Poll Results – Who SHOULD win the Emmy as Outstanding Lead Actress In A Comedy?

Well, we have a result in this week's Emmy poll, and after wading through all the Chinese porn site – sorry Taiwanese porn site – content spam content spam, we even have comments on both this poll and the previous poll, from friend of the Blog (and damned fine blogger himself) Toby O'B. Which is good, because with my general antipathy to most of the comedies on TV today, I'm not sure that I can say much about the nominees and winners in this category.

Turning to the results, there were eleven votes cast, which is more than double last year's five votes and a significant improvement (of course). In sixth place, with no votes cast we have Julia Louis-Dreyfus from CBS's cancelled comedy The New Adventures Of Old Christine. In fifth place with one vote (9%) is Toni Collette from the Showtime series The United States Of Tara. In a three way tie for second place we have Lea Michelle from FOX's breakout series Glee, Edie Falco from Showtime's Nurse Jackie, and Tina Fey from NBC's 30 Rock. Each actress has two votes (18%). However the winner of the poll is Amy Poehler from NBC's Parks And Recreation with four votes (36%).

About the winner Toby writes, "I'm going with Amy Poehler. She took what could have been just Michael Scott in a skirt and instead made Leslie a more rounded character - i.e., one that I can actually like!" Having never seen the show (or for that matter any of the shows on thel ist – like I said, I hardly ever watch comedies, to the point where I wonder why Kayley Cuoco from Big Bang Theory and Alyson Hannigan from How I Met Your Mother aren't nominated for anything, because they're the only comedies that I watch on a regular basis)) I can't comment in an educated manner on Amy Poehler's character or her performance. I do think that Toby has hit on a key aspect for the success of just about any sitcom character and that is to make the character likable and well rounded, in short someone root for or at least feel some emotional connection with. We may not know them or anyone like them but we can at least identify with them a little and may be even feel some sympathy with them.

Identifying with someone is a key point as well, which may be why I think the voters in this category may well vote for Tina Fey again despite what was, I'm reliably assured, a weak season for 30 Rock. I'd suggest that just about every creative person who votes in that category see themselves in Liz Lemon, battling a network executives who haven't got a creative bone in their body (and that may be why they'll vote for Alec Baldwin – they don't identify with Jack Donaghy but they know people like him and enjoy the over-the-top (one hopes) nature of Baldwin's performance, though how over-the-top they think it is might be open to question).

Oh, and by the way, Toby's other comment was on the Outstanding Actress in a Drama category, which he made in the Results post for that category: "I'm the cock-eyed optimist. I'd like to think that the Academy will finally acknowledge the work Connie Britton has done on such a full-realized character." I'd like to see that as well, but I have a suspicion that, for this season at least, the Academy will take the usual "the nomination was their award" attitude towards Britton and Kyle Chandler.

New poll up in a few minutes (after I have my lunch).