MIKE BRADFORD

MIKE BRADFORD

Mike is a regular recapper of Days of our Lives for Soap Central. He has been a fan of Days of our Lives for nearly 20 years, but he also watches The Young and the Restless, The Bold and the Beautiful, and General Hospital on a regular basis. This is his fourth year as an official Emmy predictor for soapcentral.com.

Previous Predictions
2013: 4 for 8
2012: 3 for 8
2011: 4 for 8



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OUTSTANDING DRAMA SERIES

Days of our Lives
 
  From where I'm standing, it looks like this is Days of our Lives' race to lose. They submitted two really strong episodes, and -- quite brilliantly -- each episode revolves around one of Kristen's two failed attempts to marry Brady in 2013. Y&R's submissions might have the edge emotionally, but I remember thinking, at the time that those two episodes aired, that they could have been better. I think the weak link was the fantasy sequence that depicted what Delia's life might have looked like if she had survived the hit-and-run accident.

In any case, I think this is probably going to be a battle between Days of our Lives and Y&R, and I expect Days of our Lives to emerge victorious for the second year in a row -- something I never thought I would be able to say, given the way Days of our Lives has been shut out of the Emmys in the past.

Who will win: Days of our Lives

Who should win: Days of our Lives



Peter Bergman
OUTSTANDING LEAD ACTOR
Peter Bergman
Jack Abbott
 
  For the second year in a row, Y&R has dominated this category, and for the second year in a row, I find that domination annoying. But I digress.

Jason Thompson's reel just didn't do much for me, and voters who weren't familiar with the story probably didn't really understand what was going on until they were nearly halfway through the reel. With Y&R dominating this category, I just don't see any way for Thompson to stand a chance of winning the award.

Christian LeBlanc's reel was a bit too over-the-top for my taste, and I feel like Billy J. Miller's reel probably didn't resonate the way it was meant to with voters who weren't familiar with the story, since they might not have realized that Billy Abbott was unwittingly carrying on a conversation with his daughter's killer in the first half of the reel.

For me, this is between Doug Davidson and Peter Bergman. I liked both reels, but in Davidson's reel, the camera is focused on Jamie during a good portion of Paul's monologue in the first half of the reel, and I fear that might hurt him a bit. The reel also suffers slightly from the fact that Paul moves around a lot throughout it, interacting with many different characters. Bergman's reel feels more fluid, and my only real concern with it is that voters who aren't familiar with the show might be confused and taken out of the scene when a man just randomly appears at the end to talk to Jack, as if he had been there all along. Fans of the show understand that the character -- Jack's father, John -- is a ghost, but will uninitiated voters?

Still, despite that small concern, I'm giving the edge to Bergman.

Who will win: Peter Bergman (Jack Abbott, Y&R)
Who should win: Peter Bergman



Eileen Davidson
OUTSTANDING LEAD ACTRESS
Eileen Davidson
Kristen DiMera
 
  Katherine Kelly Lang's reel isn't really even about her for the first five minutes, and I think that's going to hurt her. It also contains the most ridiculous line in all of this year's reels; if the best time for a person to change their mind isn't when they're dangling off a cliff, when is it? While we ponder that mystery, I'll add that it's nice to see Lang finally land a nomination in the lead category -- it's just too bad that it had to be this year, when she's up against three stiff competitors.

Heather Tom's reel drew me in from the beginning, but there's a lot of hypocrisy on display from her character that makes it hard for me to sympathize with her, so it doesn't really pack the emotional punch that it could have if Katie hadn't been pushing for Brooke and Bill to get together all along.

Arianne Zucker submitted a good reel, and she always delivers a good performance, but, again, what's going on doesn't really become completely obvious to anyone who isn't already familiar with the story until after the five-minute mark. Also, while this isn't really relevant (or shouldn't be, anyway), I have to admit that, in retrospect, it's hard to take Nicole seriously in this reel, since she keeps insisting that she'll never forgive Eric, and I know that she actually ended up forgiving him fairly soon afterward. That fact weakened the scenes for me when I viewed them for the second time in order to make these predictions, but it probably won't affect voters.

Eileen Davidson is the woman to beat here, as far as I'm concerned. Sure, I could say the same thing about Kristen that I said about Katie above, but, unlike Katie, Kristen is a villain -- I'm not supposed to sympathize with her, and she's allowed to be hypocritical because she's not meant to be the heroine or the scorned woman. But Davidson makes me sympathize with Kristen, anyway, and that's the mark of a great actress. Davidson was on fire in 2013 and looked like she was having the time of her life, and it shows in her reel.

Who will win: Eileen Davidson (Kristen DiMera, DAYS)
Who should win: Eileen Davidson



Eric Martsolf
OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTOR
Eric Martsolf
Brady Black
 
  I don't like Spinelli, but at least Bradford Anderson is now choosing reels that make the character seem less...Spinelli. That's a wise choice. But with the way Anderson played the scenes in his reel, Dante and Lulu really should have heard more of Spinelli's argument with Ellie than they ended up hearing. That took me out of the scene, because I kept wondering when Dante and Lulu were finally going to hear the shouting that was going on right outside the nursery, and I shouldn't have been thinking about that at all -- I should have been focused on Anderson's performance, but it just didn't seize my full attention like it should have.

Steve Burton and Dominic Zamprogna each submitted good reels, but I don't think either was strong enough to secure a win this year. Also, as with some of the other reels this year, I think Zamprogna's reel might have confused voters who weren't familiar with the story, especially since two different Connies were being talked about in the reel, and that's never really made clear to people who don't watch General Hospital regularly.

This feels like a fight between Scott Clifton and Eric Martsolf to me, and while Clifton's reel was good, I'm giving the edge to Martsolf. His reel was riveting and fairly self-contained, and it wouldn't have taken any voter long to figure out everything that they needed to know about what was going on in the scenes, regardless of their level of familiarity with Days of our Lives.

Who will win: Eric Martsolf (Brady Black, DAYS)
Who should win: Eric Martsolf (Brady Black, DAYS)



Elizabeth Hendrickson
OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Elizabeth Hendrickson
Chloe Mitchell
 
  I'm ruling out Melissa Claire Egan and Kelly Sullivan first -- Egan submitted the same scenes that Steve Burton submitted, and I think that might end up hurting both of them. Voters might focus on one actor more than the other during their first viewing of these scenes, then decide not to bother watching them a second time to focus on the other actor. And Sullivan's reel might be too confusing for some voters, due to the Kate/Connie stuff.

I can't necessarily say anything bad about Jane Elliot's reel, and I know she's a fan favorite, but it just didn't draw me in like it should have. Frankly, I wasn't that interested in what was going on until the second-to-last scene. I just don't think this can compete with the meatiness of Y&R's storyline about the senseless death of a child.

That leaves us with Amelia Heinle and Elizabeth Hendrickson, and, honestly, I think it's a bit of a toss-up, but I'm going with Hendrickson based on the strength of that opening reaction to Delia's death (which we could see but not hear). Also, Heinle's reel suffers from the same fate as Egan's reel -- the same scenes were seen in Billy J. Miller's reel -- albeit only in the second half.

Who will win: Elizabeth Hendrickson (Chloe Mitchell, Y&R)
Who should win: Elizabeth Hendrickson or Amelia Heinle



Chandler Massey
OUTSTANDING YOUNGER ACTOR
Chandler Massey
Will Horton
 
  Anyone who has read my previous Emmy predictions knows that I'm clearly biased toward Chandler Massey -- he's one of my favorite daytime actors ever -- but he's the clear favorite anyway, and I really do think he had the strongest reel again this year. It's easily the shortest reel, and usually, that concerns me, but he does more in less than three-and-a-half minutes than many actors can do in thrice that time. It feels so natural and effortless -- like he isn't even acting.

If anyone is going to beat Massey this year, it will probably be Bryan Craig, but I just don't think that's possible. I do think Massey had stronger episodes that he could have submitted -- longer ones, mainly -- but what he ended up submitting should still be enough to secure the three-peat.

Who will win: Chandler Massey (Will Horton, DAYS)
Who should win: Chandler Massey



Hunter Haley King
OUTSTANDING YOUNGER ACTRESS
Hunter Haley King
Summer Newman
 
  When the episode that Hunter Haley King submitted first aired, I thought she'd be a strong contender for this year's Younger Actress Emmy, and I still think that. I will say that the scenes were a bit less effective on a repeat viewing than I had remembered them being, but I still think her reel is the strongest one in this category. I liked Kelley Missal's reel, and it was wise of Kristen Alderson to submit an episode where she was playing Starr instead of Kiki, since voters are more familiar with the former character, but I'm giving the edge to King.

As an aside, Linsey Godfrey's reel is quite possibly the weirdest one I've ever seen.

Who will win: Hunter Haley King (Sumemr Newman, Y&R)
Who should win: Hunter Haley King or Kelley Missal




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OUTSTANDING WRITING IN A DRAMA SERIES
Days of our Lives
 
  I can't believe that I'm predicting that Days of our Lives will win most of the awards this year, but 2013 was a really strong year for the show, and I think June 22, 2014, might end up being a really good night for its fans.

Who will win: Days of our Lives




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OUTSTANDING DIRECTING IN A DRAMA SERIES
The Young and the Restless
 
  This feels like a toss-up between Y&R and B&B, but the odds are in Y&R's favor -- they've won this award more times than B&B has -- so I'm going with them.

Who will win: The Young and the Restless

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