Widescreen: Emmy voters should consider these four long shots

The long buildup to Sept. 17's Emmy awards began this week as online voting opened to members of the Television Academy.

Between now and June 26, 22,000 industry professionals will decide the nominees in more than 100 categories, and you can see every entity submitted for nomination this year at emmys.com/ballots/2017.

The PDF file listing all eligible actors is 438 pages long, and if you look at them all — and I did — you learn some interesting things, like the fact that “Bates Motel” co-star Vera Farmiga will compete in the supporting actress category this year.

Here are some long, long, long shots on the submission document whom I'd love to see get nominated on July 13:

— Gaten Matarazzo, “Stranger Things” (Netflix): The curly mopped, cap-wearing, lisping heart of the sci-fi phenomenon is this 14-year-old with the gigantic smile. He has virtually no chance against a supporting actor field full of heavy hitters, but I'd argue his winning presence is as key to the show's success as its mysteries and its '80s aesthetic.

— Rose McIver, “iZombie” (The CW): As I said in this column a few weeks ago, this season has been a tour de force for McIver as Olivia Moore, an undead medical examiner-turned-detective who takes on the personality traits of the people whose brains she consumes. In May 30's “Twenty Sided, Die,” Liv becomes the most animated, committed Dungeon Master in the history of “Dungeons & Dragons,” to hilarious effect. McIver competes in the drama category, but hers is one of the funniest performances on TV.

— Silvio Orlando, “The Young Pope” (HBO): The supporting actor race for limited series/movies is full of famous names, but few of them were as memorable as this Italian actor whose Cardinal Voiello served as the politically devious Camerlengo to Jude Law's Pope Lenny, er, Pope Pius XIII in HBO's audacious miniseries.

— Jennifer Morrison, “Once Upon a Time” (ABC): A 1997 graduate of Prospect High School, Morrison has been a television staple for more than a decade thanks to her tenure on “House, M.D.” She departs “Once Upon a Time” after six years as Emma Swan, the bail bonds agent who is whisked away into a time-bending, fairy-tale world by her parents — Snow White and Prince Charming. It's a frothy, frivolous, needlessly complicated show that never gets awards attention, but Morrison deserves some Emmy love for being the grounded, lovable center of a show that is quite literally prone to flights of fancy. It's hard to imagine a seventh season without her.

• Sean Stangland is a Daily Herald multiplatform editor. You can follow him on Twitter at @SeanStanglandDH.