--- description: The Golden Globes still have room for surprises. But they're pleasantly credible, from Issa Rae to Riley Keough. title: TV Has Changed. The Golden Globes Almost Get That image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbf5af09c76fc0774/6988b2932dce0118a99ebb13/golden-globes-2016.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Entertainment](/section/entertainment/) ## Entertainment Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # TV’s Mainstream Has Changed. The Golden Globes Almost Get That  by [Daniel D'Addario](/author/daniel-daddario/)  ## Daniel D'Addario Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Dec 12, 2016 2:48 PM CUT  Issa Rae (Insecure), Riley Keough (Girlfriend Experience), and Kerri Rusell (The Americans) Issa Rae (Insecure), Riley Keough (Girlfriend Experience), and Kerri Rusell (The Americans)Jeffrey Mayer—WireImage/Getty Images, Valerie Macon—AFP/Getty Images and Neilson Barnard—Getty Images  by [Daniel D'Addario](/author/daniel-daddario/)  ## Daniel D'Addario Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Dec 12, 2016 2:48 PM CUT With a slate of right-down-the-middle picks, the TV nominations from the [Golden Globes](http://time.com/4597608/golden-globes-nominees-2017/ "undefined") are the last thing I expected: As close to consensus picks as any set of nominations from such a sprawling medium could be. Best Drama, for instance, features three genre shows with massive fanbases (Netflix’s [_Stranger Things_](http://time.com/4473961/stranger-things-season-2-plot/ "undefined") and HBO’s _Game of Thrones_ and [_Westworld_](http://time.com/4590307/westworld-finale-review/ "undefined")), as well as a beautifully if stodgily made series that seems designed to pick up awards (Netflix’s [_The Crown_](http://time.com/4557482/the-crown-review-netflix-queen-elizabeth/ "undefined")) and a major hit from broadcast TV (NBC’s _This Is Us_). Three of the five Best Comedy nominees (ABC’s _Black-ish_, Amazon’s _Transparent_ and HBO’s _Veep_) are already standbys at the generally much less risky Emmy Awards, and the fourth (FX’s _Atlanta_) will likely be so once it becomes eligible. Only another nomination for Amazon’s _Mozart in the Jungle_ serves as a reminder of how wildly wooly the Globes were as recently as last year. That, after all, is when the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (the group of international entertainment reporters who bestow the statuettes) decided to follow their bliss more fully than ever before, seeming to put a general taste for staying _au courant_ ahead of sanity. _Mozart in the Jungle_, a quirky charmer, was among many shows that felt nominated more in order to make a statement about streaming services’ new primacy than _strictly_ on their merits; it won the Best Comedy prize, which felt like a choice so far-fetched as to be not really worth debating. The Golden Globes still have room for surprises, but they’re pleasantly credible. In Best Actress in a Comedy, for instance, Issa Rae of _Insecure_ is among the nominees—a richly deserved honor for a show that seemed, at times during its first-season run, a bit undersung. _The Girlfriend Experience_‘s Riley Keough is a fantastic nominee for the Best Actress in a Limited Series category—and a nominee the Emmys, which ignored her, may have been too conservative to contemplate. Other nominations, like the one for _Graves_‘s Nick Nolte—a famous actor appearing on a show few are likely to have heard of, let alone seen—show that there’s still the impulse toward honoring stars. But this impulse is less pronounced than the show’s impulse to follow the Emmys’ lead in certain fields, nominating _The Americans_‘ Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell for the show’s fourth season only after Emmy did the same this summer. Basically any set of nominees for TV awards could seem reasonable, just as two critics’ top 10 lists for the year might credibly mention, between them, 20 shows. What’s interesting about the Globes’ nominees is quite how respectable they are—that they generally defaulted toward what critics and other awards-giving bodies would otherwise ratify. That may be because the Globes are finally growing up. It may also be that shows about synthetic cowboys and spirits who communicate through Christmas lights and a world where Justin Bieber is a young black man—shows risky enough to tickle the HFPA’s sense of themselves as risk-takers—are actually part of the mainstream now. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4597663/golden-globes-tv-nominations-2017/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4597663/golden-globes-tv-nominations-2017/"},"headline":"TV’s Mainstream Has Changed. 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