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BoJack Horseman is returning for a fourth season this year, and brings with it a sense of humanity that TV seems to have lost.

Not since Don Draper drove off "in a shiny car in the night" has a TV show again dared to dig deep into the human condition.

This was back in 2015 and over the past two years it feels like a vacuum has been forming on both cable and subscription TV.

Showrunners keep choosing action over script, style over content and fast-paced dialogue over necessary silences.

What we need, it seems, is for a binge-drinking, womanising, chronically depressed cartoon horse to come along and save us all from the horrors of over-stylised drama.

And he did. His name is BoJack, (pause) Horseman. But do enough people know he exists?

The critics do, and even awarded it best animated series last year. So do US writers - whose Guild picked one episode as 2016's best.

But for those who don't, the show was created by comedian Raphael Bob-Waksberg and stars Saturday Night Live alumnus Will Arnett as the voice of a washed-up horse-actor struggling to find purpose in his rich, boring, alcohol-fuelled life.

It is also laden with quick, purposely overthought dialogue and filled with pop culture references and adult jokes about sex, drugs, death and the feeling of being alone while surrounded by people.

Oh, and it also stars Breaking Bad's Aaron Paul and Glow's Alison Brie - with its soundtrack written by a member of The Black Keys.

This should be enough for BoJack to be noticed - even if it does feature a horse dressed as a man. So why doesn't it?

Putting it quite simply: BoJack needs an Emmy.

"It feels like the weirdest season to try to squeeze out awards for," its creator told Indiewire earlier this year.

"Considering the whole season is one long story about how award shows are ridiculous, and meaningless, and arbitrary, and they won't bring you happiness or joy," he added.

That's fair enough, and the show does work as a ruthless satire on Hollywood and the damaging effects on stardom, but awards also serve the purpose of promoting an underdog - and Waksberg knows it.

"That said, I think it could be good for the show. Which then would be good for me because that would mean I would get to keep making it," he said.

The fact that BoJack has managed to fly under the radar shows how detached jurors are from what's happening on our screens.

They seem to get lost in the smoke of epic battles and nail-biting cliffhangers.

Last year, the Emmys were still honouring shows like Game Of Thrones and Mr Robot, relying solely on audience numbers and providing mind-numbing mass entertainment.

Niche shows like Aziz Ansari's Master Of None lost to the more traditional Veep, while Rami Malek's over-the-top performance as a computer hacker stole the spotlight from Kyle Chandler's brilliant role in Bloodline.

Bojack Horseman produced a silent episode in 2016 where the main character was travelling underwater. It is a warm, sad, enlightened piece of television which should be remembered for decades.

A few episodes later, one of its main characters died in a drug overdose while watching stars at the planetarium.

Master Of None tried the same kind of concept episode, bringing back the show in black and white, shot like an old Italian film.

New shows are pushing boundaries every day and TV's golden age is still being kept alive on the outskirts of our screens.

The nominations for the Emmys are out later this week - maybe for once it'll be about more than just cheap thrills and CGI dragons.