TV Thursday 6/4/26: The Unsung Performance Awards

Many of my favorite shows rarely if ever get recognized during awards season for any reason. This is probably because many of my favorite shows are under-watched comedies that get cancelled too soon. (This is probably even more pronounced in movies, because at least the Emmys separates comedy and drama performances; comedy performances rarely win Oscars, especially nowadays.)

So I am going to use today’s column to highlight some of my favorite performances from the TV season, i.e. the Emmy eligibility season (June 1, 2025 – May 31, 2026). Since I’m trying to highlight unsung performances, any performer who’s been nominated before won’t appear here, never mind anyone who’s won before (sorry, Hacks). I’m trying to highlight not only the kind of performances that never win, but the kind of shows that never win— comedies that don’t have the audience buzz or that je ne sais quoi of Prestige that leads to Emmy consideration. In fact, many of the awards here will be for shows that didn’t have much of an audience at all and probably got canceled. And some of them will reference previously canceled shows with the performer, as well. (I realized once I started that if I just limited myself to new shows and performers, I wouldn’t have enough to do. And as I say that, I’m sure I forgot someone.)

Without further ado:

Best newcomers

Taylor Dunbar and Georgie Murphy, Stumble

While I had a lament about unjustly canceled shows just a few weeks ago, Stumble is the one among them that I feel was most unjustly canceled, strongest from start to finish and with the most room to grow. That was certainly in significant part due to the cast; Jenn Lyon (English Teacher and Justified, among others) and Taran Killam are no strangers to our TVs, and while Kristin Chenoweth is only recurring, she obviously needs no introduction.

But nearly all the cheerleaders are relative newcomers, and their performances bring real three-dimensional qualities and unique quirks to each character, but two in particular from performers I’d never heard of before really made their characters sing.

Georgie Murphy plays Sally, one of the actually college-aged cheerleaders on Courteney’s Heådltston State Junior College team. Sally is the least skilled of the team at first, but Courteney selects her anyway after learning what her life is like. Sally’s relentlessly positive and optimistic attitude makes for a great bleak-comedy contrast with the objective reality of her life: an orphan raised in a series of foster homes¹, working at the candy button factory (apparently the town’s biggest industry, and also the kind of place that frequently emits clouds of brightly colored smoke that can’t be good for your health), and living out of her car. Her life is so bad that Courteney and Boon take her in for a few months until she’s ready to move into the dorms. Despite such awful circumstances that have kept her from so much of the world (her favorite movie is Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls, and it may be the only movie she’s seen²; she didn’t even know of the existence of Ace Ventura: Pet Detective), Sally never loses her cheer and chipper spirit. Murphy’s performance nails the tone required here, big eyes and constantly smiling, not at all in denial about the events of her life but simply lacking any context that life could be better. A very funny character in a very funny show.

Dunbar’s Peaches might be my favorite of the cheerleaders, if for no other reason than I dig criminal behavior, but probably as much as anything because she may be the most complex and multifaceted of the cheerleaders. Anyway: Peaches is a Heådltston local whom Courteney encounters trying to burgle her car. But Peaches’ getaway athleticism and ability to do backflips intrigues Courteney, so she recruits / blackmails with a promise not to press charges Peaches onto her team. Peaches is a kleptomaniac who is frequently in and out of jail (all the cops in town know her) and frequently wearing an ankle monitor when she isn’t, but she’s also very athletic, and Courteney offers her a chance to… well, I don’t want to go so far as “change her life,” but maybe “find thrills in something that isn’t crime.” (Also, her nickname comes from the time she brained a girl with a can of peaches.)

The very premise of the character leads to great comedy; having someone on the show who is regularly picking pockets or getting arrested or what have you makes for great background gags— and in one case actually ends up being significantly plot-relevant. (Another fun wrinkle to the character is that Peaches is very intelligent; we find out during finals week that she’s doing by far the best of any of the cheerleaders in her actual classes, which she tries to keep Courteney from letting people know lest it ruin her reputation.) Peaches also gets a couple of showcase episodes, and Dunbar can nail the reality of the character as a full person, not just a vehicle for jokes, giving real pathos to the dramatic side of her story, like her family life and what she wants out of life.

Stumble was Dunbar’s first seriously professional production, having just graduated Julliard last year and having only a couple of short films to her name before then. She’s got terrific presence that can steal the scene even when she’s trying not to be noticed— perfect for a pickpocket and all-around thief like Peaches. I don’t think I’d put her on the same level as Elizabeth Dulau’s intensity and presence in Andor, but Dunbar is a similarly compelling presence and certainly gave the newcomer performance that came closest. I look forward seeing her in many more things.

I lead with them because of all the performances I mention in today’s article, I think they were my favorite. And if they weren’t, well, they were the primary inspiration for even writing this article in the first place.

Best scene-stealers I already knew could steal scenes

Eric Rahill, The Paper

Bobby Moynihan, The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins

I first took notice of (and probably first told you all about) Eric Rahill as the scene-stealing champion of Let’s Start a Cult, and I can’t really top Lauren’s description of his performance as Tyler in that movie— “perfectly balances his deep strangeness with an obvious conviction of his own normalcy.” Travis in The Paper is slightly more grounded, but still has that Rahill confidence and conviction in obviously ridiculous and unimportant things. His character might not be quite as funny as in Let’s Start a Cult, but then, neither is The Paper; he might be more of a comedy highlight here.

It’s not as pronounced as it was in Mr. Mayor, but on that show, Bobby Moynihan shocked me by being the funniest performance in it— in a cast headlined by Ted Danson and Holly Hunter, no less. He was the show’s secret MVP. He isn’t quite that in Reggie Dinkins, whose five and a half leads³ are all solid to great, but as Rusty, Reggie’s former teammate, best friend, and permanent resident of Reggie’s basement, Moynihan brings a weirdness that the other relationships to Reggie can’t replicate. Ex-wife, fiancé, son… these are pretty normal relationships. (All right, maybe “British Oscar-winning director trying to bounce back from a meltdown with a documentary” isn’t that normal, either.) But the lack of familial bonds— or perhaps more accurately, responsibilities— mean Rusty can say all sorts of inappropriate things (“Finding you a new dad. …Or… something casual to bounce on”), pop up for a wild-card role in any plot with any character, and generally get the strangest behavior on the show (if not always the strangest lines), despite the show starring Tracy Morgan. Ooh, daddy!

Worst luck coming stateside

Harriet Dyer, DMV

Dyer is a quite funny comic actress whose current project, Colin From Accounts, which she co-created and co-stars in with her real-life husband Patrick Brammall (No Activity) should be well underway with production on season 3 as I write this. The unfortunate part is that it is her only current project as far as I know, and of the last five years, the only one to even get a third season.

Dyer has in those five years also been a main cast member (and virtually the lead among equals, or at least the audience entry point) to two American network sitcoms, NBC’s American Auto and CBS’s DMV. Both sitcoms were very good, but unfortunately, both suffered from the same malady as well: Shaky starts (roughly the first half of each show in this case— American Auto‘s first season and DMV‘s first half-season before winter break) which significantly improved in the second half, but at a point where the network wasn’t putting any effort into promoting the show anymore and had already given up. American Auto was cancelled after season two; DMV‘s cancellation was announced with six episodes yet to air in season one.

Hopefully this doesn’t discourage her from continuing to try, because both those shows were quite good and she was quite good in them. At least, we’ll probably get the next season of Colin From Accounts late this year or early next.

Best voice casting replacement

Dan Stevens, Solar Opposites

I guess this really happened several seasons ago, but this was the show’s final season, so the opportunity will not again present itself to mention Stevens replacing Justin Roiland as Korvo.

Unlike Rick and Morty finding actors who sound like Roiland’s performances to replace the titular characters, Solar Opposites didn’t even bother to do that, as Stevens just gives an incredibly pompous British-accented performance that sounds nothing like Roiland’s. However, it is a very fitting voice performance for the uptight Korvo, who is constantly trying to keep the Opposites on mission, despite Terry’s love of trashy American culture, Jesse’s interest in becoming cool and popular at school, and Yumyulack’s continued shrinking and enslaving people in the Wall.

Stevens’ performance made me forget Justin Roiland ever voiced the character. I haven’t heard a British actor have this much fun going bananas on an animated show since Patrick Stewart on American Dad!

Best performance by a Jury Duty season 1 cast member

Mekki Leeper, St. Denis Medical

I first became aware of Leeper in his role as Noah in season 1 of Jury Duty, the naive, innocent, possibly Mormon⁴ rideshare driver who is blind to his girlfriend’s infidelities. In St. Denis Medical, he plays a naive, innocent nurse, raised in what most of us would think of as a religious cult (or whatever you call cults when they’re large enough to be taken as legitimate) in Montana, now finding himself practicing medicine in the big city of Portland.

Leeper’s Matt has been central to the show’s storytelling, as among the ensemble, he has the most to learn and potentially the most room to grow. Matt comes in as a very naive and sheltered young man, with his interest in medicine prompting him to leave his cult for nursing school, and St. Denis being virtually his first exposure to the outside world. Sometimes Matt’s education in the real world is brutal (he gets a nasty but necessary lesson from a patient early in season 1), sometimes his naivete blinds him to how people are really behaving to him (Bruce’s arrogant self-regard, Chaplain Steve just being an asshole). Sometimes it leads to hilarious character comedy, as when Serena explains labor relations to him through A Bug’s Life, which turns him violently militant against Joyce in one of the funniest C-plots of the TV season.

And in the case of the show’s will-they-won’t-they, it also works, as Matt’s attraction to Serena is eventually returned. The two are an ideal opposites-attract pairing for how they complement one another: Serena, the former travel nurse and party girl, is drawn to Matt’s fundamental decency and reliability, and her worldliness and general savvy about people are a great balance for Matt’s innocence and trusting nature.

So much of it relies on Leeper’s ability to convincingly portray the contradictions of being from a sheltered religious community that doesn’t believe in modern medicine and wanting to be a nurse, to portray the growth of someone whose upbringing has left him behind and who’s trying to catch up, who’s still innocent enough to take most people at face value. He’s one of the best parts of St. Denis, which is frankly no small feat considering the talent in the cast, including TV comedy titan David Alan Grier.

Best performance by a Jury Duty season 2 cast member

Alex Bonifer, Jury Duty Presents Company Retreat

How would Jury Duty top its season-one concept of an ordinary man selected to serve in a jury trial, who believes they’re filming a documentary about the case… except that everyone except him— the other jurors, the judge, both sides of the case and their counsel, everyone he counters along the way— is an actor, and this is all a setup?

By getting even more ambitious and creating a fake hot-sauce company going on a company retreat, with decades of company and relationship history behind it. Rockin’ Grandma’s Hot Sauce is having their annual company retreat, and “Kevin,” the head of HR, needs a temp for the week for the retreat, where founder “Doug Womack” is planning to retire. Anthony Norman is our average-joe non-actor who fills the temp role for the week and gets dragged into all kinds of shenanigans, from a botched proposal to a disastrous client event to an attempted corporate takeover.

Bonifer plays Dougie Jr., the founder’s son. He hopes to inherit the company from his dad, but he hasn’t exactly given Doug much reason to believe he can run it, giving how much of his time he seems to have spent fucking off in Jamaica and attempting to start a band… which I think is part reggae-inspired, but maybe there’s some rap-rock in there? Among other things.

Bonifer has to walk a fine line with Dougie Jr., because he has to both be ridiculous enough that you can see why Doug wouldn’t want to leave the company to him, but be sympathetic enough, have good intentions and enough of a talent for hot sauce, that you empathize with him and with Anthony’s attempts to help him along. That includes some on-the-fly adjustments: Some of Dougie Jr.’s personality and character traits were adjusted to be more like Bonifer’s, after he discovered that his natural personality really clicked with Anthony.

Another favorite of mine: Rachel Kaly as Claire, the IT worker who typically works remotely and has until now been tying to avoid having to deal with everyone else in person, and exhibits the social skills one might expect from that. (She also develops a crush on Elizabeth, the Triukas CEO, until she finds out she doesn’t really know the difference between different types of crabs.)

The TV Schedule

Decided to check out Widow’s Bay. The pilot was all right, but I wish I’d made time to watch the first two episodes together, because the second episode was much funnier, which is more what I’m looking for.

Hacks wrapped up its run, and it’s the kind of show where I may have thoughts that expand to a future column.

The Four Seasons is a show I decided one night while I was On One to stay up drinking tequila and binging the entire first season. I have not had the opportunity to do that for the new season.

Rick and Morty season 9 is pretty solid through two episodes. We’re never getting back the highs of the earliest episodes, but at the same time, “clever ideas for sci-fi stories that move quickly and to extremes and are lots of fun” is a great model for storytelling. And so far the season has been more about that than family dramas or mythology arcs (although Evil Morty does make an appearance).

Next week

Beats me! Hopefully somebody else is writing.

What did you watch?

1. “I’ve had nine sets of foster parents, so I know the drill. The second you get comfortable, unpack your things, boom, house gets raided for being a cult, and you never see your shower shoes again.” ↩︎
2. “I’ve seen it at least 500 times. It was the only movie they had when I lived at the Y. It’s actually why I’m minoring in pet detection.” ↩︎
3. I don’t think Carmelo (Jalyn Hall) is in every episode, hence the half. But if he is, then this can be the “half” like how it is in the title of Two and a Half Men. ↩︎
4. I don’t remember if he is or not, but I do remember that soaking comes up. ↩︎