‘Baby Reindeer’ Begins a Journey to Emmys Gold at Gotham TV Awards

The sun had not fully set in New York by the time that the inaugural Gotham TV Awards had concluded. Doling out seven competitive awards and three career honors in just under 90 minutes, Tuesday’s gala was a short and sweet affair that anointed Netflix’s surprise hit Baby Reindeer a full-fledged Emmys contender and spotlighted Colin From Accounts, an Australian comedy now streaming on Paramount+, by making it the only series with two wins.

Vanity Fair, an official partner of the Gotham Awards, was on the scene at Cipriani Broadway where stars including Riley Keough, Jake Lacy, and Susan Kelechi Watson mingled with the likes of Kristen Wiig and Walton Goggins, both present though they wound up losing in their respective acting categories for Palm Royale and Fallout. Goggins walked the red carpet while on break from shooting the upcoming third season of The White Lotus. “We’re filming it in Thailand. It’s very, very hot,” he told Vanity Fair of the starry production. “Everybody’s having the time of their life. It’s everything we hoped it would be.”

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The evening was bookended by appearances from the cast of Baby Reindeer: star and creator Richard Gadd, Jessica Gunning, and Nova Mau. Adoration for the trio was clear when they stepped onstage at the start of the show to present the first-ever Gotham TV Award. It went to Harriet Dyer, who won outstanding performance in a comedy series for Colin From Accounts. Her show went on to win breakthrough comedy series. Dyer dedicated both awards to her husband and series co-creator/star Patrick Brammall, whom she called the “other half of this show.” She noted that he was back in Australia taking care of their child, “because fuck the patriarchy”—drawing cheers from the crowd.

Baby Reindeer captured the event’s final honor, winning breakthrough limited series over contenders like The Sympathizer and Shōgun, which is competing as a drama series in the Emmys race. “I never thought in a million years that this dark, weird, messed-up show would have brought in this universal love that it’s received,” said Gadd, who thanked his parents for “messing me up enough to make me an artist.”

Flanked by his leading ladies, as well as series producers Matt Jarvis and Ed Macdonald, Gadd continued, “It’s weird that a show as messed-up as this has gone on to strike a chord with so many people. I think it speaks to the fact that I think a lot of people in the world are struggling right now. I don’t know much in the way of advice, but I do know that nothing lasts forever. So if you are in a rut, just keep going. Persevere, persevere, persevere and I promise you things will get better.”

Gadd lost outstanding performance in a limited series to Ripley’s Andrew Scott, whose award was accepted by show creator Steven Zaillian. Mr. and Mrs. Smith won breakthrough drama series, while breakthrough nonfiction series went to Jerrod Carmichael Reality Show. “Congratulations to everyone on network-sponsored travel,” Jerrod Carmichael quipped onstage. “Please get as much money from them as you can.”

But the Gotham TV Awards’ most lively speech was delivered by 3 Body Problem star Zine Tseng, who won outstanding performance in a drama series. Lamenting the fact that she was “so sober,” Tseng said that the Netflix series marked her debut acting role, and that she was in New York City for the first time to attend this ceremony. “It smells like a big gas station,” she began. “Like danger and freedom at the same time.”

Like its namesake film awards, held in late November, the Gotham Film & Media Institute presented multiple career achievement awards. One went to Expats creator Lulu Wang, who shared that her series was made during the last days of her grandmother’s life. “The world got to know her through The Farewell, but after traveling the world with the film, and after the film completely changed my life, I couldn’t even go to say goodbye to her and I never got to thank her,” Wang said. “There was so much I didn’t get a chance to say and Expats became a meditation on grief and the humility of uncertainty.”

Mariska Hargitay, who has led Law & Order: Special Victims Unit for 25 years—making it the longest-running scripted drama in television history—began her speech by ruminating on her career trajectory. “I’m trying to take in what I had to do for you to ask me to get on this stage,” she said. “Twenty-five years on a TV show—that is a high bar, people!”

Hargitay acknowledged the importance of making a series “that tells women’s stories, that tells survivors’ stories,” adding, “This is a show about treating those who have been harmed with care and with dignity and with compassion and empathy and kindness after they’ve experienced some of the worst of what we’ve done to each other.”

The Crown creator Peter Morgan, whose own award was bestowed by series star Lesley Manville, recalled his initial pitch meeting to Netflix a decade ago. “I, for once, and I genuinely think the only time in my career, walked into the right room at the right time and actually pitched something people wanted to hear,” he said of the show, which aired its sixth and final season late last year. “Television is just not what television used to be. It’s extraordinary. I look at the other shows nominated here tonight—they’re all cinema.”

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