Witcher ditcher: ‘Toss a Coin to Your Witcher’ misses out on Emmy nomination

“The Witcher” arrives almost seven months to the day after epic fantasy “Game of Thrones” concluded. Image: courtesy of Netflix via AFP Relaxnews

Did the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences think it had escaped December 2019’s surprise earworm? Did you? Then it’s time to listen again.

Spawning innumerable cover versions and an enthusiastic online following is no guarantee of Emmy success, as “Toss a Coin to Your Witcher” now knows.

It was skipped over in the selection process for the Primetime Creative Arts Emmys on Sept. 12 and 13, 2020, which will take place a week ahead of the main Primetime Emmy Awards ceremony on Sept. 20.

Composed by the show’s Sonya Belousova and Giona Ostinelli, with lyrics from scriptwriter Jenny Klein and vocals from supporting actor Joey Batey, the song — a heady combination of medieval motifs, almost overwhelming orchestration, pop-rock sensibilities, and one particularly jarring pun — is introduced at a confluence of turning points for “The Witcher”‘s three leads.

Instead, nominees for an Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics Emmy Award include “The Way It Used To Be” from HBO’s “Watchmen” by Nine Inch Nails pairing and film composition duo Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, and “One Less Angel” from Amazon Video’s “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”, by musical theater team Thomas Mizer and Curtis Moore

(“Watchmen” leads the Primetime Emmy nominations with 11 nods, and has so far collected five total commendations for the Creative Arts Emmys; “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” goes into the Primetime event with an enviable eight nominations and a running tally of seven in Creative Arts.)

Two Netflix shows did make the cut, however, through “Letter to My Godfather” by NERD and The Neptunes partners Pharrell WIlliams and Chad Hugo for documentary “The Black Godfather”, and “All for Us” by rapper and producer Labrinth for teen drama “Euphoria”.

Also under consideration are “Build It Up” by singer-songwriter Ingrid Michaelson for Hulu’s “Little Fires Everywhere”, “Memorized” by Siddhartha Khosla of Goldspot and Taylor Goldsmith of Dawes for NBC’s “This Is Us”, and a Broadway-style song satirizing mining magnate Bob Murray for HBO’s current affairs comedy show “Last Week Tonight.”

Despite dropping eleven days before the end of the year, “The Witcher” became Netflix’s second most popular series of 2019, notching 76 million viewers in its first month — as a caveat, however, Netflix had just switched to a new metric for logging views: two minutes or more, rather than 70% completion.

Filming on Season 2 picks up mid-August for an anticipated 2021 debut, after the COVID-19 pandemic put a spoke in the wheel of an early 2020 production schedule. IB

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