‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Nominated For 2 Emmy Awards

This morning the the Television Academy announced nominations for the 70th annual Emmy Awards and Star Trek: Discovery was honored with two nominations.

Star Trek: Discovery was nominated for Outstanding Prosthetic Makeup (Series, limited series, movie or special).  The specific episode nominated was “Will You Take My Hand?” Discovery will be going up against American Horror Story: Cult, Game of Thrones, The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story, and Westworld.

The nominees from the Discovery team are:

Glenn Hetrick, Special Makeup Effects Department Head
James Mackinnon, Special Makeup Effects Department Head
Hugo Villasenor, Special Makeup Effects Artist
Rocky Faulkner, Special Makeup Effects Artist
Chris Bridges, Additional Makeup Effects Artist
Shane Zander, Additional Makeup Effects Artist
Neville Page, Prosthetic Designer
Michael O’Brien, Prosthetic Designer

Actress Mary Chieffo, with 2018 Emmy nominees for Star Trek Neville Page and Glenn Hetrick (Photo: Robert Hanashiro, USA TODAY)

The other nomination Discovery picked up was for Outstanding Sound Editing For A Comedy or Drama (One Hour). The specific episode was “What’s Past Is Prologue.” Discovery is going up against Game of Thrones, Homeland, Stranger Things and Westworld.

The nominees from the Discovery team are:

Jon Mete, Supervising Sound Editor
Tim Farrell, Sound Designer
Chris Assells, Sound Editor
Matt Taylor, ADR Editor
T. Ashley Harvey, Dialogue Editor
Angelo Palazzo, Sound Effects Editor
Peter D. Lago, MPSE, Sound Effects Editor
Chris Scarabosio, Sound Effects Editor
Matt Decker, Music Editor
Trevor Sperry, Foley Artist
Ale Ulrich, Foley Artist

Episode 13 nominated for sound editing

CBS was hoping for more

CBS has made a concerted this year with a For Your Consideration campaign for Star Trek: Discovery, including an elaborate mailer, online videos, social media, outdoor campaign and multiple events. They were hoping to see the show recognized in some of the more prestigious categories, including acting. So, it must be a bit of a disappointment for the show to only pick up two nominations, with those being in in “Creative Arts” categories. For comparison, Game of Thrones picked up 22 nominations, with Westworld close behind with 21. On the other hand, it could have been worse. Our adopted show The Orville didn’t receive any Emmy nominations.

Cast and crew of Star Trek: Discovery at a Los Angeles Emmy FYC event in June

Nominations in technical or “Creative Arts” Emmy categories have been common in Trek history, including Makeup and Sound Editing. Common past nominated categories that Discovery didn’t pick up include Visual Effects, Hairstyling and Costumes.

Over its long history the Star Trek franchise had picked up a total of 155 past Emmy nominations, with 34 wins. Over that history there have only been three seasons of live-action Star Trek with only two nominations in any given year: the second season of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and the second and fourth seasons of Voyager. The most nominations a show has ever received in a given year was ten, for Star Trek: The Next Generation for seasons four and seven.

Star Trek: The Next Generation holds franchise record for most nominations

Star Trek-inspired episode of Black Mirror gets 7 nominations

The Netflix sci-fi anthology series Black Mirror has always been a critical darling and award winner, including two previous Emmy wins. This year the Black Mirror episode “USS Callister,” which was inspired by Star Trek, was nominated in seven categories including Outstanding Television Movie, Outstanding Lead Actor for Jesse Plemons and Outstanding Writing.

Black Mirror’s homage to Trek picked up seven nominations

For more information and a full list of nominees, visit emmys.com.

The Creative Arts Awards ceremony will be held September 8th with the main Emmy Awards ceremony coming on September 17th.

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Best they could expect, I think; two nominations in the technical categories. Much as I enjoyed it in a pulp kind of way, Discovery hasn’t yet offered any real competition to the heavyweights from HBO, Fox etc.. Hoping for more was a case of delusions of grandeur..

Absolutely correct.

Indeed. Hopefully we will see an improvement in all respects in the 2nd season, as we have seen in other ST series.

That’s the fact, sad to say. Had the season ended with the bang the producers had promised, things might have gone differently.

The emmys don’t work that way, they typically look at the specific episode that the studio submits for consideration, not the series as a whole.

So well said dprescott. As a hard-core Trek fan, I have to admit, it just doesn’t stand up against other shows. I find myself getting more excited about The Vikings and other ‘fill the gap’ shows as I wait for more Game Of Thrones, than I did Discovery. Pretentious, style over substance, I just found I didn’t care.

Pulpy! You so right! That is the best word to describe season one

Congratulations for the nominations, but they should have figured that it was a big ask to push for emmy’s in other categories. Hopefully in the upcoming seasons they can improve and the show will be more Emmy and award worthy in general.

Yeah, I commend them for spending the time and money to push the show though. I don’t think Star Trek has ever had this much of a promotional effort behind it to get awards/nominations.

Only TOS and the last season of TNG were able to get attention outside of the technical awards.

I know advertising is important in the current climate but my opinion on this is not as positive as yours, I personally think that if your show is good enough it will already generate enough of a buzz for awards consideration, you won’t need to push so hard for it. The fact that they were pushing almost too hard (a little bit like begging to be honest) for awards made me think that perhaps they were not too sure about the show themselves.

Maybe you’ve never lived in L.A., but at awards time the LA Times gets twice as thick as normal with “For Your Consideration” ads.

Heh! And before that I thought nominations happened strictly on merit, innocent lamb that I was

Actually no, I’ve never lived in America. I think my way of thinking comes from being a teacher, because I always look for the student with the merit, instead of the one that tries to advertise themselves too much but in the ends fails most of the courses. Now of course it would be the best if there was both merit and ads at the same time, but so far I haven’t really seen this in my experience. Well, I am probably one of those rare guys that still believes in absolute honesty, that’s why I hate ads and politicians.

I am such a loyal, ardent Trek fan but watching this ‘Trek for modern television’ left me feeling nothing. Walking Dead has me on the edge of my seat, Game Of Thrones has me jumping up and down in excitement, Orange Is The New Black has me howling with laughter and crying with empathy – what has Discovery brought to the table in way of writing? A convenient ‘bomb under the planet’s surface’ device to end a series long war story arc. Insulting. I wish I could say this to the Discovery production team’s faces – ‘As shows go, you are average, as Trek shows go, you won’t deliver on continuity or visual canon, so you faill on that front too, you have an advantage most shows don’t have and you fail on both counts. Be embarrassed and stop blowing your own horn.

I have to agree with regard to the bomb under the planet. It’s a cheap and not particularly believable resolution to the Klingon war arc.

To each there own personally I can’t make it through an episode of walking dead, or game of thrones.

Oof. Rough day for Discovery. At least it’s done well for itself elsewhere.

I’m glad Westworld continues to garner such praise, because it needs to remain a critical darling in light of its less-than-stellar ratings. Not that HBO relies on live ratings whatsoever, but it’s fair to presume the lower viewership live translates to a probable drop across the board.

Congrats to Game of Thrones. My favorite show since DS9. <3

Not bad for the first session. The competition is pretty thick. Hopefully they’ll take the two nods as encouragement and keep building from here.

So, no Emmy’s for Discovery this year…I like the show but it has a long way to go before it’s competition for those nominated for best drama this year.

Jason Isaacs was probably a shoe-in for a nomination, until they turned him into a one-note heavy and absolutely ruined his character.

Shazad Latif was also really good and probably deserved some recognition as a supporting character; he really made me feel for his character’s plight and even though all signs pointed to him being a Klingon from the getgo, I kept hoping it would not be the case. That tells me he did a good job.

Beyond them, I really can’t say any of the performances were worthy of recognition. Sonequa Martin Green was far too stiff and wooden and Doug Jones just reminded me too much of a Sheldon Cooper imitation a lot of the time.

I agree with you on Isaacs and Latif, but Martin-Green, too stiff?? Wooden?? This criticism of her acting never fails to baffle me.

I’ve would’ve been legitimately surprised if DISCO had gotten any writing/acting nods. Neither were great.

I’ve disagreed with the TV Arts and Sciences Academy before… But if they nominated anything in STD (Perhaps apart from Lethe) then everyone who can vote should have that privilege removed. Something I’ve never said even when I thought they made a bad choice.

I have to agree. That would’ve been a tall order. Acting, maybe, but writing? No, sorry and I like the show.

Two more than TWIN PEAKS, how ridiculous … at least they were shut out from VFX.

Peaks actually got 9 nominations. It deserved even more.

Thanks for catching that Brian — that’s what I get for basing my info on the comments section of another site. Maybe now Variety will revisit the idea of running my interview with TP’s cinematographer Deming since he did get a nom.

Darn, I thought Disco had a real shot at Outstanding Comedy Series. It was at least as funny as GLOW.

We just blew through both seasons of GLOW in the last ten days, and I gotta say, I was seriously entertained and impressed. I think the writing on the show is just exceptional, balancing a lot of storylines and characters while also addressing other concerns without hitting viewers over the head about it. I do think Alison Brie took off too much weight before starting this, and my wife is convinced she shaved her nose down too, but these are pretty tiny pickings to complain about. As opposed to DSC …

Congrats to the DISC crew. And they’ve got more to strive for next year!

That’s about what I expected. It did seem like CBS was looking for more but let’s be honest. Anything in the main categories, the categories that are revealed on the prime time ceremony was a true pipe dream. As a fan, I like The Orville as being a better show than STD and I think the number they got was appropriate. And even though STD is a lesser show, their production values, I’m forced to admit, are pretty top notch. It’s just that the writing and plotting were what dragged it down.

ML31, you’re right, great production values, and as mentioned further up some great actors… but all let down by often crummy writing. To use an analogy, we have a formula 1 sports car here, that’s using lawn mower fuel.
If they’d found their own City on the Edge of Forever, I think yes,this show could have won a main creative Emmy nomination.

One might conclude that Discovery is right at home in the family of CBS schlock. Most of their nominations are for specials, variety, or reality shows (or technical categories). They got a single nomination for drama acting or writing – American Vandal on Netflix, best writing for a limited series – a show that was co-produced by CBS Studios. But All Access did snag another nom, for best song, courtesy of THE GOOD FIGHT! #CushJumbo

(I wasn’t including subsidiary Showtime- which could’ve been the home for Discovery, if they truly wanted to be taken seriously among the Thrones & Westworlds & Atwood. They also might have had a decent streaming service if they had married All Access to Showtime, but I digress.)

Congratulations to the creative team for being nominated in two technical categories.

I’m disappointed that Jason Isaacs wasn’t nominated for supporting actor, though, since I thought he was absolutely riveting every time he was on screen.

He was… Until we found out he really wasn’t. Then he just became a joke. A joke that was on the viewers, too.

I was very disappointed too, but there was that dreadful end to Lorca’s character, in Episode 12 and 13. Oh look! a villain! He did even that bit well, but Isaacs was really great in earlier episodes.

Some of you are really as bad as Star Wars fans… anyway, for it’s FIRST season, I say congrats to Disco. Just means they have time to grow and reach harder for other recognitions. I recently rewatched TNG season 1 and found myself laughing and the ridiculousness of it. Put down the pitchforks and the snark and see what happens going forward. This, is why we can’t have nice things.

Ah, the old “because TNG was awful in S1, we can excuse Discovery for being poorly written in its first year” argument.. It’s a constant source of argument here ;-). Gotta say TV was a lot less polished 30 years ago.!

Yes, DPrescott. That is logic that just doesn’t work. The new show may improve, but using the TNG example does not even suggest the show will improve. Different writers. Different producers. Different era or TV for gad sakes! If you want to use that analogy then you may as well blow off the first 3+ seasons of STD as TNG had nearly twice as many episodes per season that STD has. Far more time to make course corrections than STD has.

Completely agree. I always say that no one hates Star Trek as much as Star Trek fans.

That’s true. It’s one thing to make fun of Star Trek for a non-viewer’s perspective, but only a Trekkie really knows how best to rip the franchise to shreds.

In our defense we’re still not as bad as Star Wars fans lol. I don’t think any of us has driven actors to quit twitter or convinced them to give up acting altogether because how much fans hated them…at least not yet. I’ll wait until DIS second season to see if we manage to hit that dubious achievement. ;)

Thomas, that’s why I’m a TrekkER.
Constructive criticism. Not ripping stuff to shreds.

I actually wouldn’t call it hate, that is a strong word, I think we just want to have the absolute best product that can be produced with the Star Trek name and if this doesn’t happen, then we just criticize the parts that we don’t like. At least I do. I know there can be extremes in all fandom, but you shouldn’t judge and label everyone the same. I personally only want the absolute best product Star Trek can give and I haven’t had that with Discovery yet, but I am patiently waiting for season 2 and hope and believe that it can still improve.

I’m a lifelong Trekker, but have to admit both the TV shows and movies have almost always lurched between the incredibly great to the (occasionally laughably) poor, from one week (or movie) to the next. It seems consistency is just too much to ask for. I’m with you on this Alphantrion, we just want a great show.

The balance is incredibly delicate though.

For me, it’s all about acting, writing, sets and costumes. For others, it’s all about the tech. How do the ships look, what about the VFX in space.

There are many different aspects to Trek, and what’s important to one fan isn’t nearly as important to another, as long as *their* particular wants are satisfied.

I totally agree. I am a lifelong Trekker as well. I saw the very first episode on its original air date in 1966 and not many fans know which episode was first.
I am blown away with Discovery.
The millions of nuances that make each episode is mindboggling. I was disappointed that CG effects and Ms Green were denied nominations. That said I am anxious for season 2

There’s a real life Matt Decker in that list of nominees :)

I was so tickled to see that name in Disco’s end credits, Luke!

Surely I am not the only person thinking outside the box on this next suggestion. If I am, I claim it. How about a Star Trek spying sitcom maybe? Call it “Keeping up with the Cardassians”.
Just saying.

The shuttlepod podcast a short time ago mentioned this as a possibility. A show about lower level crewmembers who are aware of the stuff going on around them but are not really a part of it. Done for laughs. I thought it would be a good idea. Especially as part of a STEU.

Way too many criticisms here!!!
A true Trek fan who has seen every episode, cartoon and movie would offer suggestions to improve situations. Consider first that Discovery really isnt a television show. It is a subscription based production, a subscription not everyone will subscribe to. Discovery did certain things that they could not do on a broadcast format. Didnt the rest of you notice? They had actual human reactions. They boldly went where no Trek had gone before. Overall, quite cool.

Yes, expecting the c bomb in season two. If not a c bomb then definitely a full frontal wilson bomb ;-)