After months of coverage and more than a little bit of analysis, it is has finally come down to this: this morning, the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences have officially announced their nominations for what their voters believed to be the best in television over the past year. Are they right on the money, or are they off the mark once again?
The Big Stories
– Lost and Friday Night Lights snubbed, although Lost dominates in Supporting Actor with Terry O’Quinn and Michael Emerson! Woo!
– The Sopranos leads with 15 nominations.
– Battlestar Galactica and Lost each garnered writing and directing nods on the Drama side, while 30 Rock and The Office dominated the categories in terms of Comedy series.
– There’s a lot of snubs all over the place, I’ll go into more detail tomorrow, but Michael C. Hall is the worst one. Yes, worse than Lost.
– Rainn Wilson and Jenna Fischer break through as supporting contenders for The Office, which garnered a whole lot of nominations once you factor in writing and directing.
Tomorrow morning at 5:35am PDT, the nominations for the 59th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards will be announced. I will now put myself out there on a limb with my own predictions of whose names will be called. I’ll have all the final nomination information as soon as it breaks, as long as my plan to be online at that point in time works out. I will literally stop working to do this for you, remember that.
NOTE: Some of these predictions have changed thanks to the leaked Top 10 lists. Most have not.
Oustanding Drama Series
Lost
I think it’s the best show on television, and I think that its season was certainly worthy of an Emmy nomination. The show is unmatched on network television in terms of writing, production and performances.
Grey’s Anatomy
It’s season was uneven, but its popular support and wide-range of acting talents will be too hard for the ATAS to ignore.
The Sopranos
The show’s final season kept the buzz level high, and the finale basically clinched it: no one will be forgetting The Sopranos this year.
House
It’s the second biggest drama on television, and people just seem to love the show to death. I think that it is a show that has proven itself worthy in the past, unlike Heroes which still hasn’t won that level of respect.
Friday Night Lights
Admittedly, this is a sentimental choice. However, I can’t not believe that Emmy voters will find the heart of this series too endearing to pass up. With Kyle Chandler making the Drama Actor Top 10, I think the show has a shot.
Oustanding Comedy Series
The Office
Last year’s winner had another strong and buzz-worthy season. It was a bit of a dark horse last year, but this time around it’s absolutely a front-runner…but in a category full of them.
Ugly Betty
One-hour comedies have a distinct advantage over half-hour ones, but even ignoring that Ugly Betty was a charming series that features some great performances. With Becki Newton and Vanessa Williams making the Top 10, I also think this show is a shoe-in.
30 Rock
The other new show to make this list, 30 Rock is a show made for the Emmys: prestigious talent (Fey, Baldwin, Krakowski), relevant and relatable theme (Show about a show), and it’s incredibly liberal. Plus, it’s kind of also the best new comedy of the year. Just sayin’.
Two and a Half Men
The only traditional sitcom left in the Emmy race, I think that voters will trend towards it like the sheep they are. That being said, the show is not the worst sitcom ever: it’s just similar to them in every way.
Entourage
While Scrubs did have the musical episode, I think that Entourage is the closest the category has to a hip show that hasn’t quite gotten its due. 30 Rock is actually quite safe, The Office is now almost too popular, so it’s Entourage that best fits the bill. With Kevin Dillon breaking the Top 10 for Supporting Actor, the show has a shot.
Extra Prediction:
The Sopranos will garner the most nominations on the drama side, while 30 Rock and The Office will fight it out for the most comedy nominations with Ugly Betty not far behind.
The rest of the nominations can be found below, with full explanations found here (Drama) and here (Comedy).
Well, thanks to Tom O’Neill over at TheEnvelope.com, the Top 10 Drama and Comedy Series according to the popular voters of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences have been revealed. These 10 shows will then screen an episode each in front of blue ribbon panels, and the Top 5 with the two processes combined will be nominated. If they didn’t make this list, they’re screwed.
Top 10 Drama Series
Boston Legal
Dexter
Friday Night Lights
Grey’s Anatomy
Heroes
House
Lost
Rome
The Sopranos
24
Biggest Surprise: I’m much happier about Friday Night Lights making it, but arguably Rome is the bigger surprise. The show had much less critical hype and aired such a short 2nd season that it was unexpected to get much attention. It appears that it got the period costume sex drama buzz as opposed to Showtime’s The Tudors.
Most Glaring Omission: Brothers & Sisters had good ratings, buzzworthy stars, but apparently voters didn’t feel the love. The aforementioned Tudors was also quite a shock considering how hard Showtime had pushed it, but Brothers & Sisters probably deserves one of those spots. And, even though it had no shot, Battlestar Galactica deserved better. Le sigh.
Network Breakdown: ABC leads with three series, while HBO, NBC and FOX all perform well with two a piece. Meanwhile, CBS is completely shut out while Showtime grabs the 10th spot.
Who Will Do Well: Lost and the Sopranos are riding the most buzz right now, and Grey’s and 24 both submitted strong episodes.
Who Won’t Do Well: Heroes, having submitted their pilot, will be EATEN ALIVE by these other shows. And Friday Night Lights, unfortunately, might have hit a roadblock against such tough competition. But it’s made it in, and that’s what matters.
Top 10 Comedy Series
Desperate Housewives
Entourage
Extras
My Name is Earl
The Office
Scrubs
Thirty Rock
Two and a Half Men
Ugly Betty
Weeds
Biggest Surprise: Eh, not much of one. We knew there were two spots up for grab, and it appears that voters liked British comedy (Extras) and American commercial success (Two and a Half Men) out of the remaining candidates.
[In Week Three of Cultural Learnings’ 59th Annual Emmy Awards Nominations Preview, we’re looking at possible contenders for the Lead Actor awards in both drama and comedy. Today, we present our fifth set of candidates. For complete listings for the Supporting candidates from the past two weeks, check out our For Your Consideration index]
Lead Actor in a Drama
Hugh Laurie (Gregory House)
House
Alone amongst procedural dramas, there is no question that there is a single star of FOX’s House; Hugh Laurie’s portrayal of the prickly doctor has perhaps been one of the most universally loved in recent years. There is something about his demeanor that is so incredibly engaging, and there is little question that it elevates this drama from being a mid-level success to one of the highest rated dramas on television. And yet, there is something more to House than just his jokes; he is a damaged man, struggling to come to terms with his own lot in life. While the character can occasionally be written into a bit of a hole (And parts of the season find him mired in annoying legal drama), Laurie always manages to pull something out of his ass that is sheer genius. What makes his performance Emmy worthy is that in those moments that the show reveals itself as the shallow procedural it is at its core, Hugh Laurie’s House always shines through as a beacon of hope and high class television. It may just be my affinity for British accents, but I must consider Hugh Laurie as a serious Emmy contender.
What Laurie brings to the table, every time, is a sense of complete and total apathy for his co-workers, his patients, and pretty well everything around him. It’s a difficult role to play while remaining likable, but Laurie always does it. Whether he’s tearing apart Chase, Cameron and Foreman, or sparring with Wilson, or torturing Cuddy, it always seems like House is having a hell of a lot of fun with himself. For an entire episode he exists only in that mode, but then he ends up stepping in by episode’s end, meets the patient, interacts with them, and all of a sudden he cares. It’s like a light switch very suddenly turns on, and Laurie makes that transition every time without seeming too obvious about it. I keep waiting to see whether House will at some point cross a line between cantankerous doctor and insufferable jerk, but Laurie always walks that line extremely carefully. And, in his show-making efforts, Hugh Laurie turns in an Emmy worthy performance.
Episode Selection:“One Day, One Room” (Aired January 30th, 2007)
Smartly, the episode Laurie is submitting is the one where all of that is challenged, and where someone sees him for the tortured soul he really is as opposed to the façade he places in front of people. Unfortunately, it’s not the episode I would have picked. One Day, One Room isn’t his selection, but I like it more than “Half-wit”. When a rape victim enters into the clinic and spends time with House, who of course is his usual clinic self, and decides that she will only speak to him. She realizes that he is kind of like her, in a way…or maybe she’s just crazy. Either way, the entire episode lets Hugh Laurie enter into deep philosophical discussions, and under the guise of “drama” I believe that it is his strongest performance of the season. Of course, he submitted a different episode (One where he treats Dave Matthews’ musical savant) that is also good, but I like this one better. So tough, Hugh Laurie.
EDIT: Okay, so Half-Wit is good too. It has Boomtown Rats’ “I Don’t Like Mondays”, a song I adore.
YouTube – “Half-Wit”
Lead Actor in a Comedy
Jason Lee (Earl)
My Name is Earl
I don’t watch My Name is Earl on a regular basis for a variety of reasons. While the show’s first season started strongly, I lost interest when it felt like nothing was really changing with the series. It was a charming show, and one that I enjoyed watching, but it just stopped surprising me at a certain point. What bits of this past season that I’ve seen haven’t been any more surprising, don’t get me wrong, but what I think has become clear is that consistency is the name of the game. And, central to that consistency, Jason Lee’s performance as Earl Hickey remains the central piece of the show’s puzzle. A show entirely about Joy, or Randy, or Darnell, or Catalina…none of it would work. Without Earl, the show would lack its everyman, a man who despite his past has a heart and has a purpose in life. I always believe Jason Lee in this role, and I empathize with him even as those around him might grate on my nerves. While the show might not have been able to keep my attention, I can’t help but believe that Jason Lee’s strong and consistent performance makes him worthy of Emmy consideration.
Television Critics are, for the most part, much better informed on the actual quality of network and cable television as opposed to being completely ignorant to various entertaining programs. As a result, these are awards that actually give us an indicator of who gave the best performances, not just who submitted the best episode. And, let me tell you: the result is an intense race that creates categories impossible to decide upon.
Program of the Year
“American Idol” (Fox)
“Friday Night Lights” (NBC)
“Heroes” (NBC)
“Planet Earth” (Discovery)
“The Wire” (HBO)
“When the Levees Broke” (HBO)
This is such a bizarre category, because it’s really more defined as programming from I guess a…I don’t even know what it means. Either way, you’ve got reality television, family drama, Sci-Fi drama, Nature Documentary, gritty HBO drama, and a Katrina documentary. That’s a diverse mix of shows right there. Are they looking for something new, something powerful…I don’t even know.
Comedy Series
“30 Rock” (NBC”)
“The Daily Show” (Comedy Central”)
“Entourage” (HBO”)
“The Office” (NBC”)
“Ugly Betty” (ABC”)
This category is just unfair, TCA. The Office against The Daily Show? Throw 30 Rock into the mix and you’ve got an impossible decision to make. I really have no idea how I’d decide on this one, and I for one support separate variety categories just to keep this conundrum from taking place.
Drama Series
“Friday Night Lights” (NBC”)
“Heroes” (NBC”)
“Lost” (ABC”)
“The Sopranos” (HBO”)
“The Wire” (HBO”)
We don’t know how much this will coincide with Emmy’s list, but I feel for certain that three of these shows will be named on July 19th. The Wire is one of those shows that has never garnered Emmy attention due to its lack of Network coverage, and without star power or pedigree it might have trouble breaking through at the Emmys. However, the amount of critical attention given to the series might make it something to catch up on this summer.
Umm, TCA? Are you following my viewing habits or something? I doubt they are, but these five shows are likely to make it onto my respective Drama/Comedy Emmy FYCs in July, and are probably my top 5 new shows of the season. I’m especially happy to see Dexter getting some love, it is most deserved.
If you turn on FOX tonight looking for a new one-hour installment of ‘On the Lot’, you’ll be disappointed. Thanks to extremely poor ratings, the series will be cut back to a single hour-long segment each week to air at 8pm on Tuesdays. Reruns of House, FOX’s only real rerunnable series, will air on Mondays for the foreseeable future ahead of returning reality series ‘Hell’s Kitchen’ (Debuting tonight at 9pm).
There is no official word on how Burnett and Co. are going to turn a results show into both a presentation and a result show, but magically it will happen. Personally, I think they should ditch the audience vote altogether and have the judges make the decisions based on screenings of the films. It would make a hell of a lot more sense, and get a lot better filmmakers in the process. We’ll find out tomorrow night, regardless, when ‘On the Lot’ returns to see if it can make a go of it.
ABC, FOX Pilots Find New Life
While Upfront season is long over, it appears that, according to The Hollywood Reporter, the drama is just beginning for two high-profile pilots from the creative teams behind two cult-favourites: Arrested Development’s Mitch Hurwitz and Battlestar Galactica’s David Eick.
Hurwitz is behind “The Thick of It”, a pilot about a congressman dealing with his new surroundings that is based on a British sitcom. The pilot found no traction at ABC, who went with Cavemen instead (Ugh), but it is apparently seeing life in both fans of Hurwitz’ work and fans of British comedy adaptations. Showtime, fans of Hurwitz ever since they attempted to acquire Arrested Development for a 4th season, want to work with him and even bid on the pilot before ABC nabbed it. NBC, meanwhile, is in the running since new boss Ben Silverman was responsible for The Office (US) and is therefore seeing a strong future for a similar adaptation. HBO is apparently also considering it.
For the second straight year, I again got behind on watching House. Something about coming home from university always puts me in a position where I choose Veronica Mars over House, and just don’t get around to watching it. As a result, I caught up on the first previous four weeks’ episodes over the past few days. With the episodes fresh in my memort, I feel like I had a great deal of momentum heading into this finale, and I expected things to come to a conclusion of sorts. And, in the end, it delivered: House leaves the airwaves with his team disappearing beneath him and preparing for yet another major change, and we’ll have to wait until next season to see how it pans out. With a case that relates to the key themes of the episode, and a focus on the interpersonal relations at Princeton-Plainsboro, “Human Error” lives up to the show’s higher standards.
This list is long. This list is extensive. And I really want to know what this list means. Nielsen (Via The Hollywood Reporter) has released their data for every single TV show that aired in America this past season. It tells us where our favourite shows ranked, where much maligned shows ranked, and how scripted drama did against reality programming.And, it raises a lot of questions about this data that I think Nielsen might not want to answer.
For instance, does this list include repeats in its viewers averages? Because that’s the only way CSI (#4) should be beating Grey’s Anatomy (#6) in total viewers by my calculations. If so, this gives a distinct advantage to shows without repeats (Reality Shows, Lost, Heroes, etc.) or those shows which repeat extremely well (House, CSIs, etc.)
The major thing to watch for in the list is the difference between 18-49 numbers and viewership rankings. It rises many shows into positions of being picked up, even with lacklustre performances in viewers. Some show, like 30 Rock, are in the doldrums in terms of total viewers but shoot up into the Top 75 with adults 18-49, which got it renewed for a second season.
After a few formatting errors, I’ve realized that getting it to highlight canceled shows would drive me crazy, so just refer to your memory. And, either way, some will seem a bit strange. However, remember that these are averages, and don’t reflect ratings dropoff in their later episodes.
This is the case for Jericho, which clearly performed better than many canceled shows. However, CBS did cancel the better rated Close to Home airing on Fridays, so it’s not as if Jericho was the only victim of CBS’ extremely highly place high bar. It might as well be a pole vault at this point.
With the 2006/2007 season over, the industry trades are going right for ratings as their barometer of success. Outside of this post, I’m unlikely to do so as I go into my own year in review season. For now, check out the ratings for all of the dirt, and stay tuned for less quantitative analysis at Cultural Learnings.
In a final word on the 2007/2008 Upfronts, I figure it’s time we returned to the schedule as a whole. Because, let’s face it, some of us watch a lot of TV. And, sometimes, that TV all falls within the exact same timeslot. As more and more shows emerge as fan favourites, more and more conflicts take place. This year’s Fall Schedule has created many of these conflicts, and some of them are sure to be key ratings battlegrounds in the year to come. Which five, however, will prove the most interesting? And, as a result, which ones will be a nightmare for non-TiVo owners across North America? Well, there’s only one way to find out.
Yes, this is it: the top five pilots which I believe have the most potential in the coming year. This is not a potential for success in ratings, or ad dollars, or anything like this: no, this is very much more about how well I think these shows can advance themselves creatively. It’s a list full of wishful thinking, if you will. While these shows might not light up the Nielsen ratings come next season, I think that part of me will feel better that they exist…and will cross my fingers that they succeed. They’re the next Veronica Mars, if you will, and I can only hope that networks have as much patience for these shows as they did for that one. Which pilots make the cut? There’s only one way to find out.
Lead Actor in a Drama
Lead Actor in a Comedy
If you turn on FOX tonight looking for a new one-hour installment of ‘On the Lot’, you’ll be disappointed. Thanks to extremely poor ratings, the series will be cut back to a single hour-long segment each week to air at 8pm on Tuesdays. Reruns of House, FOX’s only real rerunnable series, will air on Mondays for the foreseeable future ahead of returning reality series ‘Hell’s Kitchen’ (Debuting tonight at 9pm).
Cultural Learnings 