It is award season once again and the various Star Trek Universe shows are picking up some more nominations, with the latest for Lower Decks and Discovery.
Lower Decks nominated for Annie Award
On Tuesday the International Animated Film Society announced nominations for the 50th Annual Annie Awards recognizing the year’s best in the field of animation. Star Trek: Lower Decks was nominated for Best Editorial for the season 3 finale episode “The Stars at Night.” The editors nominated were: Andy Maxwell, Zach Lamplugh, Brandon Brocker, Paul Mazzotta. They are going up against editors from Amphibia, Green Eggs and Ham, Karma’s World, The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse.
This is the second Annie nomination for Lower Decks. In 2021 composer Chris Westlake was nominated for Outstanding Achievement for Music. The Annie Awards are scheduled for a live event on Saturday, February 25 at UCLA’s Royce Hall.
Here are the 2023 Nominees for Best Editorial – TV/Media! Congrats to the Editorial Teams at @DisneyTVA @netflix @TitmouseInc @CBSTVStudios @bad_robot @AppleTV! #annieawards #50thannieawards #besteditorialtvmedia pic.twitter.com/lXkgvenMWB
— AnnieAwards (@AnnieAwards) January 17, 2023
Lower Decks was nominated for Best Animated Series by the Critics Choice Awards, but on Sunday the show lost out to Harley Quinn.
Discovery nominated for GLAAD and NAACP awards
Today GLAAD, the world’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) media advocacy organization, announced the nominees for the 34th Annual GLAAD Media Awards, honoring media for fair, accurate, and inclusive representations of LGBTQ people and issues. Star Trek: Discovery was nominated for Outstanding Drama Series. It is going up against 9-1-1: Lone Star, Chucky, Good Trouble, Gossip Girl, Grey’s Anatomy, The L Word: Generation Q, P-Valley, September Mornings, and The Umbrella Academy.
This is the fourth year Discovery has been nominated for this award, winning it last year for season three. The GLAAD Media Awards ceremonies will be held in Los Angeles at the Beverly Hilton on Thursday, March 30 and in New York City at the Hilton Midtown on Saturday, May 13, 2023.
The #GLAADawares nominees for Outstanding Drama Series are…@911LoneStar, @ChuckyIsReal, @GoodTrouble, @gossipgirl, @GreysABC, @SHO_TheLWord, @PValleySTARZ, September Mornings, @StarTrekOnPPlus, @UmbrellaAcadhttps://t.co/07Z07rBYqc pic.twitter.com/ZsmqgQtsef
— GLAAD (@glaad) January 18, 2023
And last week the NAACP announced the nominees for the 54th NAACP Image Awards, honoring artists committed to equality, justice, and progressive change. Star Trek: Discovery was nominated for Outstanding Costume Design in film or television. The Discovery team nominees are: Gersha Phillips, Carly Nicodemo, Heather Constable, Christina Cattle, Sheryl Willock, and Becky MacKinnon. They are going up against costumers from Emancipation, The Woman King, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, and A League of Their Own.
This is the first Image Award nomination for Discovery. The Image Awards will be broadcast on Saturday, February 25th on BET.
Congratulations to #StarTrekDiscovery, nominated for Outstanding Costume Design at the #NAACPImageAwards! #FYC #StarTrekFYC pic.twitter.com/0t06aXuyQi
— Star Trek on Paramount+ (@StarTrekOnPPlus) January 14, 2023
Keep up with news about the Star Trek Universe at TrekMovie.com.
Congrats to both shows on their nominations i hope they both win.
This is the fourth year Discovery has been nominated for this GLADD award, winning it last year for season three….(NAACP Image Awards), Stat Trek Discovery, Emancipation, The Woman King, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, and A League of Their Own.
Wow, DSC is up there competing with some major projects — congrats to Kurtzman, SMG, etc.
But another loss for LDS, this time to Harley freaking Quinn? Seriously? My son tells me that cartoon is lame. This is getting embarrassing that LDS can never get a win, no matter how obscure the Award is and how painless the competition is.
Hmm. It’s getting a bit petty the way you keep putting down Lower Decks for not winning awards it’s nominated for. I imagine if anyone from the show was reading this they’d find that more spiteful than genuine criticism of the show. I think it’s below the belt.
In any case, losing a Critics Choice Award for best animated series is not on the same level as getting nominated for having LGBT+ characters while being a drama or putting diverse progressives in nice clothes. I assume your son isn’t a professional TV critic and I’ll remind you acclaimed shows like Primal and Bob’s Burgers also lost to Harley Quinn, which I also have not seen. It’s often better to lose a high profile nomination than win a less prestigious one.
Well said.
Yeah i totally agree with Ian here.
To say the Critics’ Choice Awards are “obscure” is absolutely ridiculous UpperDecks. They’re literally one of the most prestigious awards in film and tv, and for film specifically they’re given a lot of respect as they’re the most accurate predictor for Academy Award winners. And LDS lost in it’s category which was Best Animated Series, that means it was against shows from every genre not just Sci-Fi or comedy. The fact that it was nominated as one of the best animated series of the year is incredible.
I should remind you here while you’re uplifting one show just to dump on another one that DISCO has only ever received nominations from the Critics’ Choice Association within the Critics’ Choice Super Awards, which is an adjacent awards that recognise genre fiction like fantasy, sci-fi, blockbuster and action productions. And it couldn’t win within a best sci-fi show category, never mind never having been considered for a best drama series nomination. Can you imagine it ever going up against Better Call Saul of House of the Dragon? LOL.
The Annie awards are one of the top honours for Animation too. You literally cannot be doing better if you’re being nominated by these associations for best series, period.
I’m also not sure why you congratulated SMG for the NAACP Image award for Costume Design. What has she got to do with that?
Why is there even a mix of film and tv productions within that one award for costume anyhow? That’s crazy given the resources and budget that something like Wakanda Forever would have over the Costume department on DISCO, not very fair tbh and I can’t imagine it will win against that particular behemoth.
BTW I’m glad for Disco’s nominations from awards that specifically focus on diversity and representation, no pun intended.
OK, this response is for both you and Ian. And thanks for responding!
Obscure or not, it’s been three years and still Lower Decks has never gotten over the hump and won ANY public award. It’s getting a bit embarrassing now given DSC has won multiple awards now. I mean it’s like Lower Decks is the Susan Lucci of Star Trek. ;-)
BTW, please don’t take me uber-seriously me on this…just need to see one freaking win someday, right?Show me one freaking win someday for Lower Decks and then I won’t have fun with this. :-) …just need to see one freaking win someday, right?
PS: DSC has won a lot more than diversity awards… try TWO freaking EMMYS!!!
This is Star Trek we are talking about. It is notoriously difficult for a Trek show to be nominated let alone win an award from the biased Hollywood elite. Even TNG lost it’s outstanding dramatic series emmy nod in it’s final year.
But not so much with the broad set of awards like the Saturn, World SF convention, others.
I just want to see one single award for Lower Decks….”show me the Quan” Lol
Again, I mainly just am amused by this and having fun with LDS’s “like a poor marksman, he keeps missing the target” futility thing on these awards — don’t take me too seriously, please. :-))
Well, Lower Decks IMO isn’t even close to ending its run so it may still happen!
In all seriousness, I think it’s bound to win something eventually.
It’s kinda more Mean Girls than fun I think, but you do you.
Regardless, you can’t put an animated comedy series on the same level as a live action drama. There’s a reason only 1 animated film ever got a Best Picture Oscar nomination before the Academy created a Best Animated Film category as a consolation. It’s not merit, it’s inherent bias – animation is a more niche field which lots of people don’t weigh the same way they do live action. The Simpsons never got a look in for best comedy in its heyday, and didn’t even get nominated for Best Animated Comedy for some of its best seasons. Pixar films didn’t get Best Picture nods until the field was opened to more than 5 films. The live action Trek shows are eligible for a host of technical and creative Emmys that Prodigy and Lower Decks aren’t, simply because they are animated.
And yet even with all of that, Lower Decks has received the top Hugo and Critics Choice nods it could have gotten, awards that are based on the show’s writing, acting, technical merit and directing as a whole. I just think some perspective is called for before we wave around a Discovery win for Best Makeup as if that’s comparable. It’s possible to be happy for both without trying to belittle the other’s impressive achievements on a stacked playing field.
Great post, so true about the bias against animation as a medium. The Oscars history was a great bit of context too.
It’s a bias against animation as well as against comedy. There’s a common way of thinking that almost trivializes making people laugh and deems that less meaningful than making them sad. When it comes to the actual craft, doing the former is way way harder. But time and again outstanding and meaningful comedies and their actors get passed over for top awards.
Dude, I just want to see one freaking win on some award….just one freaking win. Even a neighborhood homeowners association or a high school science fair award would be something at this point…lol
Get back to win when the series wins ANYTHING. ;-) And if another year goes by without any awards, then I am going to create a Star Trek convention drinking game about this…lol
Dawnn Lewis got a Women’s Image Network Award for Outstanding Actress in an Animated Program in 2021. That will have to do if that’s the only barometer of success to date. But I don’t think there’s anything for the show’s makers to be embarrassed about about when it comes to its awards nominations and wins.
In defending Lower Decks, you’re dumping on Discovery. You are literally doing what you are calling UpperDecks out on.
For me, it really comes down to, show me what you have actually won?
…which is still weird to me. It’s like saying Voyager was all-around better than DS9 because it won more technical Emmys. It’s just objectively harder for an animated Trek show to get nominated for a best series award from a prestigious organization than it is for a live action Trek show to win technical awards, and ignoring that context is obtuse IMO.
You are conveniently ignoring the fact that it’s been nominated quite a number of times for a number of awards, but it’s never been able to get over the hump for a win — that’s what I’m talking about. So an Objective person would logically conclude that it’s not thought of highly enough in any category it is nominated for to ever get a win – so far. Fact!
That’s twisted logic that ignores how great an achievement it is to get nominated by these organizations for THE TOP AWARDS. An animated comedy got a Hugo nod and a Critics Choice best series nod.
If awards prestige really means that much to you, I would think that being nominated for the really big awards that recognize holistic efforts (writing, directing, acting, production values) but not winning them would count for as much as winning awards for VFX, costumes, makeup and diversity.
Speed (a movie I do of course love) won 2 technical Oscars in 1995 and The Shawshank Redemption came away with 0 wins out of 7 nominations, including Best Picture, Actor, Director and Screenplay. Does this mean no one thought highly of The Shawshank Redemption? How is that logical to assume?
Let’s just leave this alone, it’s a petty thing for you to be stubborn about.
Well let’s leave it alone until the “Susan Lucci of Star Trek series” actually freaking wins ANYTHING. LOL And dude, I’m just having fun with this — it’s just amusing to me.
Oops, sorry if that came across like that, it wasn’t my intention.
The point I was trying to get across was that Trek shows are often recognised in the “best series” category by genre awards bodies that focus on sci-fi or fantasy productions like the Saturn Awards or the Hugos, and that when DISCO was nominated by the Critic’ Choice Awards it was relegated into their Super Awards and not the main ones. And even still it had a hard time winning against other productions because it’s Star Trek, nothing to do with the quality. My comment was in relation to UpperDecks calling the Critic’ Choice Awards obscure but my point was that those awards are really prestigious, and LDS nomination is one of the only times a Trek show has escaped the genre award bodies and gone up against other shows as a best series contender, which is a big achievement. Like when TNG was up for an outstanding drama series Emmy in its final season, and not just a best sci-fi series award.
My comparison to Better Call Saul of House Of The Dragon wasn’t me saying it was too bad to go up against them, it was me saying that it would never even be considered for it because it is a Trek show and it’s almost impossible for any Trek show to be considered for “best series” categories outside of specifically sci-fi awards because of the inherent bias that exists against the franchise because of the genre it’s in.
I think I should’ve worded it differently but Trek, in whatever form, getting recognised at all is a great thing and as I said in another post hopefully it means the continued success and expansion of the franchise as a whole.
Let’s fly … to a world with more equality, justice, progressive change, and inclusive LGBTQ representation that is fair and accurate.
WELL SAID !!!!!
Congrats on both shows, it’s great that every new Trek show has been racking up the nominations in various awards, technical and otherwise. I hope that bodes well for the continued expansion of the franchise.
Same!
Nice! It’s always great to see Trek shows get acknowledged. Not a huge Discovery fan in the least but I think both of those nominations are well deserved. It’s representation and inclusion is one of its biggest positives.
And I’m always proud of Lower Decks being acknowledged. :)
Oh yeah my Lower Deckers getting recognized! Sweeeet!
Discovery is hohum but cool. too!
If Star Trek Obscene Decks is nominated for any award. I have lost a lot of faith in humanity.