This Year’s Surprisealicious Emmy Nominations
Looks like the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, which oversees the Emmy Awards, has finally gotten things right, or at least better, after intentionally changing its nominating process to diversify the field.
These changes included choosing the final five nominees from a field of the top ten frontrunners instead of automatically making the top five frontrunners the nominees. Additionally, the first round of contenders in the major comedy and drama acting categories were chosen not just by performers, as in previous years, but by directors and casting executives, as well, with a panel of Academy members deciding the final nominees.
The Emmy nominations for major categories were just announced on NBC this morning, and they are chock full of surprises, including:
- No Desperate Housewives, one of the top contenders last year
- No Lost, one of the winners last year
- The prior Sopranos juggernaut was effectively squelched with just one nod in the Best Drama category
- No Will & Grace as Best Comedy, a ubiquitous presence in the category in past years
- Never-before-nominated nominees for Best Actress in a Drama: Kyra Sedgwick of the über popular basic-cable crime series, The Closer, and Geena Davis of the canceled freshman political drama that gave America its first ever female President, Commander in Chief
- Never-before-nominated nominees for Best Actor in a Drama: Buff and intense Christopher Meloni of the second and currently most popular L&O spinoff, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and jaded antihero Denis Leary of the smoking basic-cable firefighter drama, Rescue Me
- Never-before-nominated nominees for Best Actress in a Comedy: Likeable and down-to-earth Julia Louis-Dreyfus of The New Adventures of Old Christine finally broke the Seinfeld curse, while Lisa Kudrow, formerly of Friends, earned a nod for her (I believe) failed HBO sitcom, The Comeback
- Never-before-nominated nominees for Best Actor in a Comedy: Queens everyman Kevin James of The King of Queens wasn’t even remotely on anybody’s mind, wiseass Charlie Sheen of Two and a Half Men continues to prove his comedic chops and makes a double appearance with his dad Martin, nominated for Best Actor in a Drama for his role as the outgoing U.S. President on the recently concluded The West Wing, and Steve Carell, The 40-Year-Old Virgin himself, makes his Emmy debut for The Office
- Never-before-nominated nominees for Best Comedy: The unique and popular American version of The Office gets noticed just its second year around
- Never-before-nominated nominees for Best Drama: Sophomore medical drama House is in the house, and so is sophomore medical drama Grey’s Anatomy
- Another notable mention: X-Files legend Gillian Anderson, also known as FBI Special Agent Dana Scully, who garnered a nomination for Best Actress in a Miniseries or Movie for her British-produced PBS miniseries Bleak House
The 58th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards will take place on August 12 at the Leonard H. Goldenson Theatre in California and will be broadcast live on NBC. Congrats to all the diverse nominees!
