ANGEL WITH A MAGIC BALL: This morning, Chandra Wilson (yay! Bailey!) and Jim Parsons (Sheldon from BBT) announced the primetime Emmy nominations, and we'll be updating a roundtable discussion throughout the morning.
Adam: Let’s start with supporting action – comedy. What a Golden Age for supporting actors on sitcoms. I'm supposed to choose between Tracy Jordan, Dwight Schrute and Barney Stinson? On the women's side, I'm not sure how Kristin Wiig counts as "supporting" given her omnipresence on the show, but, whatever. My only regret is that there's no micro-supporting category to recognize the tertiary characters on The Office -- Stanley, Kevin, Creed, Meredith.
Kim: Micro-supporting would be a great category – something between “supporting” and “guest.” I’m only about halfway through season one of 30 Rock, don’t watch The Office, have never laid eyes on Two and a Half Men, and dropped Entourage a couple of years ago, but I strongly suspect that even if I weren’t predisposed by process of elimination, I’d still have the same reaction: hurrah for NPH! Barney Stinson is a phenomenon that transcends the show, and Harris’s work should finally be recognized by some organization besides, well, us. As for the women, I understand that SNL’s actors don’t neatly fit into any other category, but there’s something odd to me about putting sketch comedy into the same realm as Wilhelmina Slater or Olive Snook.
Adam: I just need to jump ahead to something awesome -- SNL's "Motherlover" gets a nomination for best original song, competing against Hugh Jackman's opening number from the Oscars and the Conchords, among others. Carry on.
Kim: My own jumpahead bit of awesomeness is that apparently, Mad Men’s writing kicks the snot out of all other dramatic series’ writing except for Lost’s “The Incident.” I am totally down with that. As you were.
I want to talk about the nominees for supporting acting for drama. So long as Slattery and Emerson are nominated, I shouldn’t complain, but seriously, two nominations for Boston Legal? But I can’t get too worked up, because Emerson rocks and I have a big crush on John Slattery. As for the actresses, nominations for “24” are starting to feel like nominations for Entourage and Everybody Loves Raymond (oh wait, did that one go off the air?) – totally de rigueur for people who liked the first season or two of a show way back when. But I like Cherry Jones, so whatever. Yay, however, for both Christina Oh and Chandra Wilson, whose work should be recognized at every opportunity.
Adam: As should the men on that show -- Dempsey and Chambers especially, this year. That Katherine Heigl allowed herself to be nominated this year, but wasn't, is, um, yeah. Jumping back a second, I'm surprised that of all the Lost episodes, it was The Incident and not "LaFleur" or "The Variable" which was nominated for Best Writing.
But I need to jump ahead to the two nominations that might make our audience the happiest: Justin Timberlake as Best Guest/Comedy for his SNL work, and Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog for "Outstanding Special Class -Short-format Live-Action Entertainment Programs," in which it's competing against Springsteen's Super Bowl halftime performance, Kenneth's 30 Rock webpage and ... it's just a bizarre category, but I'm glad Whedon's getting recognized.
Kim: There’s something about season premieres and finales that seem to inspire shows to submit those episodes for consideration. Maybe it’s that they get such heavy publicity relative to mid-season episodes that the producers think that they’ll gain wider traction among the nominators. I agree with you, though, and would have taken “LaFleur” or “The Variable” in a heartbeat. As for special-class-short-format-live-action-entertainment, this seems like sort of a weird effort to include the 21st century’s technological advances on them thar internets. But yay anyway for moistness and viral videos.
Adam: Reality tv categories mostly see stagnation -- Heidi Klum, again? Each of the shows in the category has been nominated for each of the last three years.
Kim: A question: does SYTYCD only bother to submit work for the dancing categories? Because while I am pleased to see 4/6 of the choreography nominations going to our friends on FOX (but no “The Garden?”), I am totally befuddled at a world in which (a) Heidi Klum and Tom Bergeron get reality host nominations to the exclusion of Cat Deeley, and (b) Dancing with the Stars is perceived to be a better reality dance show than SYTYCD. I think Nigel should hire me as Chief Nomination Pimping Officer.
Matt: Hey now! Some of us have actual work that we needed to do. I want to backtrack to supporting for just a moment. The big surprise in comedy has got to be Piven's snub, which you pretty much have to credit to the sushi incident, since the nominators haven't lost their affection for the show, it seems, and which really does clear the way for NPH to win. On the drama side, yeah, Shatner's performance is a brilliant blend of self-homage and self-parody, but we've honored it before, and given that there's so much other stuff that missed the cut (the BSG and FNL ensembles come immediately to mind), it's kind of ridiculous.
But turning to leading acting--How do you nominate only one of the two Conchords? They come as a pair, you know. And again, great as Shalhoub is as Monk, I'll be glad when he gets his last nomination for the role next year. And Simon Baker's nod in the drama category is simultaneously a "WTF?" moment and a "glad just to be invited" since he has something approaching zero chance of winning.
Adam: I don't have much to say about the Drama categories -- Lost, Grey's and House are the only three I really watch. Yes, I'm a bad human being for not being up-to-date on Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Damages, Battlestar Galactica, Friday Night Lights, The Wire, The Corner ... wait, Boston Legal was on the air this season?
Kim: In the lead dramatic acting categories, I have to grumble twice. Regardless of whether you call it SciFi or SyFy, it’s criminal that no one from Battlestar Galactica is nominated. Admittedly, I haven’t watched Season 4.5 yet (coming out on DVD soon soon soon!), but I just can’t imagine that after all of their amazing work in the series thus far, Olmos, McDonnell, and Sackhoff suddenly stunk up the joint in the last half-season. Hmph. And while I’m happy to see Elisabeth Moss getting recognized for her work on Mad Men, I would have added January Jones to the list as well.
Adam: One obvious omission -- isn't there some bald guy on Lost? And wasn't he really, really good this season?
Kim: Reason number eleventy-million billion and ten to heart Terry O’Quinn. If I recall correctly, O’Quinn chose not to submit his work for consideration this year after already having won an Emmy for the role. And he’d be in the supporting category, anyway. (It’s a shame, though, that his omission didn’t clear the way for the incredible work Josh Holloway did this season.)
Adam: Or Jeremy Davies. Sigh.
Kim: Comedy is to me as drama is to Adam. Half of the first season of 30 Rock is all I have seen of any of these shows. That makes me feel pretty good, actually – apparently I do have a life beyond the watching of television. Only two nominations for best mini-series: has the ascension of high-quality tightly serialized TV (see, e.g., Lost and Mad Men) rendered the mini-series obsolete?
Adam: It ended up being a better season for The Office than 30 Rock -- or at least the former ended on a higher note. But Fey doesn't lose anything this year. Speaking of comedies, I do like the fact that for the nominations for Best Writing for a Variety/Special, Chris Rock, Ricky Gervais, Louis C.K. and Will Ferrell are all the sole credited writers for their shows. If that's true in terms of how their works were created, kudos to them. As for miniseries are concerned, it's a budgeting thing, I imagine.
Kim: I just noticed that 30 Rock is the Mad Men of comedic writing, garnering 4 of the 5 comedy writing nominations. Apparently there are only two well-written series on television – who knew?
Matt: Yeah, there is no way Fey loses in either category this year, though the leading actress category has surprises of its own--no love for any of the Desperate Housewives? A nomination for Sarah Silverman for playing "Sarah Silverman?" In guest actress, funny and arguably significant as Fey's performance as "Governor Sarah Palin (Spoof)" (seriously, that's how it's billed) was, didn't Elaine Stritch's work as Mama Donaghy have much more emotion in there?
Kim: I'm sorry, is Desperate Housewives still on the air? Nothing surprising about that as far as I'm concerned.
Adam: Speaking of "still on the air?", ER got just two nominations for its final season -- best directing on the finale, and Ernest Borgnine as guest in same. No nominations for any of the regular or returning actors.
Kim: Did any of them deserve nominations except in the category of Best “Aw, Nice to See You Again” Moment?
Adam: Maybe Noah Wyle, but I understand that no one beats Michael J. Fox in Guest/Drama this year.
Matt: OK, let's look somewhere else. Seems that, as usual, the Academy chose a pair of HBO programs to shower with nods in the movie/miniseries category--this year, it was Grey Gardens and Before The Storm. It's a bit unusual in that usually, HBO has a single thing that they push to all extremes--John Adams, Angels in America, Band of Brothers, but this year, seems like they spread things around, probably in part because Grey Gardens had basically no male parts, right?
Adam: Please, please let this be the year that all acting/writing awards for tv movies/miniseries are relegated to the pregame show. Because no one cares.
Kim: Not a great year for HBO, except for my happiness that Big Love was recognized for best drama. The ascension of non-HBO cable programming continues.
Matt Is it really the ascension of non-HBO or the decline of HBO? Yes, True Blood is enormously popular, but what little I've seen of it is godawful (It's like "Twilight," except they actually get it on repeatedly), and the old beloved hits have all left the air. And it's interesting to see that aside from AMC and "Damages," other basic cable shows aren't breaking in--no love for any of the USA originals besides the obligatory Shalhoub nomination, no love for "The Shield," no love for Saving Grace beyond Holly Hunter's nomination.
Adam: Um, Where Is Jill Scott? I was expecting her to be nominated. No, not a great year for HBO. Here's one statistic: Justin Timberlake has won 6 Grammys and 1 Emmy so far; he can get that up to 6/3 this year, as two of his nominations (Motherlover and the ESPYs song) compete against each other.
Also, want a depressing category? Nonfiction Special has Alzheimer's competing with anal cancer, Parkinson's disease, 9/11 and Roman Polanski.
One more specific lament: where are the lead and supporting actors of color in the comedy/drama noms? I count Chandra Wilson, Sandra Oh, Tony Shalhoub, Vanessa Williams and Tracy Morgan out of 48 slots. (I blame the shows this year more than the voters.)
Matt: Let's close with a general lament. The following shows got zero nominations -- Friday Night Lights, Dirty Sexy Money (which returns on Saturday!), Burn Notice, Better off Ted, Eli Stone, Dollhouse. Chuck got one (stunts). Dancing With The Stars got 10.
Correction: FNL did get a casting nomination, but no love for any of the individual performers, writing, directing, or anything else.
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