2022 Nominees

Cruel Summer

eOne, Iron Ocean Productions

USA

- Drama Series: English Language

Through the innovative lens of triplicate timelines (spanning three stylistic and cinematic summers in the 1990s), Cruel Summer weaves a sophisticated labyrinth of two teenage girls in the heart of a small-town scandal. Turning a typical crime thriller on its head, the show doesn’t ask who did it. Instead, when Kate (a popular girl) accuses Jeanette (a shy teen) of seeing her in captivity and doing nothing to rescue her, the show wonders why something like this might have happened – if it happened at all – and if a teenage girl like Jeanette deserves the social maelstrom and media defamation that follow. Jeanette and Kate transform over the three summers, taking dizzying character pivots, raising even more questions around the show's central mystery. Cruel Summer breathes fresh life into the mystery genre, relying on emotion and character, not procedure, and the perspectives of two girls who have fallen into an impossible situation.