Emmy Spotlight: Does Emmy Magic Thrive in ‘Elsewhere’

Jason Segel’s presence on film or television seems diminished over the past few years. He made a big spash on the festival circuit and with critics’ groups with his turn as David Foster Wallace in The End of the Tour. After that, he only made a handful of appearances, failing to live up to what I have long considered a strong talent. But perhaps he was hibernating and working on his newest project – AMC’s limited series Dispatches from Elsewhere.

If that’s the case, then it was time very well spent.

If you’ve seen David Fincher’s luridly underrated The Game, then you’ll mostly understand what’s going on in Dispatches from Elsewhere. It explores some of the same territory as a central character, riddled with malaise, embarks on a mysterious and potentially life-changing quest clue by clue. Now, don’t mistake me: the similarities between the two projects are really surface deep. Fincher’s underrated masterpiece is a taught Hitchcockian thriller made with cold steel precision. It’s up-ending of the rich man’s plight puts lead Michael Douglas in real danger. Elsewhere focuses on more relatable characters, and their quest never achieves a life threatening state. However, it allows for more intimate moments of character development and true flights of fancy. There’s magic in this limited series – one that, after the four episodes provided to critics – I’m completely in love with.

Segel provides the entry point into the story, based on the documentary film The Institute, as a developer ingrained into his every day mundane existence. I’m not even sure that the character truly realizes how awful his existence really is. Out of boredom-driven curiosity, he enters the Jejune Institute looking for… well, he doesn’t know what he’s looking for. Something different. Something new. He soon finds himself on a quest, joined by three players (Eve Lindley, Sally Field, and Andre Benjamin) dealing with their own emotional baggage. The entertaining series races from quest to quest, pausing for beautiful moments of real character development. It’s a game, yes, but it’s explores deeply human moments in compelling ways.

Dispatches from Elsewhere gets a lot right, but is it “big” enough to rise in the ranks of the typically hotly contested limited series race? That’s a tough question. Emmy’s most compelling award genre has recently been dominated by buzzy HBO series like Big Little Lies and Chernobyl. If it’s not HBO, then it’s Ryan Murphy and his FX product (we have his first Netflix limited series coming in May – Hollywood). It’s actually been since 2009 when a non-HBO or FX network won the category – PBS’s Little Dorrit. And that was before the Limited Series race was The Limited Series race, if you know what I mean. Many of the big Limited Series heavy-hitters are yet to be seen. AMC benefits by being the first out of the gate as we race to the end of the Emmy season. It just has to stick the landing to bring it home. It has to do more than that, actually. It has to be great beyond all argument.

There’s a stronger case for the performances in this actor-driven project, naturally created by an actor. Segel is strong, leveraging his amiable everyman face to portray a man completely lost in a soulless world. At first, I thought groundbreaking transgender actress Eve Lindley was cast in a role that didn’t reference her gender identity, and how great would that have been? Just to be cast as “the girl?” Instead, the series does frame her character as struggling to deal with her transgender identity, and Lindley is great in the role. She will compete against Sally Field in the Limited Series Supporting Actress category, though, and that’s going to be tough. They’re both great – Field, in particular, has an incredibly emotional arc in episode 3 that will bring the audience to tears amidst the technological marvel. But they’ll compete against each other, and likely cancel each other out I’m afraid. Based on the material I’ve seen, Lindley could stand in the Lead Actress race.

Similarly, Andre Benjamin and Oscar-nominee Richard E. Grant face off in the Supporting Actor race, but the outcome may be dramatically different here. Benjamin isn’t as well known as an actor, but he’s given a challenging role as an obsessive dancing the along the spectrum. He’s the skeptic, either afraid of embracing the magic or unable to believe in it. It’s a role particularly well suited to Benjamin’s eccentric personality. But Grant’s presence as our narrator and game master is kind of a landmark role for the actor. You literally cannot take your eyes off him. He 100 percent believes in this kind of ludicrous role and sells it to the audience. His is the meme-worthy presence in the series, and as such, he’s the most likely to be nominated.

But will the Television Academy embrace the series as a whole? It’s going to be an uphill climb to face HBO and its litany of Emmy and Oscar-winning stars. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t worthy. Dispatches from Elsewhere is a hell of a lot of fun, the kind of limited series that propels you from episode to episode. I can’t imagine a more appropriate nominee, based on what I’ve seen, than this.