2024 Best in Network TV: Drama

by Julian Spivey
Every year since The Word on Pop Culture began in 2010 we have awarded the best in network television in something we like to call The Broady Awards. The theory behind the Broadys was that there was still a lot of good and worthwhile TV on the original big broadcast networks that were mostly forgotten about come time for the annual Emmy Awards, which had begun to focus mainly on cable, premium cable and later streaming series.
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Well, the times have changed a bit since we introduced these awards. Now, network TV (and more and more TV in general) is regressing after the era known as “peak TV.” Networks and streamers alike are beginning to cut costs leading to less scripted television and a weakening of shows. But these days the state of network television, in particular, seems dire. I can’t remember a lesser slate of network television shows than we’ve seen this season.

So, partially due to this factor and the 2023-2024 network season being cut in half due to the writer’s and actor’s strikes of 2023, we decided it was time to pare down the Broady Awards, at least for now. So, instead of our usual nominating five or so individuals and shows in each category we’re simply going to choose our winners this year.

We will unveil these winners in three parts: Drama, Comedy and our 2024 TV Hall of Fame recipients.

Today features our 2024 Broady Drama Series recipients: 

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Best Drama Series: Will Trent (ABC)
ABC’s crime procedural “Will Trent,” our best New Drama Series winner last year, continued to impress in its sophomore season with interesting storylines, terrific acting and unique characters. Ramon Rodriguez’s titular lead is one of the more interesting characters on network television over the last few years and the supporting cast of Erika Christensen, Iantha Richardson, Jake McLaughlin and Sonja Sohn is tight-knit and adept at mixing the show’s gritty crime drama with humor.  

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Best New Drama: Elsbeth (CBS)
Robert and Michelle King have me in their clutches. Anything these showrunners create will have my undivided attention because everything they’ve done (at least the four series I’ve seen) has been terrific – “The Good Wife,” “The Good Fight,” “Evil” and now “Elsbeth.” “Elsbeth” was admittedly the King show I was most leery of – taking a known, likable, but wacky and only sporadically used character from a couple of their previous shows and insert her into a crime procedural. But when you have someone as talented as Carrie Preston, the typical strong writing of any King-led team and a nice mixture of drama with wry humor tossed in it’s going to be a winning combination. 

Photo: CBS

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Best Episode: This Storm Will Pass (Fire Country)
CBS’s drama series “Fire Country” is a lot of fun even though it can seem ridiculous at times – how many fires can this small town and surrounding area of California possibly face? The season two episode “This Storm Will Pass,” written by David Gould and directed by Eagle Egilsson, is the perfect encapsulation of those these when an out-of-control fire turns into a fire tornado, which is an actual thing, comes toward the town – all while the show’s lead Bode (Max Thieriot), his old ex and potential mother of his child and the current boyfriend of his most recent ex and still current love are all trapped in a wrecked ambulance. It’s an action-packed episode that doesn’t let up throughout its entire runtime and eventually ends in a tragedy that will impact the remainder of the season. 

Photo: CBS

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Best Lead Actor: Ramon Rodriguez (Will Trent)
Ramon Rodriguez’s performance at George Bureau of Investigation Special Agent Will Trent in the ABC crime drama that shares the character’s name is one of the more unique performances of a law enforcement character in network TV history. Will Trent doesn’t quite look like he should be in law enforcement and his dyslexia and troubled past as an orphan are perhaps strikes against him. But he’s the smartest person in the room and his adeptness for finding things others might miss and his keen sense of morality make him the best at his job. It’s a performance that Rodriguez makes feel lived in – something you don’t always get from these crime of the week procedurals.

Best Lead Actress: Carrie Preston (Elsbeth)
I loved Carrie Preston’s performance as attorney Elsbeth Tascioni on “The Good Wife” and later “The Good Fight.” She was kooky and scatterbrained but also whip-smart and astute. Her personality often led to her being underestimated on those shows. She appeared often on those shows but ultimately less than 20 times. I was worried how a kooky character that only appeared occasionally on dramas filled with terrific casts as a side character might work out as the lead of her own show. Those fears were laid to rest quickly. In the show’s debut season, Preston’s Tascioni finds herself working with the NYPD as part of a consent decree and it turns out she’s as good of a pseudo-detective as she was an attorney.  

Photo: ABC

Photo: CBS

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Best Supporting Actor: Simon West (All Creatures Great & Small)
Simon West’s performance as the cantankerous but with a heart of gold veterinary surgeon Siegried Farnon on PBS Masterpiece’s “All Creatures Great and Small” has been one of my favorites on TV over the show’s four-season run but has always been passed up for other supporting performances in these awards. You could make the argument that season four wasn’t even West’s finest season of the series but the often talent-packed category was thinned out a bit with the ending of some shows and the delay of others due to the writer and actor strikes that shortened the 2024 TV season (though did not affect this particular series). West’s performance as Siegfried is key to the feel of the whole series, mixing in a lot of humor via his curmudgeonly personality while also being moralistically kind and good. West plays it all effortlessly.  

Best Supporting Actress: Anna Madeley (All Creatures Great & Small)
This is the second consecutive win in this category for Anna Madeley, who plays Mrs. Audrey Hall on the PBS Masterpiece drama “All Creatures Great and Small.” Mrs. Hall is the housekeeper of Skeldale House, where the main characters and veterinarians live in the quaint, feel-good drama set in the late 1930s/early 1940s Yorkshire Dales area of England. Mrs. Hall has often been the quiet heart of the drama but never more so than in the show’s fourth season when she must choose between love and her found family. Madeley plays the character with a sure hand, perhaps the warmest of a series of warm characters and moments. 

Photo: PBS

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Best Guest Actor: Malcolm Jamal-Warner (9-1-1)
Malcolm Jamal-Warner was one of my favorite performers in the Fox medical drama “The Resident” over the last few years. He even received a nomination for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama once for his role from this site. He might always be known mostly as a child actor from “The Cosby Show” in the ‘80s but he’s shown that he’s right at home playing confident men in network dramas like his multi-episode arc in the seventh season of ABC’s “9-1-1.” Jamal-Warner plays a traveling nurse Amir, who lost the love of his life in the tragic apartment building fire in Minnesota started by firefighter Captain Bobby Nash (Peter Krause) before he turned his life around in Los Angeles. The two bump into each other on the job, resulting in Bobby looking to make amends for a trauma Amir could never forgive. The eighth episode of the season, “Step Nine,” is a true highlight for Jamal-Warner, Krause and the show’s season in general as it sees the two essentially start in a two-hander that focuses on saving each other from a cartel. Jamal-Warner plays the part of a man hating someone he has to depend on to save him perfectly. Hopefully, he’ll be back to a regular series role soon.
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Best Guest Actress: Eliza Taylor (Quantum Leap)
Eliza Taylor wound up appearing in about half of the second and ultimately final season of the NBC sci-fi reboot “Quantum Leap” as Hannah Carson, an intelligent waitress in 1949 New Mexico when the show’s time-jumper lead Ben Song (Raymond Lee) first meets her. Unusually, Ben will continue to meet Hannah throughout his jumps as the two fall in love, despite him inhabiting a new person’s body each time. It was a fascinating side plot to the season with Taylor making us fall instantly for Hannah to the point where we didn’t so much care that Addison (Caitlin Bassett) might still have feelings for him.   

Photo: Fox

Photo: NBC