Best of 2012: ‘Sons of Anarchy,’ Jennifer Carpenter, ‘Community’ top readers’ picks
Almost for the entire month now, readers have been coming to Cartermatt.com to vote for some of their favorites for the Best of 2012 Awards that spans everything from comedy to drama to even reality and the world of late-night. To put it in just a few words, the response has been fantastic. Our goal in introducing a public vote this year was to present a real sort of readers’ choice devoid of any slant or bias, and we are thrilled with some of the results that have come in.
If you are looking to see some of our own individual picks, we are going to have those in exactly one week from today. On this occasion, this is all about the readers. You can click on each category to view all of the individual nominees, and why they were selected to begin with.
Best Late-Night Escape – This was our only tie of the voting, but shared honors go to “What What Happens Live!” and “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” which each carried 28% of the vote.
Best Underrated Show – “Community” may not have a major Emmy award, but it at least has this! With just under 35% of the vote, the NBC comedy took down some worthy competition from both broadcast and cable. The most interesting part of this was that the series defeated “Sons of Anarchy” (27.2%) here, only for that show to pick up an even more prestigious award later.
Most Disappointing Show – This is probably the most interesting vote of the entire awards this year. “Gossip Girl” won with 35%, but much of this was sent in prior to the show’s series finale on Monday. Would this have changed? We will never know. Both “Jersey Shore” and “The X Factor” had 20%, and they were tied for second place.
Worst Show of the Year – Congratulations, “Jersey Shore”! You may not want this trophy, but you’ve truly “earned it” for the terrible final season that was bad even from the standpoint of the show’s fans. The reality show carried it home here with 43%, and nothing else was even close.
Best New Show – This was easily the closest race out of any this year. It only won with 27% of the vote, but congratulations to The CW’s “Arrow” (25%) for defeating “The New Normal” (22.7%), (“The Newsroom” (15.9%), and “Scandal” (15.3%) in taking home the title of the best new product TV has to offer.
Breakout Star – Voters often appreciate characters who are either evil or in a morally gray area … or at least this is how we are explaining away the results here. Alfie Allen of “Game of Thrones” is your winner with 43% of the vote, doubling that of “The Walking Dead” villain David Morrissey.
Best Reality Star – This was a very good two-person race between “Big Brother” runner-up Dan Gheesling and former “Bachelorette” Emily Maynard … but unlike his show this past summer, Dan won! With 45% of the vote, he misted away such competition as Honey Boo Boo, “Survivor” champ Kim Spradlin, and Si Robertson of “Duck Dynasty.”
Best Comedic Actor – Who doesn’t love Amy Poelher? This race was fairly close, but the “Parks and Recreation” actress eked out a win over “Community’s” Danny Pudi, and scored about 40% of the total vote.
Best Dramatic Actor – One of the themes we saw from voting patterns this year was that nominees who often do not get the respect they deserve ended up winning here by large margins, and this is precisely what happened with Jennifer Carpenter. With almost three-fifths of the total vote (the biggest victory of the entire awards), the “Dexter” star dominated with a season 7 performance that was easily Emmy-worthy.
Show of the Year – Almost as if it was on a motorcycle itself, “Sons of Anarchy” completely ran around with this one with over half of the vote, a testament to how devoted these fans are for a show that is frequently snubbed without much of an explanation. “Game of Thrones” and “Homeland” also performed well, in finishing second and third in the voting.
Congratulations again to all of the winners!