The Emmys could use a little more drama this year

Can LAX be fixed? That has to be a rhetorical question. If, as Megan Ryerson, the UPS chair of transportation at the University of Pennsylvania, believes, much of the traffic in L.A. is people going to and from the airport, then how much congestion is caused by people driving far out of their way to another airport — Burbank, Long Beach, Orange County, Ontario — just to avoid the hellscape that is LAX?

I’m Glenn Whipp, columnist for the Los Angeles Times, host of The Envelope’s Friday newsletter and the guy wondering how old (or young) do you have to be in order to feel confident that you’ll live to see LAX be “fixed.” Sixty? Forty? Still in your mother’s womb? While we ponder that, let’s look at the week’s news.

Emmy drama races will feature new faces — by default

I’ve written about the Emmy races for limited series and comedy, which brings us to drama. And if you think this is an instance of me saving the best for last, that’s not the case. Far from it. Thanks to production delays caused by last year’s strikes as well as the end of such Emmy-nominated perennials as “Succession” and “Better Call Saul,” this year’s lineup of drama series contenders is thin. The eventual nominees might not be the worst slate ever selected ... but it’s going to be close.

How bad will it be? That depends on whether you believe that there’s such a thing as guilty pleasures (hey, if you like something, why apologize?) or that pleasure can be found in hate-watching a series just to see how cuckoo it can get. With those stipulations in mind, I recently took a look at the Emmys drama landscape, which can charitably be described as “wide open,” for this year’s races. Because after “Shōgun” and “The Crown” (and, OK, “Slow Horses”), the pickings are rather slim.

Elizabeth Debicki as Diana, Princess of Wales, in “The Crown.”

(Daniel Escale / Netflix)

Comedy starts with ‘The Bear’ ... but don’t forget ‘Abbott’

“Abbott Elementary” threw one hell of a party to wrap up its strike-shortened third season, with Janine (Quinta Brunson) inviting her colleagues over for a micromanaged bash (hey, it’s Janine) that showcased why this delightful sitcom won the Emmy for casting a couple of years ago.

Putting all these people in the same room and watching their characters unleash their own brands of nerdy chaos — Barbara (Sheryl Lee Ralph) and Melissa (Lisa Ann Walter) enjoying some brown liquor, turning the former into Sea Barbara (“I am the captain!”) — was to appreciate that “Abbott Elementary” now belongs alongside such great workplace comedies as “The Office” and “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.” It’s even in conversation with them. You may remember that Mary Richards threw a (disastrous) party or two. And Janine and Gregory (Tyler James Williams) finally giving in to their feelings echoed the whole will-they-or-won’t-they Jim and Pam thing. And it was lovely!

“Abbott” won four Emmys for its first two seasons. In addition to that casting prize, Brunson won for writing and lead comedy actress, while Ralph took supporting actress for the show’s debut year. Not bad. But it still feels a little light. We’ll see how it fares this year against “The Bear,” the category’s overwhelming favorite, even with all the drama surrounding its comedy. Here’s an early look at the comedy races.

Potential comedy series nominees include, clockwise from top left, “Abbott Elementary,” “What We Do in the Shadows,” “The Bear,” “Only Murders in the Building” and “Reservation Dogs.”

(Photo illustration by Erica Bonkowski)

AFI tribute to Nicole Kidman coming to TNT

Nicole Kidman was feted in late April with the AFI Life Achievement Award, and the ceremony will finally land on TNT Monday at 10 p.m. PT with an encore presentation on June 27 at 8 p.m. PT on TCM. Meryl Streep, Reese Witherspoon, Morgan Freeman and Miles Teller were among those who came to the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood to pay their respects that night.

Before the ceremony back in April, I had a few conversations with Kidman revisiting “Birth,” a movie that has been reassessed in the 20 years since its release, a film emblematic of the risks she loves to take with her work.

“I just have an enormous amount of trust,” Kidman told me. “I will just go places and align with people and go, ‘Here I am. I’m yours. We’ll live and die together.’”

“Birth” premiered at the Venice Film Festival in September 2004. Reviews were mixed and when the movie opened the following month, audiences mostly stayed away. Today, it holds a firm place alongside the three other movies its director, Jonathan Glazer, has made — “Sexy Beast,” “Under the Skin” and “The Zone of Interest,” which won the international feature Oscar earlier this year — with Kidman’s performance now considered one of the best in a career full of superlative work.

“Movies that deal with uncomfortable subject matter will rarely be rapturously received because you’re dealing with things that don’t make people feel safe,” Kidman says. “They’re not a soothing bath.”

“Yes,” I agree, “and you’ve made a lot of movies that —”

“— are not soothing baths,” Kidman replies, finishing the thought, laughing. “They’re not lullabies.”

How does Glazer himself feel about “Birth” two decades on?

“I haven’t seen it since we made it,” he says. “But I do know it’s a film some people deeply connect with and that’s a gratifying feeling.”

Nicole Kidman stars as Anna in “Birth.”

(James Bridges / Fine Line Features)