Poor Jon Hamm. Another Emmys ceremony, another night of bitter tears. Thing is, it would've been safe to begin work on this piece 364 days ago. Even though the world didn’t know the true power of the McConaissance then, everyone did know that Bryan Cranston would be circling his last year of eligibility for his work as Walter White. Given that fact alone, Jon Hamm wouldn’t have had a prayer of being crowned for his work as Don Draper on Mad Men.
There are few sure things when it comes to the Emmys, an awards show that is reliably boring and oddly out of step with both the public and critics. You can bet that Modern Family will take home some undeserved hardware. You can rest assured that someone from the Jon Stewart's professional family will take home the award for Outstanding Variety Series. (Is there a safer bet than John Oliver taking home the award in 2015?). You know that some award will be so inexplicably tone-deaf that it'll launch a 1,000 think pieces (Jeff Daniels, really?). And of course, you know that Jon Hamm, and the rest of his Mad Men compatriots will go home empty-handed.
When the great retrospective on the golden age of television is written, Hamm’s performance will be remembered alongside the work of Cranston (three Emmys for Breaking Bad), Michael Chiklis (one for The Shield), and the late James Gandolfini (three for The Sopranos), and Hamm’s section will begin with the same line that begins pieces written on Dan Marino, Ken Griffey, Jr., and Charles Barkley: Why couldn’t he win the big one?
It's tempting to pin Hamm’s Emmy drought on one big thing, and every TV geek has their favorite narrative. Blame it on Cranston. Blame it Mad Men’s lack of excitement/fun. Blame it on luck or fate. As with most things, there's more than one force at play; there is no simple answer. A combination of factors have coalesced to leave Don Draper winless. Let’s take a look at them and try to figure out Why Jon Hamm Can't Win An Emmy.