Sunday, July 31, 2011

Poll Results – Outstanding Lead Actor In A Comedy

jim-parsons_lLate 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.

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