Poll Results - Outstanding Drama Series

The biggest turnout yet for my polls has produced a result which is just about what I expected. Twenty votes were registered and the concensus pick for Outstanding Drama series is...

Well let's start with who it's not first. Tied for fourth place, with one vote (5% of respondents) each are Deadwood and The West Wing. Tied for second place with four votes each (20% of votes) are Six Feet Under and 24. However the winner, with a whopping ten votes and 50% of the support is Lost. Which was, in result if not in actual returns, about what I was expecting.

I'm not sure exactly why The West Wing was nominated this year despite the fact that the show did have an upswing in the quality of the shows when they began the primary season campaigning to replace President Bartlet. It helped that they had likable and recognisable actors in the form of Jimmy Smits and Alan Alda, but let's admit to the fact that the show hasn't been the same since Aaron Sorkin left. For all the grief he put them through, the worst thing that NBC and Warner Brothers ever did to the show was to replace Sorkin with John Wells. I was somewhat surprised that Deadwood didn't receive more votes from people in this poll since in my opinion (having seen all of one episode) it is a superior show to Six Feet Under. Maybe it was the cussing. I actually think that 24 slipped a bit in this past season, which is another way of saying that I think season three was better. Or maybe that's just my reaction to the show's over enthusiastic embracing of torture as an every day - well in the case of 24 every hour - event. I still think it was probably the second best drama out there and if it weren't for the existence of Lost it should win - but probably wouldn't. Emmy politics are odd that way.

But of course this is the year of Lost and I will go out on a limb and predict that it will win in all or almost all of the categories it is nominated in. The show is exhibiting a perfect mix of characterization with writing. The show combines personal relationships with mystery, doling out answers to each in miniscule rations. It is a series where continuity is an essential element and which asks the viewer to remember what has gone before. It is an amazing piece of work.

I haven't got a new poll question right now, so I suppose I'll leave these results up for a bit. Saturday night I'll post "our" list of Emmy winners so we all can see how well vox populi compared with what the people who actually have a vote think.