Emmy
nomination 'Dream Ballots'
Emmy nominations
are scheduled to be announced on Thursday, July 17th, and various television
critics throughout the country have already posted their picks for an
“Emmy Dream Ballot.” Michael Ausiello got his choices
in before leaving TV Guide for Entertainment Weekly
last month, for example, and is picking 30 Rock, How I
Met Your Mother, The New Adventures of Old Christine,
Pushing Daisies and Ugly Betty as best in comedy with
Big Love, Friday Night Lights, Lost, Mad
Men and The Wire the best in drama. His actors/actresses
list are heavily-weighted for most of those shows as well, with Big
Love receiving four “nominations,” while Friday
Night Lights, Pushing Daisies and Ugly Betty
get three each.
Robert
Bianco of USA
Today, meanwhile, pretty much echoes
Ausiello’s choices for Best Comedy, with the exception of replacing
How I Met You Mother with The Big Bang Theory. In
terms of Best Drama, there is a definite disagreement—Bianco goes
along with Lost, Mad Men and The Wire, but
his two remaining picks are Grey’s Anatomy and Rescue
Me. Big Love is a total shut-out for Bianco, while Pushing
Daisies leads among actors/actresses with five “nominees,”
followed by Grey’s Anatomy with four and Lost
with three. The
Hollywood Reporter recently pooled
a number of other critics, with Lost and Mad Men getting
the most mentions (30 Rock and The Office also received
their fair share of comedic attention).
The agreement
and disagreement between two of the biggest television journalists in
the country (Ausiello consulted another big-name—TV Guide
reviewer Matt Roush—for his list) reflects the general thoughts
on television choices these day; basically, that quality comedies are
rarer than dramas, and with no Sopranos-like front-runner,
the race is pretty much wide-open in the drama category. And as The
Hollywood Report also points out, “the WGA strike sidelined
many series and gave some lesser-watched programming a wider audience,”
all which means July 17th could make for some unexpected announcements.
Can’t wait.
—Anthony
Letizia (June 23, 2008)
