New Poll - Outstanding Comedy Series

I had planned to do this poll of undeserved nominations, and came upon a sudden realization that this year at least it isn’t as easy to find undeserved nominations. Oh they’re there. They always are. Here’s the thing though; they aren’t as easy to find (this year at least) as the Emmy snubs. More to the point the egregious and obvious ones are pretty obvious. I mean I think we can all agree that when an actress appears in every episode of the first season of a show, the way that Cloris Leachman did in Raising Hope, she shouldn’t be nominated as the Outstanding Guest Star in a Comedy no matter what the rules in the category allow. That’s about as “undeserved” as they get. As a result, what I’m going to do is expand the two series categories to ten days rather than one week.

First up is the Outstanding Comedy Series. As always the rules are simple: vote for the show that you think should win not necessarily the show you think will win. I will be running and answering any comments that I might receive in this category so long as those comments aren’t comment spam. Deadline for this poll is Wednesday September 7 at Noon (approximately).

Poll Results - The Biggest Emmy Snub

Last week I switched up the Emmy polls by asking what people felt was the biggest Emmy snub this year. I offered ten possibilities and we had three votes cast. The polls haven’t exactly been popular this year…sigh.

But on to the results. The following got no votes: Fringe, Community, Survivor: Redemption Island, John Noble, Mayim Bialik, and Delroy Lindo. And the winners – it was a three-way tie – are Anna Torv, Nick Offerman, and Kyra Sedgwick with one vote each (33.3%)

If this were the sort of poll where I’d cast a tie breaking vote, though it pains me to say it – because I am a huge fan of what Anna Torv has done on Fringe – I would have to cast my vote for Kyra Sedgwick. I think it was nearly criminal that Sedgwick, who was nominated and won in this category last year didn’t receive a nomination, while Mariska Hargitay has earned her eighth nomination (and won once) for Law & Order: SVU and Kathy Bates was nominated for Harry’s Law. I’m sorry but this just doesn’t seem right to me.

We had two comments about this category. Tim Tipton wrote the following:

Here's a great show that is always snubbed by the emmys and I never hear anyone speak in it's defense: it's always sunny in philadelphia. I think because it's low brow humor, it is overlooked. But Danny DeVito should at least get an emmy. He's funny.

I know that there are a lot of fans of It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia although it’s not a show that I have seen, and not one that, from the descriptions, particularly appeals to me. Still, it’s hard to argue against Danny DeVito in just about anything that he does. He is invariably funny. That being said, I think that he and the show have two things running against them. The first is that the show is a very dark comedy and to a large degree the characters are not particularly likable. The Emmys are not kind to dark comedies and to characters that appear to have few redeeming qualities. In other words it’s too dark to get the approval of the Academy.

The other comment came from Ben who wrote:

There are a lot of deserving should-be candidates here. As I commented earlier in the year, it reflects badly on the ATAS that neither Community nor Fringe get any nominations at all. Nick Offerman deserves recognition, but at least P&R has Amy Poehler.

I voted for Anna Torv. In Fringe's first season she played Olivia Dunham as a tightly controlled, unemotional cop, and many people thought she just couldn't act. Cut to season 3 and not only has Olivia gone through amazing development, but Torv plays a different version of the character with a whole other arc. Critics start to sit up and take notice, but the Emmys remain oblivious.

I happen to agree on both points. As I mentioned, I love what Anna Torv has done on Fringe, and cast my “non-vote” for Kyra Sedgwick only because the failure to recognize here work on The Closer this year is particularly magnified because she won the Emmy in her category last year. That being said, I can offer an explanation why Fringe – and by extension Torv – didn’t get nominations. Fringe is, to be frank, a low rated genre (aka Science Fiction) show on a broadcast network, and those three things combined are anathema to the Television Academy (I don’t consider Lost a genre show in this sense, although it increasingly became one as it went on). Despite some amazing groundbreaking work, neither Sarah Michelle Gellar nor Buffy The Vampire Slayer were ever nominated in the acting or series categories (and Joss Whedon was only nominated for Outstanding Writing in a Drama once…for the episode Hush, which was essentially a silent movie). I think you have to go back to 1997 when Gillian Anderson won for The X-Files to find the Emmy giving an award to a “genre” series in one of the major categories.Even if you include Lost, it only won as Outstanding Drama Series in its first season, only had one nominee in the Actor in a Drama Category, and won two Emmys in the Supporting Actor category. No actresses were even nominated for the show. But of course Lost had the advantage of being a highly rated show. If Game Of Thrones manages to win a major Emmy – and I think it’s possible – one of the biggest reasons for its success will be that it was on HBO and got a reasonably good audience for that premium network. Being on HBO gave it prestige, while being on FOX (on Friday night no less) does nothing to help Fringe.

As for Community, the big problem is probably that it is the lowest rated of the NBC Thursday comedies. When you look at the ratings, you find that Community had a lower number of total viewers and a lower 18-49 rating than the cancelled Outsourced (Community 4.475 million viewers (115) and 2.0/6 in 18-49 (81); Outsourced 5.187 million (99) and 2.4/6 in 18-49 (59)). And while the Emmys aren’t supposed to be influenced by ratings, the fact is that to a degree they are. I don’t think the voters felt they could justify having two thirds of the nominees in the category coming from NBC and so decided to ignore the lowest rated one.

New poll – the flip side of the Snubbed Poll – up in a couple of hours. Right now I need a nap.

New Poll - Emmy Snubs

This is a totally new concept on my part for an Emmy Poll. Basically it’s intended to partially fill the extra two weeks before the awards ceremony. I could find two other categories to use – the Reality Host and Miniseries or Movies categories spring to mind – but those categories tend not to draw the votes. The other acting categories are both paired Male/Female and Comedy/Drama, so you’d need four weeks to do something like the Outstanding Supporting Actor/Actress in a Drama/Comedy properly.

Instead I want to look at what I regard as mistakes made by the Emmy nomination process. The first poll is about snubs – nominations that weren’t made for people that are deemed deserving. Mostly by me, I must confess, although there are some cases that I’ve been influenced by what others have said.

So here’s the list of snubs and the categories they should be nominated in:

• Fringe – Drama Series
• Community – Comedy Series
• John Noble – Fringe – Supporting Actor In A Drama
• Anna Torv – Fringe – Lead Actress In A Drama
• Mayim Bialik – Big Bang Theory – Supporting Actress In A Comedy
• Nick Offerman – Parks And Recreation – Supporting Actor In A Comedy
• Survivor: Redemption Island – Reality-Competition Series
• Kyra Sedgwick – The Closer – Lead Actress In A Drama
• Delroy Lindo – The Chicago Code – Supporting Actor In A Drama
• Kunal Nayyar – The Big Bang Theory – Supporting Actor In A Comedy

The rules – such as they are – this time around are a little different. Because there’s no category at the Emmys for their biggest snubs, we really can’t vote for who should win. Instead, I want you to vote for the show or actor/actress that you feel was most deserving of the nomination that they didn’t get. And in the comments, please feel free to tell me why you chose who or what you chose. Or feel free to tell me that I’m all wet and that none of these people or shows deserved a nomination. If you have a different candidate for the biggest snub mention that too.

Oh, one more thing I should mention: I recently signed up for a service called Sendlove.to which is a system that “lets visitors rate and express opinions about people in the news – politicians, athletes, celebrities, authors and more.” If you see an article on the page with a bunch of other articles you won’t see this, but if you view the article alone on a page you will see some of the names highlighted (in pink I believe). Hovering your mouse over the names will bring up a ratings box where you can “vote up” or “vote down” that person, and you can also make comments about them. These comments are separate and distinct from the comments on the blog. I’m giving this a try because it seems like a neat idea but I doubt if it will have the sort of effects that the originators of the service have promised. Still it should be fun.

Deadline August 27, 2011 at noon (or sometime around that time).

Poll Results - Outstanding Reality-Competition Series

We had the most votes cast in this category than any of the others so far this year – six. And those votes were pretty well spread out, but we did have a winner. Lifetime’s Project Runway received no votes at all (and I’m going to drop in an “I’m not surprised” for reasons that I’ll make clear shortly). The Amazing Race, American Idol, Dancing With The Stars, and Top Chef each picked up one vote (16.6%). But the big winner with two votes (33.3%) is So You Think You Can Dance.

This is a bit of a puzzle to me I confess. I don’t watch the show. Indeed of the six nominees I only watch about three, and one of those – last year’s winner the original Top Chef – only sporadically. So You Think You Can Dance is the only one to run during the summer so there’s a part of me that thinks that people could be voting for this summer’s season – which I‘ve heard was great – rather than last season’s. And if there were more voters I’d suspect it even more. As it stands I just have to believe that people like the performance based aspects of So You Think You Can Dance more than I do.

I didn’t vote this year, or – and I’m sure you know this – there would have been a tie between So You Think You Can Dance and my favourite Reality-Competition series, The Amazing Race. That show has so many dimensions beyond what I think you see in the other  shows in this category. I am afraid however that the show could use a bit of “freshening” to keep it on top. I’ve also said that even I would be hard pressed to vote for The Amazing Race or any of the other contenders in this category if the Redemption Island edition of Survivor had been nominated. It is rare when you see a player in any of these Reality-Competition series play as close to a perfect game as Boston Rob Mariano did in that season of Survivor. It was a thing of beauty and it ought to have been recognised.

New poll up shortly. It’ll be a bit different.

New Poll - Outstanding Reality-Competition Series

This is the fifth of this year’s Emmy Polls, not that there are very many people participating in them. The question this week is who should win the Emmy in the category  of Outstanding Reality-Competition Series. This category was an upset last year when Top Chef beat the only other show to win in this category The Amazing Race.
 
Just to remind anyone who is planning to vote of the “rules”: please vote for the actor that you think should win the Emmy in this category, not necessarily the one that you think will win it. Please feel free to comment on why you are voting the way that you are voting. If you comment I will run them.

Deadline for this poll is about noon on Saturday August 20th, although if the pattern holds, I won’t get around to doing anything with the poll results until a few hours later.

Poll Results - Outstanding Lead Actor In A Drama

I had some stuff that I planned to get written over the past seven days, including that article on Lucille Ball. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get that accomplished. The reason is – and there really is no synonym that really conveys this nor is there a genteel way to put it – I felt like shit most of this past week. I’m still not fully up to snuff but I feel a lot better right now than I did even 24 hours ago and that was a little better than I felt most of the week.

Enough of that. There were three votes cast in this week’s poll on who should win the Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama. Steve Buscemi, Kyle Chandler, Hugh Laurie and Timothy Oliphant received no votes. Michael C. Hall from Dexter has one vote (33%). But the winner is Jon Hamm with two votes (66.7%).

I think that Jon Hamm is the person who should win it, which is after all the way the poll has been written. Assuming that Hamm submitted the episode called The Suitcase for Hamm (as well as for Elizabeth Moss) then there is definitely some “hi-test” acting in the episode from both. Even if you take the season as a whole rather than a single episode for Hamm though this year has been an outstanding year for him. Don Draper was plunged into the darkest of dark places (including what was in my opinion his nadir – a few drunken moments of fumbling with his secretary) and managed to emerge bent but not broken, and probably no better than he had been before. As I said it was a great season for him.

Having said all of that, I don’t think that even with the absence of Bryan Cranston Hamm is going to win. I think that the likely winner will be Steve Buscemi. I think there are three basic reasons for this. The role of Nucky Thompson is a good one; Buscemi is a movie star, but one best known for his work in smaller, independent movies (which should appeal to the TV Academy’s snobbery) and; his show’s on HBO. Call me a cynic but that adds up to something that a better performance might have trouble trumping.

I had a couple of reader comments that I thought I should get too, both from Ben. First, on this category:

Jon Hamm's mix of cockiness and self-doubt as Don Draper carries it for me. A few years ago Hugh Laurie would be the best in a walk, but the scripts on House have been beyond his saving lately.

I think I agree on both points. As we know, Emmys in the acting categories are based on a single submitted performance so even though an actor’s performances might be superlative – or in the other extreme as you have said, beyond saving by an actor – it is the quality of the single episode submitted for him. At least how they’re supposed to be judging. Laurie’s writers have always produced one or two episodes of “Emmy Bait” for him every season. While I think that House has slipped over years (I still haven’t watched the end of this season, it’s just not a priority. I am also convinced that the writers have managed to give Laurie his two episodes.

Ben also sent this one on his vote in last week’s Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama category:

Since I didn't comment when voting, I'll own up to being the Connie Britton vote. Her performance seems to be a perfect example of invisible acting. You don't see her acting, you see a working woman behaving the way she would in the office and at home.
Moss is always deserving of praise, and I wouldn't be upset if Margulies won. But since this is the last chance to reward Britton, she's who I went with.

I think your view is valid but it’s tinged with a bit of sentimentality. I wouldn’t be unhappy if Connie Britton were win the Emmy – she deserved to be nominated since the first episode of the first season – but as good as she is, I guess I just prefer Moss.

New poll up in a few minutes.

New Poll - Outstanding Lead Actor In A Drama

This is the fourth of this year’s Emmy Polls, not that there are very many people participating in them. The question this week is who should win the Emmy in the category  of Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama. This category would seem to be wide open given that last year’s winner, Bryan Cranston is ineligible as his show Breaking Bad did not air a new episode during the period covered by the 2011 Emmys.

Just to remind anyone who is planning to vote of the “rules”: please vote for the actor that you think should win the Emmy in this category, not necessarily the one that you think will win it. Please feel free to comment on why you are voting the way that you are voting. If you comment I will run them.

Deadline for this poll is about noon on Saturday August 13th, although if the pattern wholds, I won’t get around to doing anything with the poll results until a few hours later.

Poll Results - Outstanding Lead Actress In A Drama

I sort of put off posting this until now because I was working on a post about Lucille Ball’s Biggest Mistake (and no, it wasn’t the topless photo) in hopes that I’d finish it in time to post it on her 100th Birthday. I failed, but I should have that article up later today.

For now the subject is the poll for Outstanding Lead Actress In A Drama. Following this year’s trend we had only three votes cast and no comments. *Sigh* And the results are as follows. Kathy Bates, Mireille Enos, Mariska Hargitay, and Elizabeth Moss received no votes. Connie Britton got one vote (33%). And the winner was Julianna Marguilies from The Good Wife with two votes (66%).

This is actually quite a good category for broadcast TV with half of the nominees coming from broadcast. Regrettably I think it is also a category with a high percentage of poor nominees. I’m thinking specifically of Kathy Bates who has been nominated for Harry’s Law, and Mariska Hargitay who is perpetually nominated for Law & Order: SVU. I have got a ton of Good Wife episodes sitting unwatched on my PVR, and I know that it’s both a strong female role and a showcase for Margulies. This would normally put her the lead for the Emmy, and in most years I don’t think anyone would be surprised or unhappy if she won. I think that Connie Britton is also deserving of the Emmy, and should have been nominated the first year that Friday Night Lights was on. This is a bit late, and the “unique” way in which the series survived in it’s last three seasons might count against the show and its stars.

I wouldn’t see anything wrong with Julianna Margulies winning the Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama. I just don’t think she should. I don’t vote in my own polls but if I did, my vote would have gone to Elizabeth Moss for her performance in Mad Men. Moss’s character has grown tremendously during the four years that the show has been on the air. More to the point, the Emmy awards are based on a single episode that the actors (and their agents) submit and Moss had one extremely strong episode in the 2010 season (The Suitcase) which critics at the time it aired called Emmy winning material. Not only do I think that Moss should win the Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama, I think she will win.

New poll up in a few minutes.

New Poll - Outstanding Lead Actress In A Drama

This is the third of this year’s Emmy Polls and I hope that I get a better response for this one than I did for the previous two.

 

As usual, please vote for the actress that you think should win the Emmy in this category, not necessarily the one that you think will win it. Please feel free to comment on why you are voting the way that you are voting. If nothing else it will make a big change from dealing with comment spam about Viagra or the financial scheme du jour. If you comment I’ll run them, and I promise to be gentle when I tell you why you’re wrong.

 

Deadline for this poll is Saturday August 6th at 12 Noon (or later depending on how busy I am next week – hopefully not as busy as I’ve been these past two Saturdays).

Poll Results – Outstanding Lead Actor In A Comedy

Late again. I spent most of Saturday dealing with some outdoor gardening type things, mainly cutting down a lot of trees that have grown along my fences without my wanting them there (well actually my brother did the cutting I did the dumping into an industrial sized garbage bin). For the record I really hate doing outdoor gardening type things even as I recognize that such activities are part of the price of home ownership.

It did keep me from getting this done and also from working on another article that I’ve been writing. This poll was even more disappointing in terms of voter turn-out than the previous poll for the Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy. Just four votes were cast and not to keep you in suspense, they all went to Jim Parsons from The Big Bang Theory.

I personally think that Parsons is an excellent choice, though I would have put some consideration in for his co-star Johnny Galecki. While Parsons as Sheldon is clearly the comedy highlight of the show, Galecki as Leonard is a great straight man for Parsons – and most of the rest of the cast – to work off of. And, unlike the case with Two And A Half Men where Jon Cryer has always been relegated (unfairly in my opinion) to the Supporting Actor category while Charlie Sheen was always submitted in the Best Actor category, in this case the people who were in charge of submitting names to the Academy realised that his part was just as important as Parsons’s. Clearly the Academy also chose to recognise Galecki’s work. I still think however that Parsons delivers the funniest performance of any on this show.

All of that being said, and even recognizing that as last year’s winner Jim Parson’s has a definite edge over most of the other nominees in the category, I am not entirely convinced that he will win. This is Steve Carell’s last nomination for playing Michael Scott on The Office. He’s been nominated five times in the past and hasn’t won an Emmy. Admittedly most of those losses were to Alec Baldwin for his work on 30 Rock who is also nominated again this year, but still the failure to recognize Carell has to be a major failing with the Academy. Depending on how sentimental the voters are towards Carell, and how much they want to rectify this omission, I think there is a distinct possibility that Carell will win the Emmy this year.

New Poll up in a few minutes.

New Poll - Outstanding Lead Actor In A Comedy

This is the second of the 2011 Emmy Polls, and the category is Outstanding Lead Actor In A Comedy. I’m a little bit late with this but I’ve had a busy day and I wasn’t at the computer most of the day.

Just to go over the rules again, please vote for the actor that you think should win the Emmy rather than the one you think will win, assuming that the two are different. I will be running any comments that I get on this and any other category with the results posts, so please free me from the purveyors of comment spam (who are targeting older posts now – it’s all about getting your name and sites prominent for searches of course) with comments that I can actually print and debate about.

Deadline for this poll is Saturday July 30th at Noon (or thereabouts, depending on how busy I am next Saturday).

Poll Results - Outstanding Lead Actress In A Comedy

So we have the first poll results for the Emmy Polls and as is usual we have a low turnout. In this case that means five votes which is six fewer votes that we had in 2010 and exactly the same as we had in 2009. That’s about where the similarity ends however. In 2009 those five votes were spread amongst four different nominees, while in 2010 the eleven votes were spread between five nominees. This time around the vote was split two ways

Receiving no votes this year were last year’s winner Edie Falco from Nurse Jackie, Melissa McCarthy from Mike & Molly, Martha Plimpton from Raising Hope, and three time winner Tina Fey from 30 Rock. In second place, with two votes (40%) is Laura Linney from The Big C. But the winner in this poll is the same person who won it last year, Amy Poehler from Parks And Recreation with three votes (60%).

We had no comments on this poll, so I’m going to have to make a comment based on my own personal sense of the matter. Which is a problem since I haven’t seen any of the performances in this category. I’ll say it right here: I don’t know who should win. I know that a lot of people that I respect like Amy Poehler and Parks & Recreation in general. They also seem to think that Martha Plimpton has done a great job on Raising Hope. But alas I don’t think either one of them will win. After Edie Falco’s win for Nurse Jackie last year, which a lot of people still don’t regard as a comedy I’m pretty much convinced that the Academy is looking for darker comedy. I think the winner is going to be Laura Linney. She’s one of the best actresses around in both comedy and drama and she is a multiple Emmy winner. As far as dark subject matter, I don’t think you can get much darker than a show about a woman with terminal melinoma. The writing is sharp and Linney is, as always, a brilliant performer. Or at least that’s what critics such as Alessandra Stanley of the New York Times and Hank Stuever of the Washington Post have written. I wouldn’t know, but I think that a win for Linney would fit the Academy’s tastes.

New Poll up in a few minutes.

New Poll – Outstanding Lead Actress In A Comedy

Here’s the first poll in the 2011 series of Emmy Polls. There are nine weeks before the awards are given out on September 18th, and there are seven categories I want to cover. Past experience has indicated that the best results are delivered when I have seven day deadlines for the polls, which leaves me with an extra two weeks. So, I could either extend the deadlines for the Outstanding Comedy and Drama categories or I could come up with something else. What I think I’ll do is come up with two extra polls – Worst Nomination and Most Egregious Omission.

The rules – such as they are for these polls – are simple. Vote for the show that you think should win, rather than the show that you think will win. I will be running and answering comments for these polls so if you have something to say about an actress in this category – why their performance is deserving of a win or why one or more of them shouldn’t be on the list (or maybe even employed) – put it in the comments. I’ll publish them and quite probably respond. Deadline for this poll is July 23 at Noon.

2011 Emmy Award Nominations

It’s that time of the summer when television begins the final stage of the process to honour itself. The nominations for the 2010-11 Emmys were announced Thursday. Around here this means Emmy polls will be forthcoming once I figure out how much time I have to get the polls up and running. Cable, and in particular premium cable, dominated the Drama categories while broadcast networks dominated the Comedy and reality categories. The made for TV movie and miniseries categories were fully merged and dominated by cable channels, the only exception being for PBS where Downton Abbey and the new version of Upstairs Downstairs got nominations. There are some notable absences from the nominees, the most notable being that last year’s Outstanding Leading Actress In A Drama, Kyra Sedgwick was ignored in that category. As always there are things to say about a nominations process that seems to totally ignore certain networks and genres, but for right now lets take a look at the nominations for the major categories. (Last year’s winner in bold, when nominated.)

Outstanding Drama Series

Boardwalk Empire – HBO
Dexter – Showtime
Friday Night Lights – DirectTV/NBC
Game Of Thrones – HBO
The Good Wife – CBS
Mad Men – AMC

Usually when a previous season’s winner is nominated in just about any category it automatically becomes the favourite to win the next season. That’s what happened with Mad Men last year, and the year before. This time around I’m not so sure. I think that show is one of the favourites, but not necessarily the favourite. I think that Boardwalk Empire has a legitimate shot at the Emmy as well. I’m not so sure about Game of Thrones. It’s a contender, but are they going to vote for this fantasy series, even if it is telling an epic story. The rest, including Friday Night Lights should be happy with the nomination. If I were to call it right now I’d say that Boardwalk Empire is likely to take it.
Egregious Omission: I really can’t think of any. I could and probably should say Fringe, but let’s face it, you could say Fringe in just about every category that it’s eligible for and it gets frustrating. I will say it in other categories though This was a very week year for new network shows and even some of the cable series didn’t fare well. I’ve heard good things about Terriers (but I haven’t seen it) but are Emmy nomination committees – or however it’s being done this year – really going to nominate a cancelled series; I think the answer is no, which also precludes my favourite new series of the year The Chicago Code.

Outstanding Comedy Series

The Big Bang Theory – CBS
Glee – FOX
Modern Family – ABC
The Office – NBC
Parks and Recreation – NBC
30 Rock – NBC

The one major category where the broadcast networks not only outnumbered the cable channels, they shut them out. This has the potential of being a real dogfight, although last year’s Emmy win gives Modern Family a huge advantage. I’ve heard that Glee is slipping and that The Office is nowhere near as good as it once was. Of course the only one of these shows that I watch on a regular basis is The Big Bang Theory so I’m not really in a position to judge. I think it may come down to Big Bang Theory, Modern Family and 30 Rock.
Egregious Omission: Two in fact. First up FOX’s Raising Hope. Not exactly my cup of Earl Grey but there are people that I respect who like it, and it is the most successful FOX live-action half-hour sitcom (see how I structured that to get around Glee?) The show picked up a couple of other nominations so it’s not a total loss, but still. The other missing show is Hot In Cleveland. Yes, Betty White got a nomination but here’s a secret, the show is more than Betty. It features sitcom royalty: Valerie Bertinelli, Jane Leeves and Wendy Malick. And yet neither they notr the series get any recognition.

Outstanding Reality-Competition Series

The Amazing Race – CBS
American Idol – FOX
Dancing With The Stars – ABC
Project Runway – Lifetime
So You Think You Can Dance – FOX
Top Chef – Bravo

I love The Amazing Race, but last year’s loss to Top Chef may have opened the flood gates. The two series of the show that aired in the 2010-11 season weren’t the best that the show had to offer. Depending on which season was submitted Dancing With The Stars certainly had drama and fun.
Egregious Omission: Survivor. I’m specifically thinking of the Redemption Island season, also known as the Coronation of Boston Rob. In all honesty I don’t know what the Emmy voters have against Survivor. The show hasn’t been nominated in this category since 2006, and of course it has never won the Emmy

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series

Stephen Buscemi, Boardwalk Empire – HBO
Michael C. Hall, Dexter – Showtime
Kyle Chandler, Friday Night Lights – DirectTV/NBC
Hugh Laurie, House – FOX
Timothy Olyphant, Justified – FX
Jon Hamm, Mad Men – AMC

Last year’s winner, Bryan Cranston is ineligible because Breaking Bad didn’t air new episodes during the eligibility period for the 2011 Emmys. This gives Jon Hamm a real shot at the award. The problem is that he’s up against Steve Buscemi in a very showy role for HBO. Timothy Olyphant also has to be considered a contender in the category (although again, it’s not a show I get to see; then again neither is Boardwalk Empire). I lean towards Hamm for just that reason, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see Buscemi take it. For the rest, remember it’s an honour just to be nominated.
Egregious Omission: None that I can think of. I really liked Jason Clarke in The Chicago Code but he was totally eclipsed by Delroy Lindo as Ronin Gibbons, and the Gibbons role was really a supporting part so where does that leave Clarke? And of course the show only lasted half a season. Donal Logue in Terriers – which people tell me was a great performance) is in the same boat.

Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series

Connie Briton, Friday Night Lights – DirectTV/NBC
Julianna Margulies, The Good Wife – CBS
Kathy Bates, Harry’s Law – NBC
Mireille Enos, The Killing – AMC
Mariska Hargitay, Law & Order: SVU – NBC
Elizabeth Moss, Mad Men – AMC

Last year’s winner Kyra Sedgwick wasn’t nominated and that has to be seen as an upset right there. There are two previous winners in the category, Margulies and Hargitay, and I think of the two Hargitay had the best season. Elizabeth Moss is finally nominated in the category that she deserves to be in for the growth of her role in Mad Men but I’m afraid Emmy voters might still see hers as a supporting part. I think Kathy Bates is being nominated primarily on her name and that Oscar she won. I didn’t watch the show but she’s playing a typically quirky David E. Kelly character. The wild card here is really Mireille Enos from The Killing. Again, I haven’t seen it but those very same people that I respect in other categories say that this is a major performance. I’m betting on Margulies, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Enos won it.
Egregious Omission: What the hell does Anna Torv have to do to get an Emmy nomination. This season she played a dual role as Olivia Dunham and her alternate reality counterpart “Fauxlivia.” Fauxlivia was also playing Olivia, while Olivia believed herself to be Fauxlivia (having been brainwashed by “Walternate.” And oh yes for a few episodes Torv was playing Leonard Nimoy’s William Bell trapped in Olivia’s body. That has to take some serious acting chops to pull off. Oh, and Kyra Sedgwick too.

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series

Jim Parsons, The Big Bang Theory – CBS
Johnny Galecki, The Big Bang Theory – CBS
Matt LeBlanc, Episodes – Showtime
Louie C.K., Louie – FX Networks
Steve Carell, The Office – NBC
Alec Baldwin, 30 Rock – NBC

Parsons won last year and I don’t see much standing in his way this year.… Oh wait, there’s Steve Carell who is leaving his role as Michael Scott on The Office. You can’t ignore that as reason for voting for someone particularly since Carell has never won the Emmy despite being the lynchpin of what is generally recognised as one of the best comedies on TV. I think the category is going to come down to Parsons vs. Carell with Alec Baldwin as an outsider.
Egregious Omission: Can’t really think of one. It hasn’t been a great year for new comedies with men in leading roles. As part of an ensemble cast yes, but in leading parts? Not really.

Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series

Laura Linney, The Big C – Showtime
Melissa McCarthy, Mike & Molly – CBS
Edie Falco, Nurse Jackie – Showtime
Amy Poehler, Parks & Recreation – NBC
Martha Plimpton, Raising Hope – FOX
Tina Fey, 30 Rock – NBC

Okay I’m still trying to figure out how Edie Falco won as Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy for a show which doesn’t seem to me to be a comedy. Is Nurse Jackie really a comedy? I don’t think she’ll win this year though. I think that the likely winner this year is the great Laura Linney playing a woman dying of cancer in The Big C. It’s another of those shows with a downbeat subject matter but it works as a comedy.
Egregious Omission: No idea. That shows you how much comedy I watch.

Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series

Peter Dinklage, Game of Thrones – HBO
Josh Charles, The Good Wife – CBS
Alan Cummings, The Good Wife – CBS
Walton Goggins, Justified – FX
John Slattery, Mad Men – AMC
Andre Braugher, Men Of A Certain Age – TNT

Last year’s winner, Aaron Paul, isn’t eligible for the same reason that Bryan Cranston wasn’t. The only people from broadcast TV are Charles and Cummings from The Good Wife, which I don’t watch. The only nominee in this category that I have seen is John Slattery in Mad Men and while it’s a good part I don’t see it winning. I can’t give you a name in this one.
Egregious Omission: Chris Noth. The main male character in The Good Wife. He certainly doesn’t fit in the Lead Actor category because the show is focussed on Julianna Margulies’s character but Noth’s character is a major player in the show. Also Delroy Lindo from The Chicago Code simply because he dominated every scene that he was in so completely that it became his show whenever the character appeared, regardless of who he was playing opposite. And then there’s John Noble who not only is playing someone a little bit nutty (not really mad or insane – nutty really is the best adjective to describe Walter) which is hard enough but he also played the ruthlessly Machiavellian alternate version of Walter Bishop. It’s a bravura performance that never gets recognised for being as good as it is.

Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series

Kelly Macdonald, Boardwalk Empire – HBO
Archie Panjabi, The Good Wife – CBS
Christine Baranski, The Good Wife – CBS
Margo Martindale, Justified – FX
Michelle Forbes, The Killing – AMC
Christina Hendricks, Mad Men – AMC

Interesting category. Panjabi has had a lot to do this season, and the incumbent position is never a bad one to have. Michelle Forbes’s role in The Killing is a powerful one, while Kelly Macdonald’s role as Nucky’s mistress Margaret Schroeder is close to being a lead role. Does Elizabeth Moss moving up to the Lead Actress category help Christina Hendricks by eliminating vote-splitting. And yes, Christine Baranski is never bad. If anyone is going to beat Panjabi it’s probably going to be Michelle Forbes….or maybe Kelly Macdonald….or Christina Hendricks.
Egregious Omission: None that I can think of.

Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series

Chris Colfer, Glee – FOX
Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Modern Family – ABC
Ed O’Neill, Modern Family – ABC
Eric Stonestreet, Modern Family – ABC
Ty Burrell, Modern Family – ABC
Jon Cryer, Two And A Half Men – CBS

I’m just guessing here, but I suspect that the winner in this category will probably come from Modern Family. Stonestreet has a leg up having won last year but if I wer to pick one of the other actors I’d tip towards Ty Burrell. Interesting that perpetual nominee Neil Patrick Harris isn’t nominated in the category. Not an egregious omission but you could easily dump Jon Cryer as far as I’m concerned.
Egregious Omission: Not really an egregious omission but either of Simon Helberg or Kunal Nayyar could find a place in this category.

Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series

Jane Lynch, Glee – FOX
Betty White, Hot In Cleveland – TVLand
Julie Bowen, Modern Family – ABC
Sofia Vergara, Modern Family – ABC
Kristen Wiig, Saturday Night Live – NBC
Jane Krakowski, 30 Rock – NBC

Jane Lynch is hosting the awards this year, and the “incumbent” theory suggests that she has an advantage here. The problem is that I’ve heard that Glee isn’t as strong as it was and that the Sue Sylvester character can wear on you. I know that Sofia Vergara and Julie Bowen are both very funny, but they run into the whole problem of vote splitting. The interesting nomination here is Betty White. She’s much beloved in the industry and her character is extremely funny. In an ensemble cast she stands out. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Betty White take this one.
Egregious Omission: Three, and none are from Hot In Cleveland. The first is Kaley Cuoco from The Big Bang Theory, though her role is so big and essential to the plot that she might deserve a Lead Actress nomination. Admittedly she plays the straight role to Parsons and Galecki but that’s a talent in itself. Also from Big Bang is Mayim Bialik as Amy Farrah Fowler who has been an amazing addition to the show’s cast as Leonard’s girl friend (a friend who’s a girl; no coitus). Her character, the female version of Leonard who wants to be Penny’s “bestie” is something that is hard to pull off. Finally there’s Cougar Town’s Busy Philipps. By turns the character is clueless and wise. There’s something about the character that really works for me.

Outstanding Reality-Competition Host

Phil Keopghan, The Amazing Race – CBS
Ryan Seacrest, American Idol – FOX
Tom Bergeron, Dancing With The Stars – ABC
Cat Deeley, So You Think You Can Dance – FOX
Jeff Probst, Survivor – CBS

Probst won last  year and is definitely the favourite for this year in spite of what many feel is a certain sycophancy towards Boston Rob. My personal favourite in this category is Phil Keoghan who has a harder job than Probst in that he has to keep ahead of the racers and sometimes do the activity that they’re doing. Still, the host with the hardest job of all is Tom Bergeron. Not only is he introducing contestants but he is doing a lot more live television than someone like Seacrest is doing. He’s had to react to a lot more situations than Seacrest has as well, including contestants fainting, injuries and wardrobe malfunctions. Probst will probably win, but there’s something to be said for Bergeron getting it.
Egregious Omission: None I can think of. Heidi Klum? Padma Lakshme? Ho hum.

Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series

Bruce Dern, Big Love, HBO
Beau Bridges, Brothers & Sisters – ABC
Michael J. Fox, The Good Wife – CBS
Paul McCrane, Harry’s Law – NBC
Jeremy Davis, Justified – FX
Robert Morse, Mad Men – AMC

I know some of the actors in the category including McCrane, Fox and Morse but I haven’t seen shows so I don’t really want to offer an opinion.
Egregious Omission: Two from Fringe – Leonard Nimoy (or at least his voice since he’s playing an animated character in Olivia’s mind), and Christopher Lloyd as Walter’s favourite musician.

Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series

Mary McDonnell, The Closer – TNT
Julia Stiles, Dexter – Showtime
Loretta Devine, Grey’s Anatomy – ABC
Randee Heller, Mad Men – AMC
Cara Buono, Mad Men – AMC
Joan Cusack, Shameless – Showtime
Alfre Woodard, True Blood – HBO

No real opinion.

Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series

Idris Elba, The Big C – Showtime
Nathan Lane, Modern Family – ABC
Zach Galfianakis, Saturday Night Live – NBC
Justin Timberlake, Saturday Night Live – NBC
Matt Damon, 30 Rock – NBC
Will Arnett, 30 Rock – NBC

I’ve only seen Nathan Lane’s bit on Modern Family, which I liked.
Egregious omission: Nothing really. I loved George Takei’s cameo appearance on The Big Bang Theory (and this also applies to Katie Sackoff’s appearance in the same episode) but it’s too damned short, and there’s really no way to make it more than what it is.)

Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series

Kristin Chenoweth, Glee – FOX
Dot-Marie Jones, Glee – FOX
Gwyneth Paltrow, Glee – FOX
Cloris Leachman, Raising Hope – FOX
Tina Fey, Saturday Night Live – NBC
Elizabeth Banks, 30 Rock – NBC

Opinion no.

The 63rd Annual Emmy Awards will air on FOX on September 18th.

A Belated Emmy Round-up

"It was the best of times; it was the worst of times." That's how I felt about the Emmys.

I know, I know, quoting Dickens when writing about an awards show is sort of trite, although I suspect that if Dickens were alive today he'd be writing for TV. The magazines that he wrote for in his day were the episodic mass entertainment media of the day, delivering serialized stories for those who couldn't or wouldn't go to plays but probably patronized Vaudeville and Music Hall. Still whether or not Dickens was writing for TV, I do feel that he wouldn't have anything to do with awards shows except as a recipient. Sunday's Emmy Awards was a show that gave us the best of times and the worst of times.

So why did I use that quote? Well, I used the quote because there were times when the show worked for me, times when it was fun and it flowed. But there were other times too, when I was ready to throttle several of the people associated with the entire endeavour. The fact that the worst of it pretty much coincided with the Movie and Miniseries categories – aka the "let's honour HBO for being the only people to continue to make this sort of stuff" segment of the show – is not really the point. There were tons of problems with the show and the way it was paced and put together. It was a show of parts rather than one that really flowed well. On the whole it made the show a big disappointment.

The show got off to a reasonable start with a musical number featuring host Jimmy Fallon several of the young cast members from Glee and an assortment of actors from other shows, including (but not limited to) Tina Fey, John Hamm, Joel McHale and Jorge Garcia, all singing so reasonably well that one wonders if the Autotune equipment was deployed. Fallon even did a reasonably good Bruce Springsteen riff at the end... or maybe he was just lip-syncing. No matter it was an energetic start to the proceedings, but then one of the symptoms of the problems that I was going to have with the whole thing surfaced. We had Fallon with an acoustic guitar, assisted by Amy Poehler, introducing the Comedy portion of the show. And I don't mean that they were doing humour at the beginning of the show. We had Fallon "paying tribute" to the three big shows that that left the air this year, 24, Law & Order, and Lost by doing parodies of various musicians. To show how out of touch I am, the only one that I recognised was the Elton John tribute to 24 I had to discover later that the Law & Order tribute was Boyz II Men and the Lost tribute was Green Day. Now pardon me if I'm wrong but aren't those references all nostalgia but just nostalgia for different people? No matter my tolerance for musical Fallon is apparently quite low.

Something else that annoyed me was the whole idea of the "Twitter introductions." These were introductions to some of the presenters that were supposedly written by ordinary decent civilians like you and me who submitted them using Twitter, I suppose in the hope that the show would seem hip and involving for the viewers by embracing social media. Look, I already know that Hollywood is embracing the whole social media thing because they've got an entire show inspired by a Twitter feed on the Fall schedule ($#*! My Dad Says), but it's a fact that most of the people posting on Twitter aren't as funny as the guy whose posts inspired $#*! My Dad Says, and if you needed any proof you had it in the lame intros that the public submitted (or supposedly submitted). And these were the ones that someone involved in the show thought were funny! Can you imagine the ones they rejected?!

I mentioned that I had a low tolerance for musical Jimmy Fallon. I also seem to have a very low tolerance for Ricky Gervaise. This time around he came out to present the award for Outstanding Musical Comedy or Variety Show, a category that has basically become the catch-all for the late night talk shows since nobody is doing primetime variety or even variety specials anymore, and he riffs on the idea that the show needs for people to be drinking. Maybe then things would get more exciting, presumably in the hope that someone would say something outrageous that the FCC would want to fine NBC for (but can't at least until the Supreme Court rules on the decision by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals – and no Gervaise didn't go into that, that was mine). It's what goes on at the Golden Globes (which Gervaise is hosting this year). Setting aside the fact that this is a fairly serious event and would there be an open bar at the British version of this, the BAFTAs, the fact is that I thought that Gervaise was allowed to go on too long without being that funny (certainly not as funny as he thought he was) in a show that is inevitably tight for time.

One other thing that I found a bit annoying was the way that they handled the writing and directing categories in all four genres (Comedy, Drama, Musical Comedy & Variety, and Movies & Miniseries). Instead of announcing the names of the writers, the producers tried to replicate the vibe that the Musical Comedy & Variety writers and producers get up to with their short productions naming the (many) people who participate in putting their shows together. They asked the writers and directors questions and aired the answers. Some of the answers were humorous, but not all of them. That was part of the problem with doing it this way – some of the nominees didn't bring the funny – but the big thing was that I just didn't get the names of the people who won. I want to know the names of the people who win, and if you feel the need to have something under the announcement of the names, include clips of the show instead.

There were good things about the broadcast. In fact if I'm going to be absolutely honest the good things outweighed all but the worst of the bad things. For one thing Fallon and the producers seemed quite intent on running a tight show and showing the world that they were running a tight show. From time to time at the cutaways they showed a clock that indicated where they were in terms of run-over. The longest time of run-over that the clock showed – or that they showed on the clock – was 1:56. Not one hour and fifty-six minutes but one minute and fifty six seconds. And from that point the run-over decreased and by the end of the night I was under the impression that they were just slightly short. The better part of this is that they were able to pull this off without making whatever cuts they made in the running time without making those cuts seamlessly. It never felt like massive amounts of material was dumped, and as far as that part goes it flowed well. I suppose that they were helped by the fact that George Clooney's speech accepting the Bob Hope Humanitarian Award (the Hopes were friends of his Aunt Rosemary) was short but nonetheless a heartfelt call for people to keep giving even when the disaster of the day has left the headlines, because the need was still there. There was also time for some good material. I was particularly impressed with the comedy bit done with eventual Outstanding Comedy winner Modern Family that culminated with Julie Bowen, Sofia Vergara, and Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Eric Stonestreet together with George Clooney (who was a good sport about the whole thing). The use of John Hodgeman as a back stage announcer, giving "humorous" opinions about the winners of various categories as they made their way to the stage, was good if expected. After all he's been doing this for the past three episodes or so.

Which brings me to the biggest problem I had with the show and it's a big one. One of the things that I learned when I was running my old Diplomacy zine was laying out a page. I wasn't great at it but I did alright. Setting the running order of the awards is the equivalent of doing layout on a printed page, and in this case I think that they producers of the Emmy's did a lousy job. They did a lousy job – in my opinion – because the segregated the categories by genre. Thus you had all of the comedy awards that were given out on Sunday night (except the Outstanding Comedy Series Emmy, which was the last one presented on the night) all together, followed by "all" the Reality Emmys (all one of them!?) presented together and so on. That was a real problem for me and, if the ratings are to be believed, for a lot of people. According to Marc Berman of Media Week viewership for the last half hour of the Emmy Awards dropped from 11.21 million to 9.37 million. The last half hour of the Emmys roughly coincided with the grouping of all the Movie & Miniseries Emmys, or as I like to call it, the "Let's pat HBO on the back for doing the stuff that Network TV can't make pay and is afraid to do anyway" portion of the Emmys. And why would they. If we accept the premise that most Americans either only watch Broadcast TV or watch Broadcast TV and a selection of basic cable channels but don't subscribe to a premium service like HBO, then why would they be interested in watching Temple Grandin and You Don't Know Jack sweep through the awards in this category like Sherman swept through Georgia. Only slightly more absurd than the fact that there was only one Reality show category in the Emmys and yet there was a whole section of the awards ceremony devoted to Reality Show is the fact that there were only two entries in the mini-series category. People skipped this part of the ceremony in droves, I suppose preferring to watch the end of the pre-season football game on FOX.

Ah I can hear people say, but how else can you do it? If you only put the big categories at the end of the show won't people tune out and just catch the big awards at the end? That's what defenders of the way the show was set up this year are saying. The fact is that you don't have to present all of the big awards at the end of the night. Why can't you mix up the categories and present the award for Outstanding Actor in a Comedy right after Outstanding Writer Movie or Mini-series and just before Outstanding Reality-Competition Series. You can still have the clip pieces about the year in TV Drama or Comedy or what have you but they don't serve to demark sections of the show. There are really only two awards that have to be at the end – Outstanding Comedy Series and Outstanding Drama Series – but otherwise they can pretty much be presented in whatever order works for the producers, and people will keep watching because they won't know when a category they'll really be interested in will be coming up. But that's just my opinion.

Turning to the awards themselves, it was a big night for Modern Family, winning in the Writing category as well as for Supporting Actor in a Comedy for Eric Stonestreet, and the Outstanding Comedy Series award. Where it didn't win was in the two lead categories where the show had no one entered, and in the Directing and Supporting Actress categories where everyone knew that Jane Lynch was going to win for her portrayal of Sue Sylvester. (Interesting note – both Jane Lynch and Eric Stonestreet had minor speaking parts in third season episodes of The West Wing: Lynch was a reporter in the press room and Stonestreet was one of White House Council Oliver Babich's assistants.) As the blog poll predicted Jim Parsons won the award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy, but the bigger story is that the Outstanding Lead Actress Emmy went not to the poll's preferred actress Amy Poehler but to perpetual Emmy favourite Edi Falco. It seemed to come as a shock to her, because she claimed in her acceptance speech that "I'm not funny." And while that may be her self-deprecating way of saying that she herself isn't funny it sticks with the sense of a lot of people that her show isn't funny. Also in the realm of surprises was that Kyra Sedgwick won the Emmy for Outstanding Actress in a Drama after her fifth nomination. I would like to note for posterity that our Emmy poll had a three way tie in this category and still failed to name the winner in a six woman race. I guess that our preferences as fans don't match what the TV Academy is looking for.

Despite the fumble with the Outstanding Actress in a Drama category the poll had a good time at the awards this year, getting not only Parsons and Modern Family but also the Reality Competition winner. You guys picked Top Chef when I was sure that The Amazing Race would win a seventh award despite a lacklustre season (but I still contend that this last season of Survivor had it over both shows and has only been nominated once in this category since they started giving Emmys in it). The Emmy for Bryan Cranston in Breaking Bad was, despite the poll's support for Michael C. Hall, less a case of Emmy Entropy than it was a case of the Academy getting it right and rewarding outstanding work. The same can be said of the award for his Breaking Bad co-star Aaron Paul in the Supporting Actor category. Still, it was only in the two Actor categories that Breaking Bad triumphed. Despite, or perhaps because, Mad Men having two cast members (Elizabeth Moss and Christina Hendicks) in the Supporting Actress in a Drama category, it was The Good Wife's Archie Panjabi who won there. Dexter's Steven Shill won as outstanding Director in a Drama series, but it was Mad Men that won the Outstanding Drama Emmy, not poll choice and departing series Lost.

And that's the 2010 Emmy awards. Not the best Emmy show ever and with plenty of room for improvement, but far from the worst Emmy show ever – that "honour" would go to the year the Reality Show hosts hosted. Hopefully whoever has the show next year will learn from the good points and missteps of this year's show. Somehow I doubt it though.

(This article is way late. I'll just give the excuse that I had to go to my brother's birthday party on Monday, and couldn't get much work done during the whole day. It has the singular virtue of being true. This would never have happened if they'd run the show when it's supposed to run - the middle of September. Then I'd have a host of other excuses for being late.)

The Emmy Poll Round Up – Who Should Win and Who Will Win

Or at least who I think will win. Since of course should win and will win are entirely different animals.

In the Outstanding Actress in a Drama category the result was a three-way between Glenn Close, Connie Britton and Mariska Hargitay. Wait, let me try to scrub that image from my mind. No, that's not going away. Of these three I think that Glenn Close has the best chance of taking it home, the Academy tending to follow a policy of giving the statue to whoever won it last unless they've got a damned good reason not to. The thing is that the more I think this over the more I think that they do have a damned good reason to give it to someone else, but that someone else is someone who didn't get any votes in this poll. That would be Julianna Margulies, whose performance as Alicia Florrick in The Good Wife is a strong one and is getting a lot of favourable buzz the closer we get to the Emmy's. She already has a SAG Award, a Golden Globe and a Satellite Award for the part. And it's a good fit for her. I think the Academy will complete the set by giving her the Emmy, and I think it's probably well deserved.

In the Outstanding Actress in a Comedy category, the poll came up with Amy Poehler from Parks & Recreation as the winner. This is really a category that I have no strong opinion on because I don't watch any of the shows. The one thing that I will say is that I don't get Edie Falco's nomination here, even though reportedly this is a performance that will make you forget she was ever Carmela Soprano. But is it a comedy? In a situation like this I will retreat to "Emmy Entropy" and suggest that either last year's winner Toni Collette or the winner in earlier seasons Tina Fey will take it. Still you can't ignore the fact that the Academy does love Edie Falco. This one's a real scramble.

The poll for Outstanding Actor in a Drama gave us Dexter's Michael C. Hall as your choice to win the Emmy. It is a very strong field this year and I think that Hall is probably deserving of the award. I just don't think he'll win it. As I said in the article when I gave out the poll results, I think that Bryan Cranston is almost certainly going to win this category for a third year in a row. Anyone else, but in particular Kyle Chandler is a long shot. The academy has shown that they prefer the complexities of Cranston's performance to just about When you consider that everyone in this category except Chandler and Fox – both of whom have been nominated for the first time in this category – has lost to Cranston in the past two years, it seems unlikely that there'll be an upset in this category. Give the Emmy to Cranston again, but at least you can't belame "Emmy Entropy"; he's earned it.

Turning to Outstanding Actor in a Comedy responses to the poll came down heavily on the side of Jim Parsons from The Big Bang Theory an opinion that I personally share. Incumbent winner Alec Baldwin was a distant second in my poll. I won't disagree that Parsons is what elevates The Big Bang Theory above the level of some sort of Friends knock-off and for that alone he is deserving of the award. I desperately want him to get it, hope that he'll get it, will that he'll get it. I just fear that, like last year, the Emmys will ignore Parsons's performance and give the thing to Alec Baldwin... in which case I'm blaming Will Wheaton because that's something Sheldon would do.

Of the three "Outstanding Series" categories that I polled on, Outstanding Reality-Competition Series is probably the least suspenseful of them all. The poll picked Top Chef over American Idol but the perpetual winner in the category is The Amazing Race and despite what I think most viewers would consider a pair of less than stellar outing in the past TV season, it's the show most likely to succeed. Part of the reason is that American Idol didn't exactly have a great season either. And while Dancing With The Stars did have two strong seasons I don't think the Academy will reward it. The problem with all of this is that none of these shows was the real Outstanding Reality-Competition Series this year. The true Outstanding Reality-Competition Series was Survivor: Heroes vs Villains and everyone except the Academy knows it. The show had all the elements that a good Reality-Competition show needs; drama, comedy, a bit of carefully blurred nudity, injuries, despair, a villain that you could really hate (Russell Hantz), an unlikely hero (Boston Rob, the first person who really saw Russell for the rat that he was), and a winner who was both unexpected and likeable (Sandra Diaz-Twine). But for whatever reason – probably because the Academy thought it "unworthy" – the show wasn't nominated. Of the shows that were nominated Amazing Race is the one that they probably liked the best.

In the Outstanding Comedy Series category the poll chose Modern Family over The Office. Now I won't disagree with Modern Family as the winner. I think that it's a show that has altered the dynamic of the family comedy significantly. That said I'm not convinced that it will be the winner in the category for two reasons. The first is that it might be a victim of "Emmy Entropy" and lose to repeat Emmy winner 30 Rock even if the show has been weaker this year than in previous years. The other possible winner is this year's critical darling Glee. All things considered, while I personally think that Modern Family should win, 30 Rock is the show that I think will win.

Finally, in the Outstanding Drama Series category, Lost won the most votes in my poll. I think this reflects in part the show's cult following and also the fact that the show has left the air. I think that if it does win the Emmy it will be because it was the show's final season. I just don't think that it will win. I'm mostly convinced that Mad Men will repeat in this category for the third season in a row. It would be my personal pick, but The Good Wife has a lot of buzz. Still, I think that "Emmy Entropy" will win out again, and that Mad Men will be the last show to be honoured in tonight's show.

I won't be live-blogging the Emmy's this year, but I will be taking notes and will be doing a wrap-up, after I recover from the show.

Poll Results - What Show SHOULD win the Emmy as Outstanding Drama Series?

Our final Emmy Poll, and I wanted to get it out no so I can do a round-up of the Poll Results tomorrow. We had ten votes cast which is down from fourteen last year, but is at least up from the eight votes we had last week for the Comedy category. In a tie for fourth with no votes are AMC's Breaking Bad, Showtime's Dexter and HBO's True Blood. In third place, with two votes (20%) is last year's winner in this category, AMC's Mad Men. In second place, with three votes (30%) is the CBS drama The Good Wife. The winner in this category however, with five votes (50%) is ABC's Lost, which ended earlier this year.

There is one thing that rather surprises me about voting in this category, and that is that True Blood didn't get more – as in any – votes. I've never seen the show, though there are several episodes from earlier seasons on the DVR thanks to Space: The Imagination Station here in Canada (new episodes air on HBO Canada but the specialty channels do buy older season of shows that air on HBO... and Showtime if I'm not mistaken), but I expected that as with many of these cult type shows, it would have a rabid following that swarms a site that mentions there show. It wouldn't be the first time that happened here, notably in the Actress in a Drama category back in 2007 when there was a sudden surge of votes in a 36 hour periods, all but one for Patricia Arquette in Medium. But this time around my readers showed no love at all for the vampires and their lovers. Breaking Bad is another show that doesn't get much love around here. It's an excellent show but I wonder if most of the support for the show is channelled through Brian Cranston's truly outstanding portrayal of the good man who is turning bad as he sinks into the world of drug manufacturing and distribution. Dexter is another show which I think that, if it is honoured at all in this year's awards, will be honoured with an Emmy for its star rather than with a win for the series as a whole.

Turning to the shows that received votes in this poll, I'm going to dismiss The Good Wife in the category, and probably unfairly I am going to give the same reason that I did for Breaking Bad and Dexter. The Good Wife has an outstanding cast and looks at something that we are seeing increasingly in recent years, the politician's wife who has to stand by her husband when his personal indiscretions erupt into the public arena. That said, I think that if Juliana Margulies wins the Emmy as Outstanding Actress in a Drama there are, probably unfairly, going to be those who see it as the show's reward particularly if Christine Baranski picks up the Emmy in the Supporting Actress category.

Turning to the other two shows, I'm going to say that personally I think Mad Men will get it again this year, and I think it should (I don't vote in these polls; if I did Mad Men would get my vote). While the central figure in Mad Men is the conflicted Don Draper, played by John Hamm, there are plenty of stand-out characters and the show has a lot of depth. I guess I just love it. And I really don't care too much for Lost. That's a personal prejudice however. I stopped watching the show after the way the network suits and the producers handled the third season. It had an arrogant quality to it. Can't blame the show for that but you can blame the network executives and the showrunners. That said of course, I think it is highly likely that the show could challenge Mad Men this season. Not only did the show leave the air this season, but the truth is that it left the air on a high note unlike this year's other high profile Drama that ended this season, 24. I'm convinced that it is going to come down to Mad Men and Lost and I absolutely would not be surprised to see Lost win it.

Toby provided our only comment this time around: "I'm a "Lostaway" at heart and they really tried to answer as many questions as they could (an impossible task!) while at the same time providing something a little different in the storyline. (A shame that a BBC series beat them to the same conclusion by two days.) But it was appointment TV, one in which it held my interest so well that I wouldn't allow my family or friends to call me during the hour...." That's high praise from just about anyone, and I can see how, if someone made it over that "hump" in the third season, the show would become appointment Television. My problem is that I didn't make it over that hump and because of it I was never really able to catch-up (not I confess that I really had any great desire to). If I'm going to fault the series on that it is that if that third season had been done better, or maybe more responsibly, I'd have hung around abd become as engrossed with it as you obviously were.

No new polls for a few days, though I should be able to do a "what shows will be cancelled first" type poll that won't become irrelevant when a show is dropped before the poll ends. Tomorrow I'll be summing up the poll results for this year's Emmys and giving my own opinions as to which shows will win, no matter whether I think they should. Then tomorrow night I will not be liveblogging the Emmy's because I don't feel like running back and forth between the TV and the desktop computer. Instead I'll post a summary after the business is over.

New Poll – What Show SHOULD win the Emmy as Outstanding Drama Series?

Here's the final poll of the 2010 Emmy series of polls. As always I want you to vote for the show that you think should win the Emmy for Outstanding Drama Series, rather than the show you think will win. Of course the two might not be mutually exclusive. And as usual, if you have reasons for believing that a show should win, post them in the comments section. As I've mentioned in the previous "Poll Results" posting I do like to quote comments in the blog when I get them, as long as they aren't spam for Taiwanese porn sites or offers of generic Viagra. I love publishing legitimate commentary and trying to establish a discussion; it's the old zine publisher in me.

Deadline for this poll is Saturday August 28^th, only because I need to get an "Emmy Poll wrap-up" piece written on Sunday.

Poll Results - What Show SHOULD win the Emmy as Outstanding Comedy Series?

Back to a Sunday poll result thanks to the inevitable circumstances beyond my control (I had to spend Saturday afternoon mowing my brother's lawn – he and my sister-in-law and my nephew are on holiday). Beyond that, because this particular poll didn't exactly set the world on fire in terms of votes cast – and with six votes cast we were down from last year's count in this category when we had seven – I had a sneaking hope that maybe we might get a couple of more votes here, but I guess not.

So as I've said, we had eight votes cast. In a tie for third with no votes we have HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm, FOX's Glee, Showtime's Nurse Jackie and NBC's 30 Rock. In second place, with two votes (33%) we have The Office from NBC. But the winner for this category with four votes (67%) is Modern Family.

I think this is probably an accurate assessment, although if I were to look into the minds of the Emmy voters (a scary prospect to be sure) I'd be guessing that they'll stick with their "insider" mentality and vote for 30 Rock. Skipping over 30 Rock which others have assured me has slipped in the past season, the other shows which got no votes are a mixed bag. For example I am not convinced that Nurse Jackie is actually a comedy, and I'm fairly convinced that Glee is in this category because the Academy can't believe that a show with music can fit into the Drama category. Actually I think that it is as much Comedy as it is Drama, and that generally gets a show slotted into the Comedy category so maybe that's not such an inaccurate choice. Curb Your Enthusiasm has a strike against it for being a cable show – the Emmys tend not to reward comedies from cable networks and for the most part cable networks don't do comedy well.

Turning to the two shows that received votes, The Office is the old established veteran, a show with proven pedigree and an excellent choice. Except that it has been stated that this hasn't been the best season for The Office, just as it hasn't been the best season for 30 Rock. Admittedly a bad season for either The Office or 30 Rock would be considered an excellent season for lesser series. On the other hand the other show that was nominated – Modern Family has had an excellent season, something that was proven by the nominations for five of the six adult actors on the show. Modern Family takes a fairly pedestrian and well worn premise – the family comedy – and expands it by expanding the definition of family. Instead of the husband wife and kids, with the requisite funny neighbours/in-laws, Modern Family has three different perspectives on families; the gay couple with an adopted child, the older man with a younger woman and her child from a previous relationship, and the "conventional" husband wife and two kids family. It works.

We had two comments on this category (which means that 1/3 of the people who voted also commented; if the voter turnout were higher this ratio would be exciting). First up we have this comment from Toby in support of Modern Family: "I've gone with 'Modern Family'. The mockumentary premise sometimes gets violated, but it's all in service to the humor. And so many great characters, especially Cameron and Phil and young Manny...." The characters are one of the big points of this show. As I've said the strength of this cast is shown by the nominations for every adult actor on the show except Ed O'Neill, which is regarded as one of the great oversights of this Emmy season. Casting is important, but giving actors the material to work with is what sets the top shows apart.

The other comment is from Ben who commented on an earlier poll: "First off, I thank you for quoting me a few posts back." No problem. When I get comments for polls – at least ones that don't redirect to Taiwanese porn sites or other spam, which seems to be a growing problem – I like to run them. I like to see the reasons why people vote the way they do. "I'm voting for The Office. The show may be having growing pains, but it's fundamentally one of the strongest shows on TV. Given the chance I'd have voted for Parks and Recreation, but that's another story." I'm not sure that you can say that a show that is in its sixth season can be described as having "growing pains" but I can see that the show, like any show, can have an off season in spite of having the same writers and the same cast. And yes the show is fundamentally strong. The question for me is whether it should win this time with a show like Modern Family or even the incumbent 30 Rock. As far as Parks and Recreation, I'm going to again hide behind my general antipathy towards comedy as a reason for not watching the show. I have had good reports about the series after what some regarded as a rocky start. Think it is probably more worthy of a spot on the ballot than Nurse Jackie but then that's my own personal prejudice rearing its head.

New poll, the last in the current Emmy Polls, will be up in a few minutes.

New Poll - What Show SHOULD win the Emmy as Outstanding Comedy Series?

Okay, we're in the home stretch, with just this category and the Outstanding Drama Series to be voted on. As always please vote for who you think should win the Emmy for Outstanding Drama Series. Not necessarily who you think is going to win but who you think is most deserving of the win. I really want to hear your reasons for voting for the show tha you vote for, if only because it makes a major break from Taiwanese porn and (the latest) male enhancement products. I can honestly say that I've never had a complaint in that department, so I refuse to take part in their little games to improve their position on Google Searches.

This poll will run until August 21^st.