Unscientific Predictions For The 2016 Emmys

Recently there has been a trend of predicting football games using unscientific methods. Blind goldfish, uninformed grandmothers and “expert” opinions have been cited as prophecy for who will win the sports game. This Sunday will be the 68^th Primetime Emmy Awards Ceremony.   Deciding who is the “Outstanding Lead Actor” is decidedly less scientific than which team can score the most points on a field with specific rules and referees. Today, we turn to some of the more unconventional ways of predicting Sunday’s Emmy winners.

Outstanding Drama Series — Nostradamus’ Prophecies

The outstanding drama category is full of tinfoil nuts, conspiracy theories and corseted drama queens. This category naturally leads itself to Nostradamus and his elaborate prophecies. For years, readers have interpreted and reinterpreted Nostradamus’ words. One way to profit off the “prophet’s” words is to use his quotes as a guide.   The great seer once said:

“A great war shall burst forth from fishes of steel. Machines of flying fire.”

Obviously, according to Nostradamus, Game of Thrones will win the Emmy in this category. The quote speaks of Valyrian Steel and machines of flying fire, which I can only assume are dragons.

Outstanding Comedy Series — Rhapsodomancy

This year’s field for the outstanding Comedy series is full of sassy, unique women (Veep and The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt) families at different levels of contention (Transparent, Modern Family and Black-ish) and hipsters (Master of None and Silicon Valley.) The category might be too close to call, that is if you use the more conventional means. Rhapsodomancy is when you pick a random line from an important text to help give you insight into the situation. Using the bible seems sacrilegious, so I used Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing In America (a choice that would make Thompson cuss in the most eloquent way.) As you can see, Thompson refers to Washington D.C. which can only be interpreted as a win for Veep in this category.    

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series — Anthropomancy or Spaghetti Noodles

For the most part, this is a battle between Kevin Spacey’s performance in House of Cards and Rami Malek’s hooded character in Mr. Robot. There are a lot of options for who could win, but there is only one way to decide. In ancient times, people would read the “entrails of dead and dying men.” That sounds way too messy. So I read some spaghetti noodles instead. If you look closely, the noodles say “ooooodcoollooo,” but if you read even closer you can catch a faint “robot” in the pasta. It might be an upset, but the starches have spoken.  Mr. Robot it is.

Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series — Pet Talents

It has been said that pets can predict when tornados and earthquakes are coming. Let’s see if pets can predict if a troubled CIA agent, murder professor, sassy felon, numerous clones, soviet spy or an asymmetrical dress-loving first lady wins this category. I had my dog Blue weigh in on this question. He was like my very own Punxsutawney Phil. He wasn’t very helpful, but it seemed like he leaned toward Keri Russell’s performance in The Americans.  (Most likely because of Keri's outfits in the series...woof.)

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series — Twitter Followers

Part of the criticism of the Emmys is that the show selects winners based on popularity and who can rally the votes, rather than who is actually the best talent. For this category, I chose to look at who has the most twitter followers to identify who would win the pointy-globe-holding-statue. Jeffery Tambor was automatically ruled out because he doesn’t mess with Twitter. Will Forte was the last man on the Twitter list with his 155K followers. Anthony Anderson, Thomas Middleditch and William H. Macy (surprisingly, who knew he tweets!?) are all runners up. According to the little blue-winged prophet, Aziz Ansari will win on Sunday. This might be the prediction that I feel most comfortable with.

Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series — Gut Feeling

All of this is hogwash. Even the awards themselves are kind of silly. It is all relative. But, if I had to go with my gut, Julia Louis-Dreyfus will win and should win. She makes a disgustingly terrible president likable and funny on Veep. She is gorgeous and grotesque. She makes you forget Elaine from Seinfeld and miss her all at the same time. She deserves to win, even though The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt’s theme song is fire.