Nominations were announced this morning. I posted some end-of-season handicapping back here. How'd I do? Here's the major categories and some reaction:
COMEDY:
SERIES: Arrested Development, Desperate Housewives, Everybody Loves Raymond, Scrubs, Will & Grace
New additions this year: Desperate Housewives -- no surprise there -- and Scrubs, finally getting the recognition it deserves. Still waiting, though, for the Emmy voters to recognize the quality of Gilmore Girls.
ACTOR: Jason Bateman / Arrested Development, Zach Braff / Scrubs, Eric McCormack / Will & Grace, Ray Romano / Everybody Loves Raymond, Tony Shalhoub / Monk
This was a wide-open field; most of last year's nominees weren't eligible, allowing McCormack and Romano to get back into the race (in both cases, a sign of just how weak the sitcom is these days), and giving Bateman and (hooray!) Braff their first nods.
ACTRESS: Marcia Cross / Desperate Housewives, Teri Hatcher / Desperate Housewives, Patricia Heaton / Everybody Loves Raymond, Felicity Huffman / Desperate Housewives, Jane Kaczmarek / Malcolm in the Middle
Pretty much as expected. I'd hoped that Lauren Graham might grab a slot away from one of the Housewives, but alas, 'twas not to be.
SUPP. ACTOR: Peter Boyle / Everybody Loves Raymond, Brad Garrett / Everybody Loves Raymond, Sean Hayes / Will & Grace, Jeremy Piven / Entourage, Jeffrey Tambor / Arrested Development
Piven's the newcomer, and a rather surprising one. What, pray tell, does John C. McGinley have to do to score a nomination in this category? He should have two or three Emmys on the mantel by now for his work on Scrubs.
SUPP. ACTRESS: Conchata Ferrell / Two and a Half Men, Megan Mullally / Will & Grace, Doris Roberts / Everybody Loves Raymond, Holland Taylor / Two and a Half Men, Jessica Walter / Arrested Development
Easily the weakest field in the major categories this year. Mullally and Roberts are back for shtick that was tired three years ago; Ferrell and Taylor are both fine actresses, to be sure, but this show is far from their best work. (I'm not a fan of Arrested Development, so I can't comment on Walter.) It was bad enough seeing Gilmore Girls overlooked in other categories, but to leave Kelly Bishop out of a field this poor is criminal.
DRAMA:
SERIES: 24, Deadwood, Lost, Six Feet Under, The West Wing
CSI got bumped from the field, always unusual, given the inertia of the Emmy voters. I know a lot of people are complaining that The West Wing doesn't deserve to be here, and there are shows I might have chosen ahead of it (Alias, House, or Boston Legal, maybe), but I think Wing had a good year with the election storyline.
ACTOR: Hank Azaria / Huff, Hugh Laurie / House, Ian McShane / Deadwood, James Spader / Boston Legal, Kiefer Sutherland / 24
LaPaglia and Sheen were both bumped from the field, and Gandolfini wasn't eligible this year, making for a particularly interesting race. I'm disappointed not to see Michael C. Hall here; I thought he did some marvelous work on Six Feet Under last season in the (admittedly overwrought) abduction storyline.
ACTRESS: Patricia Arquette / Medium, Glenn Close / The Shield, Frances Conroy / Six Feet Under, Jennifer Garner / Alias, Mariska Hargitay / Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
Surprised to see Alison Janney dropped, very surprised to see Patricia Arquette nominated. Hadn't anticipated the Glenn Close nomination, but should have; Emmy voters still have an inferiority complex about movie stars, and love to reward them for "slumming." (Kyra Sedgwick will be nominated next year for The Closer, in part for the same reason. Which is not to suggest, by the way, that such nominations are necessarily undeserved; I haven't watched The Shield, but I've no doubt Close's performance is fine, and I know Sedgwick's is.)
SUPP. ACTOR: Alan Alda / The West Wing, Naveen Andrews / Lost, Terry O'Quinn / Lost, Oliver Platt / Huff, William Shatner / Boston Legal
A completely new field compared to last year's nominees. Of the Lost men, I'd have preferred Daniel Dae Kim to Naveen Andrews, but I suspect he was hurt by the fact that his role was entirely in Korean, and Andrews certainly did good work on the show. Shatner's "Denny Crane!" shtick seemed to me just enough to win Shatner the Guest Emmy he won last year, but hardly interesting enough, or possessed of enough variety, to deserve this nomination. I'm also surprised to see Alda here for what was a very small role.
SUPP. ACTRESS: Stockard Channing / The West Wing, Blythe Danner / Huff, Tyne Daly / Judging Amy, Sandra Oh / Grey's Anatomy, CCH Pounder / The Shield
How on earth did Stockard Channing hang on to her spot? Did she do anything remotely interesting on the last season of The West Wing? The other actresses are all from shows I don't watch, but how could both of the strong contenders from 24 -- Mary Lynn Rajskub and Shohreh Aghdashloo -- be left out?
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