The Directors Guild of America Awards has announced the nominees for outstanding achievements in television in 2017, and unsurprisingly Game of Thrones rules the roost. The HBO series nabbed three of the five spots available for Dramatic Series, with Stranger Things’ The Duffer Brothers and The Handmaid’s Tale’s Reed Morano scoring the other two slots. The Game of Thrones episodes singled out were the “Loot Train Battle” episode “The Spoils of War”, directed by Matt Shakman, the “Jon Snow and His Pals Go on a Suicide Mission” episode “Beyond the Wall”, directed by Alan Taylor, and the finale “The Dragon and the Wolf”, directed by Jeremy Podeswa. Taylor previously won this award for helming the Mad Men pilot.
Mindhunter is the most glaring omission here, as David Fincher got snubbed as all get-out after helming four of the show's 10 episodes. And Game of Thrones gets nominated for the wheel-spinning and uninspired "Beyond the Wall." Sure.
The streaming service fared well regardless, though, and it’s nice to see The Duffer Brothers recognized for their outstanding work helming the Stranger Things 2 finale “The Gate.” Elsewhere Scott Frank was nominated for helming all of Godless in the “Movies for Television and Miniseries” category, and Master of None scored two nominations for Melina Matsoukas’ “Thanksgiving” and Aziz Ansari’s “The Thief” in the Comedy Series category.
The film nominations come tomorrow, but for now peruse the major TV nominees below.
DRAMA SERIES
THE DUFFER BROTHERS - Stranger Things, “Chapter Nine: The Gate”
REED MORANO - The Handmaid’s Tale, “Offred”
JEREMY PODESWA - Game of Thrones, “The Dragon and the Wolf”
MATT SHAKMAN - Game of Thrones, “The Spoils of War”
ALAN TAYLOR - Game of Thrones, “Beyond the Wall”
COMEDY SERIES
AZIZ ANSARI - Master of None, “The Thief”
MIKE JUDGE - Silicon Valley, “Server Error”
MELINA MATSOUKAS – Master of None, “Thanksgiving”
BETH MCCARTHY MILLER – Veep, “Chicklet”
AMY SHERMAN-PALLADINO – The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”
MOVIES FOR TELEVISION AND MINISERIES
SCOTT FRANK – Godless (Netflix)
BARRY LEVINSON – The Wizard of Lies (HBO)
KYRA SEDGWICK – Story of a Girl (Lifetime)
JEAN-MARC VALLEE – Big Little Lies (HBO)
GEORGE C. WOLFE – The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (HBO)
DOCUMENTARY
KEN BURNS & LYNN NOVICK – The Vietnam War (PBS)
BRYAN FOGEL – Icarus (Netflix)
MATTHEW HEINEMEN – City of Ghosts (Amazon)
STEVE JAMES – Abacus: Small Enough to Jail (PBS)
ERROL MORRIS – Wormwood (Netflix)
For the full list of DGA TV nominees, including Comedy Specials and Variety, click here.
