incredible range of things. He’s someone who is very relatable, given that he’s far from perfect and has shown many emotional struggles over the years, with the most notable one involving his mother (Jane Lynch). We know that the former “Glee” star will be turning up on the show for the first time in years in 2017, which could easily given Gubler a chance to be a repeat nominee in this category. (We still somehow don’t think he’ll get the credit he deserves next year from the big awards shows, which is our main criteria for being nominated here.)

One other factor that we believe helped Gubler dominate this category is that he means so much more to this show than what you see on-screen. He directs episodes on a fairly regular basis, and in a time with so much flux on the show, his fans likely appreciate his presence even more than usual.

Gubler’s award follows up Hugh Dancy of “Hannibal,” who took home this prize in 2015.

Further congrats to Gubler and all his supporters! To see more categories and results for this year’s CarterMatt Awards, be sure to check out our official landing page over here.