CarterMatt Awards 2017: Aaron Korsh, Emily Andras, Ronald D. Moore, Peter Lenkov up for Favorite Showrunner

What makes a great showrunner? Perhaps more so than any other category at the CarterMatt Awards the Favorite Showrunner award has a loose definition. Having a great show is obviously a part of the criteria, but if we were judging this award solely on the shows themselves there’d be no point in a separate category at all. Therefore, we designate Favorite Showrunner as this: The person behind the scenes who goes the extra mile to either make their show great or show appreciation to their audience. These are people who do question-and-answer sessions in their free time, share teases behind the scenes, and understand the role and the passion fans have for their program. They are the engines that help to make their given shows great and they help to make the television viewing community a better place.

Below, you can see our staff picks for Favorite Showrunner, alongside all of the individual reasons why they were chosen. At the end of the article, vote for your favorite to win!

(Note: If you are on mobile and cannot see the poll, scroll to the bottom of the article and click to view the non-AMP version.)

Now, without further ado, let’s get to sharing the nominations.

Emily Andras, Wynonna Earp (Syfy) – For justification of this, beyond of course the fact that Wynonna Earp is an endlessly entertaining show, just look at Twitter any night that the series is on the air. Andras is actively live-tweeting, answering questions, and offering fun commentary on the episodes. She’s also interactive in the offseason, attends fan conventions, and understands the amount of love every single fan has for the show. She never takes that for granted.

Bryan Fuller and Michael Green, American Gods (Starz) – Given the recent news of their departure from the series, this nomination is a little bittersweet. Nonetheless, you can’t take away the impact that these two producers had on the brilliant, vibrant Starz drama the entirety of season 1. Not only did they recreate Neil Gaiman’s wonderful world into a new thing of beauty, but they helped to turn every single episode into an interactive viewing experience with behind-the-scenes tidbits.

Derek Haas, Chicago Fire (NBC) – Even when Chicago Fire is not on the air you can still count on Haas, (one of the architects of the entire One Chicago franchise) to answer questions from fans or share a few behind the scenes teases. He’s a wonderful ambassador for every ChiHard out there with questions about the show and has a commitment to making it the best that he possibly can. He took on even more duties here in season 6 and Chicago Fire hasn’t skipped a beat.

Courtney A. Kemp, Power (Starz) – Nobody creates a multi-episode arc quite like Kemp and the entirety of the Power team; while we get nervous watching any show around the finale, she makes you nervous to watch almost any episode of this show. She does a stellar job making the show and then also an equally-great job of providing insight and information on each episode during the season. We found some of her behind-the-scenes videos put out by Starz to be some of the most informative out there.

Aaron Korsh, Suits (USA) – It’s fair to say that the past year has been an eventful one for Korsh, in between plotting out a new spin-off for his show and dealing with a lot of news items. It’s not often one of your cast members is preparing to enter the Royal Family! Through it all though, Aaron has continued to produce great television on USA and continues to have a great rapport with many of his fans. Some of his Q&As on Twitter are a personal favorite just on the basis of his sense of humor alone.

Peter M. Lenkov, Hawaii Five-0 and MacGyver (CBS) – Lenkov is the reigning champion in this category and for good reason given that he’s probably one of the hardest-working men in television. He successfully runs two shows that are each winning their respective time-slots, and somehow finds the time to be interactive along the way. To think, he’s a man currently working on his third show at the moment in Magnum PI, as if he could somehow be any busier! He’s a great writer and responsible for creating some of the most entertaining television out there; yet, it somehow feels like he still doesn’t get the credit he deserves, even as the reigning champ of this category.

Joseph Mallozzi, Dark Matter (Syfy) – Joseph deserves a substantial amount of credit not just for everything that he did to try to save Dark Matter after its cancellation, but also everything he did beforehand. He would answer questions on Reddit, he was active doing interviews, and he would share all sorts of great teasers and tidbits on Twitter. He helped to create a wonderful community around his space saga, one that was brilliantly creative and, like another great series in Firefly, not properly appreciated until after its end.

Ronald D. Moore, Outlander (Starz) – With Moore, it’s almost more of a community effort. He is the architect who oversees everything and does a great job of speaking out about the show in-season; meanwhile, some of his fellow executive producers including Matthew B. Roberts, Toni Graphia, and Maril Davis work to oversee parts of production while also interacting with fans and sharing a bevy of insight into how the show is made. We’re not sure that there is another show out there who has this many producers who work this hard not just to make the show, but also to celebrate it. That influence comes from the top.