Questioning the Emmy Nominations, Part Two: The Answers

[allizon]

Originally published at Do Or Do Not.. You can comment here or there.

While I’m sure all of you were on your couches at 8:40 this morning, glued to your TVs, bowl of Bran Flakes balanced precariously on your trembling hand as your heart slammed in your chest with anticipation, knowing you were now just minutes away from hearing this year’s Emmy nominations… oh, wait, that was just me? Geez, sorry.

Well, anyway, here’s the answers I promised you yesterday, with some extra commentary thrown in for good measure:

• Q: Who will be this year’s Blythe Danner (Huff) or Patricia Arquette (Medium) — either a little-known actor or an off-the-mainstream-radar performance which will elicit cries of “wha’ fu’?!” with a surprise nomination?

  A: Well, I guess Blythe Danner getting another nod for her work on Huff doesn’t quite count since she won last year. Probably the big winner on this front this year, not from a “who’s SHE?” angle but from a “great performance on a show no one watches” angle is The Closer’s Kyra Sedgwick. Other than that, though, most of the noms came from exactly the sources you’d expect.

• Q: Which of the 182 regular cast members of Lost will be singled out for praise? Will Lost find itself in the situation The West Wing did in its first few years where so many of its cast were deserving that they almost had to be rotated in and out of the process on a yearly basis?

  A: The answer here, surprisingly, is no. Lost, which won the Emmy for Best Drama Series last year, didn’t even get a nomination — and none of the cast members got nods, either. I haven’t actually seen much from Season 2 yet, so I can’t tell you if the snubs are because of a steep decline in quality (which seems unlikely to me) or if voters couldn’t single out any cast members that were more deserving than others, or if there’s some other reason I just haven’t considered yet because I haven’t had enough caffeine today. Whatever the reason, the lack of nominations for Lost was probably the biggest surprise to me this morning.

• Q: Speaking of The West Wing, will it pick up any thanks-for-the-memories nominations? Will the late (and sorely missed) John Spencer get a posthumous nomination, much like John Ritter did three years ago?

  A: Yes to the going-away nods: Best Dramatic Series (the seventh time out of seven seasons it’s been nominated, with four wins so far); Allison Janney for Best Actress, Drama (her sixth nod for her role as C.J. Cregg, with four wins); Martin Sheen for Best Actor, Drama (also his sixth for playing President Jed Bartlet; surprisingly, he’s never won for this role, which is a friggin’ crime); and Alan Alda for Best Supporting Actor, Drama (his second for playing Senator Arnold Vinick).

  Sadly, however, no nomination for John Spencer.

  On a related note: Stockard Channing got herself another nominaton, too — but for her already-cancelled comedy series Out of Practice.

• Q: Will any of the deserving shows on the soon-to-be-extiguished WB or UPN get any notice — will Gilmore Girl Lauren Graham be snubbed for the sixth straight year? Will all of the critical praise and devoted viewership earn Veronica Mars‘ Kristen Bell a nod?

  A: Oh, of course not. Maybe next year, The CW might have a little bit more clout and can get some recognition.

• Q: Can Arrested Development embarrass Fox further by earning another Best Comedy Series nomination — and, hopefully, even pull off another win?

  Yup, AD got a third consecutive Best Comedy Series nod. Even better, Will Arnett got a Best Supporting Actor, Comedy nomination for his amazing work as Gob — one of my favorite comedic TV characters of the last fifteen years.

• Q: Whatever will Emmy voters possibly do without Everybody Loves Raymond around to lavish ridiculous numbers of nominations on? Spread them among quality shows like AD or Scrubs or find some other mediocre and inoffensive sitcom on which to heap their praise? (Oh, jeez — does that mean we’re in for a flood of noms for Joey?)

  A: No, but we did wind up with a Best Actor, Comedy nomination for The King of Queens‘ Kevin James.

• Q: Can the bowing-out-five-years-too-late Will and Grace possibly best the five guest-actor nominations it got last year? Will all four of its principals get nods once again, even though they haven’t truly deserved them in years?

  A: No to both, though Debra Messing (her fifth), Megan Mullally (her seventh straight), and Sean Hayes (his seventh straight… so to speak) all got nominations; only poor Eric McCormack was left out. (Don’t feel too bad for Eric — he’s been nominated four times himself). Only three Guest Actor nominations this year, though (including one for the always-excellent Alec Baldwin — I’m going to say right now I expect him to get a nod next year for his role on the upcoming comedy series 30 Rock).

• Q: Will Deadwood be eligible this year? No, really — will it? I honestly don’t know.

  A: Apparently not, dammit.

• Q: Will Little Einsteins get a nomination for Best Children’s Program? Because it totally should.

  A: No, dammit.

A couple of other interesting things to note:

• Not much love for My Name Is Earl — I honestly expected Jason Lee to get a Best Actor, Comedy nomination, but no dice. Thankfully, though, Jamie Pressly got a Best Supporting Actress, Comedy nod for her glorious turn as Earl’s ex-wife Joy — I’m pretty sure anyone from the South will recognize exactly how dead-on her portrayal of Joy is.
• I was happy to see The Office get a Best Comedy Series nomination and Steve Carell a Best Actor, Comedy nod for starring in it, but I was disappointed Rainn Wilson’s wondefully off-center Dwight didn’t earn him a nomination.
• Much akin to the inexplicable slide of Lost, the other ABC freshman wonder from 2004, Desperate Housewives, took a nomination nosedive itself. Last year, the Housewives took up 60% of the Best Actress, Comedy nods (Teri Hatcher, Felicity Huffman and Marcia Cross, with Huffman taking home the award); this year, the only major acting nom the show got was for Alfre Woodard’s supporting role. And no Best Comedy Series nod, either.

  Perhaps the lack of recognition for Lost and Desperate Housewives was backlash from overexposure last year?

• I’ll have to admit here before asking the question that I’ve never seen any episodes of Two and a Half Men, but c’mon — is Charlie Sheen really that good on that show? Really? Jon Cryer, OK, fine. But Charlie Sheen? So that’s two of the Young Guns (Sheen and Kiefer Sutherland) now regularly earning Emmy recognition — when does Casey Siemasko get his turn?