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.

Find That Canuck!

You want to know the secret about Canadians? We’re everywhere, and most Americans will never ever know. TV shows have Canadians popping up in the most surprising places, and unlike Brits New Zealanders Irish and Aussies we rarely have to worry about their accents slipping. So in what I hope is going to be ongoing feature I’ll post a photo of a TV series and ask you to Find That Canuck. 

This week we’ll start with the cast of CSI: New York, my second favourite of the CSI series. Someone in this cast photo is a Canadian, but who? Give your answer on the poll, and in a week I’ll reveal the identity of the hidden Canadian.

Double Header Poll Results – What Will Be The First New Comedy Cancelled In the New Season... Plus!

We have a couple of results to post. First up we know know the identity of the first drama to be cancelled this season. And the winner...for being the first loser... is FOX`s Lonestar. The series, which received a grand total of one vote in our previous poll was cancelled after two episodes and will be replaced by FOX`s Lie To Me, which held down the Monday second hour slot for most of the summer. Bye-bye Lonestar; you were hailed by the critics as one of the best new shows of the year but the public didn`t bother to watch.

Moving to the current poll, despite the fact that I don`t normally write much about comedies in this blog, the category of the first Comedy to be cancelled in the new TV season has turned out to be one of the most popular that we`ve had. Seventeen votes were cast and with one exception, CBS`s Mike & Molly, all of the series got at least one vote. In fifth place with one vote (6%) was $#*! My Dad Says, from CBS. In fourth place with two votes (12%) was NBC`s Outsourced, while in third place with three votes (18%) was FOX`s Running Wilde. In second place with four votes (24%) was the other new FOX sitcom, Raising Hope. But the winner that you think is going to be a loser, with seven votes (41%) is ABC`s Better with You.

We had one real comment on the shows mentioned in the poll (there was a second comment that didn't make a whole lot of sense in light of the shows that were mentioned). Ben wrote: "I'm gonna guess Raising Hope. The premise of a guy raising a child after the baby's mother gets executed is just begging to get cancelled." Was it executed or just incarcerated? Either way, for reasons that I get into, I'm inclined to agree with you.

Now the first thing that you have to know is that the only one of these sshows that I`ve actually seen is the first episode of $#*! My Dad Says so as always I'm not on top of the comedy line-up. That said, I don't really think that this is a particularly good year for comedies. Mike & Molly is a standard "couple getting together" show with a gimmick – in this case the gimmick is that the couple are overweight. This could be good or a disaster depending oon how they deal with the weight issue. $#*! My Dad Says is following the sort of formula that was made most famous by The Odd Couple – two basically incompatible guys living under the same roof – combined with an "old guy who is free to say anything he wants because he's old" element. It works but it's hardly original. Better With You is another show that is hardly going to set the world on fire with originality. But that doesn't make it a bad show. In fact I like the two lead actresses, Jennifer Finnegan and Joanna Garcia, quite a bit. Even Outsourced isn't that innovative. Think of it as The Office with a fish out of water quality added. It is, dare I say it, reasonably innocuous.

That leaves us with the two FOX comedies. Strike one on these shows is that they're on FOX. How long has it been since there's been a really successful live action comedy on FOX? I'm thinking back to Married With Children. And no, I don't count Arrested Development. It may have been artistically brilliant but it stayed on the air despite ratings that would have had most shows cancelled in under thirteen weeks. There've been other shows that stayed on FOX for more than a single season, but those have also had people scratching their heads. Of the two shows, Running Wilde seems the more attractive show to me. It does have some ties to shows that have gone before in that you've got a basically unsympathetic protagonist, but the concept is reasonably fresh. With the right lead-in and the right nurturing I think it could do well enough, or at least become a show that the network would want to keep around despite less than strong ratings. The problem is that the show has Raising Hope as a lead-in, and everything that I've heard about that show has me wanting to run the other way hard and fast, starting with the presence of Cloris Leachman. I didn't like Leachman in Mary Tyler Moore, I didn't like her in Phyllis and I didn't like her in Dancing With The Stars. The premise of the show makes me cringe and some of the things that I've heard about the show (the vomiting scene) are just too gross. In a battle between unoriginal and gross-out people tend to watch unoriginal. I think the first comedy to be cancelled is going to be Raising Hope. The real question may be whether or not it takes Running Wilde with it.

New Poll - Which Of These Shows Will Be The First Comedy Cancelled In The New TV Season

Better late than never on this I guess. At least nothing's been cancelled yet, so I might as well poll on which new Comedy will be the first to be cancelled. As I mentioned in the last poll, unless a comedy really really doesn't work they tend to get a fairly good chance to prove themselves. The problem of course is that it is almost inevitable that a network will put out a comedy that someone at the network must think is funny but which the great American public doesn't get, or doesn't want to try to get, and they die a fast and spectacular death. Does anyone remember Kelsey Grammer's last show, Hank for any reason other than the way it died a quick and well deserved death? I don't think so.

What I want to know is what you think will be the first drama to disappear from the line-up (and for the purpose of this poll I'm likely to count "indefinite hiatus" as a cancellation, at least if it comes from FOX). In this case you should probably pay attention to previews that you've seen – a lot easier to do if you're an American – and online "buzz" about the shows. And as always please feel free to comment on why you think a show is going get the Viking funeral (with the unaired episodes being loaded aboard a boat and burned).

Deadline for this poll will be September 28^th.

(Apologies for not getting this poll up as quickly as I had hoped for. There was a bit of a crisis in something else that I do online, and I had to help in my own little way in restoring something resembling equilibrium. It took some time and there were a lot of semi-angry words. I will be stepping back from my involvement in this for a while after the 25^th of this month, but until then I can't tell how much I'll be accomplishing in this coming week.)

Poll Results - Which Of These Shows Will Be The First Drama Cancelled In The New TV Season?

All right, we have the results of the first of two polls about which new shows will be the first to be cancelled this season. There were thirteen votes cast for the shows you think will be the first of the sixteen new dramas to be canned. Unlike other polls I won't be listing the shows that didn't receive any votes. There are too many of them. Instead, here are the eight shows that actually got votes (hour indicates the first, second or third hour of prime time since, as the folks at the PTC keep reminding us, prime time is different in different time zones). With one vote (7%) each are Lone Star (FOX, Monday, second hour), Detroit 1-8-7 (ABC, Tuesday, third Hour), and Undercovers (NBC Wednesday, first hour). And in first place, with two votes each (15%) are Chase (NBC, Monday, third hour), No Ordinary Family (ABC, Tuesday, first hour), My Generation (ABC, Thursday, first hour), Nikita (The CW, Thursday, second hour), and Outlaw (NBC, Friday, third Hour).

In other words, gentle readers, there's no real consensus among the thirteen of you who chose to vote. I'm not sure if this is a good thing in that you think that the shows are all reasonably good, or whether it's a bad thing in that you think that these are the worst of a pretty bad lot. I've got to say, I'm not too sure myself. I think that it may very well be that a lot of what we'll be seeing next week, when most of the new dramas debut, is a floodtide of mediocrity. There are two, possibly three shows that might, might, rise above the crowd in terms of quality, but the bitter truth is that quality doesn't always – actually doesn't ever – trump popularity in the world of network TV. For the record, in my opinion those two or three shows are going to be The Event (NBC, Monday, second hour), Detroit 1-8-7 (ABC, Tuesday, third hour) and Blue Bloods (CBS, Friday, third hour). I might have added Lone Star (FOX, Monday, second hour) but there is something about that show that just seems to rub me the wrong way.

Before I weigh in on that I think will be the first drama to be cancelled I want to look at the comments that this poll generated. Ben had this to say:

I'm guessing My Generation. It sounds kind of interesting, but youth-oriented shows fail more often than they succeed. See Life as We Know It, Get Real, etc.

I'll talk about My Generation in a bit, but for the moment let's just say that this show has a ton of problems beyond it being "youth oriented" starting with its opposition in the time slot.

Todd Mason had this to say about his choice, Chase:

Going with historical trends...NBC has had a history of killing whatever they put up against CSI MIAMI in its crib.

At which point I reminded Todd that CBS had moved CSI: Miami to Sunday night and that Chase will be going up against Hawaii Five-0 which really could be worse. Todd responded:

Indeed. I'd forgotten CBS had decided to bury that thing on Sunday. But, yes, being against H50.3 and CASTLE, which is a sleeper with a devoted audience, will probably not help the apparently rather dull CHASE out. A cursed slot for NBC, maybe.

But Ben ain't wrong, either. However, CW or tween cable might try to grab it if ABC decides against it.

I'm trying to think of the last time that NBC had something that lasted more than a season in the Monday third hour time slot. Okay, I wasn't thinking about it, I had to look it up. The answer is Medium(!?) in the 2005-06 season. Still, that's a long dry spell and I don't think that Chase will break the trend. But I don't think it will be the first show cancelled either. In fact I think that it might limp through most of the season before expiring.

Looking over the shows that are in contention - based on your votes - for the dubious honour of being the first drama to be cancelled, the two shows that stand out to me as "vulture bait" in the drama category are My Generation and Outlaw. My Generation has a really tough time slot to try to conquer – the comedy combo of The Big Bang Theory and $#*! My Dad Says on CBS, Community and 30 Rock on NBC, Bones on FOX and even The Vampire Diaries on The CW. That right there gives it a tough hill to climb, but then you have to add on the subject matter. As Ben pointed out, "youth-oriented shows fail more often than they succeed" and while I'm not absolutely convinced that this show is as "youth oriented" as he seems to think I'm really concerned that the subject matter isn't going to click. The ensemble cast isn't going to help, particularly when it seems like you aren't going to get too much overlap between cast members. We've seen plenty of examples where shows with ensemble casts which tell the stories of individual ensemble members have fallen flat fast.

The other show that I think will be gone fast is NBC's Outlaw. The show has the advantage of Jimmy Smits as the lead, although we all remember how well Cane did a couple of years back when Smits was the lead. The time slot is a bit of a problem in that it is going up against CBS's Blue Bloods (with Tom Selleck) and ABC's aged news magazine 20/20, and NBC offers a weak lead-in with Dateline NBC while CBS has CSI: New York. But that's not why I think Outlaws will be gone quick. I think that the big problem for Outlaw is that people are going to have a tough time accepting the premise. I don't think they'll believe that a Supreme Court Justice would suddenly give it all up to set up in private practice to work for the downtrodden. And based on the fact that Smits's character is a womanizer and a gambler makes you wonder how he managed the confirmation hearings to get onto the bench – any bench – in the first place. Combine all of these factors – time slot, lead-in, Smits versus Selleck (in terms of actor popularity), the apparent absurdity of the premise, and just the way that CBS "gets" the sort of audience that they're dealing with on Friday evenings and I think that Outlaw is likely to be gone by the end of thirteen weeks.

I hope to have the poll for the comedies up sometime tomorrow … after I get back from the casino.


 

New Poll - Which Of These Shows Will Be The First Drama Cancelled In The New TV Season

I have a new poll up, although because of the number of shows that I'm asking about I can't use my usual polling client which limits me to a maximum of ten answers.

The question this time around is what the first freshman drama to be cancelled this season will be. With the new TV season starting in two weeks – although The CW will be debuting their two new dramas this coming week – the inevitable question is what will survive and what will go down hard and fast. If past performance is any indicator the first shows to be dumped will be dramas because dramas tend to be more expensive to produce than comedies. On the other hand, if a comedy really really doesn`t work it will be out pretty quick too. And that`s at least part of the reason why I`m not asking about all of the new shows. My next poll will focus on the comedies.

It`s another case of wanting to know what you think will be the first drama to disappear from the line-up (and for the purpose of this poll I'm likely to count "indefinite hiatus" as a cancellation, at least if it comes from FOX). In this case you should probably pay attention to previews that you've seen – a lot easier to do if you're an American – and online "buzz" about the shows.

As always, if you feel so inclined, please include an explanation of why exactly you think that a particular series is heading for the chopping block like an unpardoned Thanksgiving turkey. You might even include a date by which you expect the show to be entering TV Tartarus. Deadline for this poll is September 14 at 5:30 p.m.

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.