81st Golden Globes: From Succession To Beef, Revisit The Biggest Winners

This column was originally published as part of our newsletter The Daily Show on January 9, 2023. Subscribe here. (We're awesome about not spamming your inbox!)

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THE 81st Golden Globe Awards were held with great fanfare by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association on 7 January (Monday morning, the 8th, for us here in India), to honour the best film and American television productions of 2023. The glitzy ceremony, held at The Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, California, officially kicked off the awards season that will reach its zenith with the 2024 Oscars. In the spirit of celebrating some truly exceptional films and shows, we're doing a rundown of the Globes winners and nominees, and what OTTplay's critics had previously said about some of these. We began with the films in our previous edition. Here, we’re looking at TV shows.

SUCCESSION

WINNER -

Best TV Series – Drama

Best Female Actor In A TV Series – Drama (Sarah Snook)

Best Male Actor In A TV Series – Drama (Kieran Culkin)

Best Supporting Male Actor In A TV Series (Matthew Macfadyen)

NOMINEE -

Best Male Actor In A TV Series – Drama (Jeremy Strong)

Best Male Actor In A TV Series – Drama (Brian Cox)

Best Supporting Male Actor In A TV Series (Alan Ruck)

Best Supporting Male Actor In A TV Series (Alexander Skarsgård)

Best Supporting Female Actor In A TV Series (J Smith Cameron)

“TV’s best show has reached the stage of biblical insight and artistic bravado. It’s the nastiest, most well-written series on television or streaming, at least this side of the 2010s. It can’t fail. Even bad Succession episodes — which don’t exist — are the best thing out there,” our columnist Manik Sharma enthused in a piece anticipating 2023’s most eagerly awaited show. And in an essay that explored how this season handled the end of a prominent character, Sharma analysed how Succession, like other HBO shows, brought death to stellar life. (Read: ‘Death Comes As The End’)

You may also enjoy this piece we published on our sister site, Slurrp: 'Yo, What's Up Ancient Grains?' And Other Food-Themed Insults From Succession

BEEF

WINNER -

Best Limited TV Series, Anthology Series Or TV Movie

Best Male Actor In A Limited TV Series, Anthology Series Or TV Movie (Steven Yeun)

Best Female Actor In A Limited TV Series, Anthology Series Or TV Movie (Ali Wong)

In a review headlined ‘Netflix's Beef & The Romantic Tension Of Rage’, our critic wrote: “Most fictional couples who meet in unusual circumstances tend to discover and feed off each other. They spur one another on to greater heights, whether professionally or personally, until the conflict of feeling too much (sometimes) tears them apart. That’s how the stories go. But the anti-couple of Beef, Danny (Yeun) and Amy(Wong), are defined by the perverse gratification of punching each other to achieve success – and ‘improve’ – at all costs.”

Read it here.

THE BEAR

WINNER -

Best TV Series – Musical Or Comedy

Best Female Actor In A TV Series – Musical Or Comedy (Ayo Edebiri)

Best Male Actor In A TV Series – Musical Or Comedy (Jeremy Allen White)

NOMINEE -

Best Supporting Male Actor In A TV Series (Ebon Moss–Bachrach)

Best Supporting Female Actor In A TV Series (Abby Elliott)

When the critically acclaimed show returned for its sophomore season, OTTplay columnist Joshua Muyiwa took stock of its progress, announcing: “In Season 2, The Bear Simmers, Scorches & Sears”.

“The Bear in its second season is still strong writing, acting, camerawork and editing that comes together superbly; it satisfies and satiates. It continues to show us the incredible hard work that goes into making something great, and it still gives us the room to wonder if the price is really worth the payoff,” Muyiwa concluded.

For a deeper dive, read this essay by our critic: ‘The Bear's Necessities: Grief, Genius & Our Stories Of Self’. You may also like this think-piece published on our sister site Slurrp: ‘Kitchen Confidential: How The Bear Captures Intimacy Of Cooking Spaces’.

THE CROWN

WINNER -

Best Supporting Female Actor In A TV Series (Elizabeth Debicki)

NOMINEE -

Best TV Series – Drama

Best Female Actor In A TV Series – Drama (Imelda Staunton)

Best Male Actor In A TV Series – Drama (Dominic West)

In his review of The Crown’s Season 6 (‘A Long & Hearty Goodbye To Television Royalty’), our critic Rahul Desai mused:

“Over time… the series has come to be defined by a sense of repetition and familiarity. A narrative deja vu. The odd show-stopping episode or character aside, there has been an inbreeding of themes. The closer the series has gotten to the 21st century, the harder it has gotten to process the individualism of its setting. Every season is steeped in the same conflicts: Tradition vs modernity, insider vs outsider, death, succession, royal existentialism. The generational trauma comes like old wine in newer bottles: Stubborn fathers, resentful siblings, fragile sons, rueful lovers, tragic outliers.”

Read it here.

THE DIPLOMAT

NOMINEE -

Best TV Series – Drama

Best Female Actor In A TV Series – Drama (Keri Russell)

We had a less-than-glowing review for The Diplomat, with our columnist announcing: ‘You Won't Get Wholly Attaché-d To Keri Russell's Netflix Drama’. “Five years after The Americans, Keri Russell is back on our screens in Netflix’s The Diplomat. Is it the best ambassador for her prowess though?” he wondered. Read here.

THE LAST OF US

NOMINEE -

Best TV Series – Drama

Best Female Actor In A TV Series – Drama (Bella Ramsey)

Best Male Actor In A TV Series – Drama (Pedro Pascal)

HBO's series broke the curse of bad video game adaptations, and our critic was here for it:

“What stays most with those who have played The Last of Us video game is not necessarily the gameplay (rudimentary, but functional for its purposes) or the visual designs (great, but nothing groundbreaking), but the emotionally charged storyline and the well-developed characters. And at the heart of it are Joel and Ellie, and their evolving relationship. Playing the game felt akin to being punched in the gut again and again, until you were unsure whether your eyes hurt from staring unblinkingly at the screen in fear and shock, or the crying; all leading up to one of the most memorable endings of all times. This worked both in favour of, and against, any successive adaptation attempts.”

Saving The Best For The Last (Of Us)

TED LASSO

NOMINEE -

Best TV Series – Musical Or Comedy

Best Male Actor In A TV Series – Musical Or Comedy (Jason Sudeikis)

Best Supporting Female Actor In A TV Series (Hannah Waddingham)

“The thing about Ted Lasso,” our critic wrote in a deep-dive on Season 3, “is that it acknowledges — and celebrates — the innately human tendency to use humour as a front for pathos. Most stories reflect the real-world habit of employing comedy as an escape. The silence and sighs are often buried by the laughs. But what makes Ted Lasso unique is that the escapism is inextricably linked to the truth. The jokes are never too far from the sobriety. The comedy of existing is connected to the tragedy of being.”

Read: ‘The Tragicomedy Of Ted Lasso’

You may also want to check out this op-ed that analyses Ted Lasso and another Globes nominee, Shrinking, through the angle of therapy: ‘How Apple TV's Shrinking & Ted Lasso Couch Therapy’.

JURY DUTY

NOMINEE -

Best TV Series – Musical Or Comedy

Best Supporting Male Actor In A TV Series (James Marsden)

‘Don’t Sleep On This Satire,” our reviewer exhorted, adding: “Jury Duty isn't just laugh-out-loud funny; it is also tender and hopeful.”

ONLY MURDERS IN THE BUILDING

NOMINEE -

Best TV Series – Musical Or Comedy

Best Female Actor In A TV Series – Musical Or Comedy (Selena Gomez)

Best Male Actor In A TV Series – Musical Or Comedy (Steve Martin)

Best Male Actor In A TV Series – Musical Or Comedy (Martin Short)

Best Supporting Female Actor In A TV Series (Meryl Streep)

In a review for its third season, our contributing writer Prahlad Srihari asked: ‘Does Only Murders In The Building Secure Its Three-peat?’ “The answer's both yes and no,” he concluded. “Yes, largely because we get more Martin Short, more jokey namedrops, more zingers with sting. No, because the whodunit, for a second straight season, feels like an afterthought — an extra serving of dip to go with the meal, rather than the meal itself.”

DAISY JONES & THE SIX

NOMINEE -

Best Limited TV Series, Anthology Series Or TV Movie

Best Female Actor In A Limited TV Series, Anthology Series Or TV Movie (Riley Keough)

Best Male Actor In A Limited TV Series, Anthology Series Or TV Movie (Sam Claflin)

Reviewing the Amazon Original for OTTplay, our contributing writer Harsh Pareek didn’t have many compliments to spare. Here’s an excerpt from Pareek’s lowdown:

The who: A standard issue cool gal and a basic band who join forces to fight any spark of imagination.

The what: A soup of clichés.

The when: The year of our Lord 2023, but also the '70s (and many other years and decades in between).

The where: The TV on Jeff Bezos' yacht.

The why: Because nostalgia is the new sex.

The how: The same way babies are made.

Read it here: ‘School Of Crock’

FELLOW TRAVELERS

NOMINEE -

Best Limited TV Series, Anthology Series Or TV Movie

Best Male Actor In A Limited TV Series, Anthology Series Or TV Movie (Matt Bomer)

The smouldering romance between Jonathan Bailey and Bomer found its way onto our critic’s list of ‘The 10 Best TV Shows Of 2023 That You May Have Missed’. Read about it here.