Jmunney's Blog

The Primetime Emmy Award nominations will be announced this upcoming Thursday morning, July 14, so here are my annual thoughts on who and what I believe deserve to be nominated.  As always, I will only include picks from shows that I regularly watch, but I suggest picks from shows that I don’t watch that I have heard may be deserving as well.  Today, the comedy categories; tomorrow, the dramas.  (Picks are listed in order from most deserving to least deserving.)

Best Comedy
Parks and Recreation was good as usual, and 30 Rock felt reenergized this year, but it was Community that met its fullest potential.  But I’m struggling to find anything else truly worthy of a nom.  The Office, Modern Family, and Family Guy were all okay.  Is Futurama eligible in this category?
1. Community
2. Parks and Recreation
3. 30 Rock

Lead Actor
Joel McHale is the realest actor on TV right now, as he leapfrogs over Alec Baldwin and Jim Parsons to the top of the lead acting heap.
1. Joel McHale, Community
2. Alec Baldwin, 30 Rock
3. Jim Parsons, The Big Bang Theory
4. Steve Carell, The Office
5. Will Arnett, Running Wilde

Lead Actress
Leslie Knope remains slightly more indelible than Liz Lemon.  Also, I am happy that Martha Plimpton was entered for lead, which allows me to round out my picks in this category a bit more and opens up supporting.
1. Amy Poehler, Parks and Recreation
2. Tina Fey, 30 Rock
3. Keri Russell, Running Wilde
4. Martha Plimpton, Raising Hope

Supporting Actor
Before Community came along, Tracy Morgan deserved plenty of Emmys for 30 Rock.  He has yet to win, which is doubly unfortunate, now that Community is on, and Danny Pudi is now the one who deserves multiple Emmys.  Apparently, SNL cast members are nominated in the supporting categories, so Bill Hader ought to end up with a nom for one of the best seasons ever.  And how do you stand out in a cast filled with wackos?  Apparently, play it understated, as Adam Scott did on Parks and Recreation.
1. Danny Pudi, Community
2. Bill Hader, Saturday Night Live
3. Tracy Morgan, 30 Rock
4. Chris Pratt, Parks and Recreation
5. Adam Scott, Parks and Recreation
6. Chevy Chase, Community

Supporting Actres
Jane Lynch’s screen time on Glee was, strangely, diminished, which would have made room for Aubrey Plaza to deserve to win here, except that Alison Brie became even more essential to Community.  Meanwhile, Mayim Bialik was upgraded to main cast member status, and Olivia Munn stood out on the sadly short lived Perfect Couples.
1. Alison Brie, Community
2. Aubrey Plaza, Parks and Recreation
3. Mayim Bialik, The Big Bang Theory
4. Jane Lynch, Glee
5. Olivia Munn, Perfect Couples
6. Jane Krakowski, 30 Rock

Guest Actor/Actress
Kevin Corrigan is one-of-a-kind, especially in his appearance as Professor Professorson on Community.  He ought to edge out James Spader’s frighteningly, hilariously creepy appearance on The Office.  The guest ladies were a mixed bag this year.  The youngest contender – Chloë Grace-Moretz – had the most room to do plenty with her role and she did all that she could with it.  And let’s throw in a couple of folks who also deserve noms in the main acting categories (Will Arnett, Aubrey Plaza).
1. Kevin Corrigan, Community
2. James Spader, The Office
3. Jim Carrey, Saturday Night Live
4. Zach Galifianakis, Saturday Night Live
5. Will Arnett, The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret
6. John Lithgow, How I Met Your Mother

1. Chloë Grace-Moretz, 30 Rock
2. Parker Posey, Parks and Recreation
3. Catherine Tate, The Office
4. Amy Sedaris, Raising Hope
5. Aubrey Plaza, Portlandia

Apparently, I do not watch as many dramas as I do comedies.  Or I do not watch as many quality dramas as I do quality comedies.  When I consider all the dramas I follow, I do not find enough potential contenders to fill out each dramatic category for the Emmys.  Since I can only reasonably limit myself to making my picks among the shows that I watch, I will only make a few choices per category, instead of rounding out the entire list of nominations as I did with the comedies.

Best Drama
Lost won this category its first season, and it ought to bookend that win with another in its essentially satisfying final year.  Fringe has transcended its status as sci-fi procedural, laying thick some real emotional heft on its characters.  Other dramas that I hear are good include Breaking Bad, Mad Men, and True Blood.

Lead Actor
John Noble is probably entered in the supporting race, but his role as Walter Bishop on Fringe is big enough for him to be considered a lead.  Whichever race he ends up in, he ought to earn a nod for a performance that has been funny, poignant, and all-in-all, stunning.

Lead Actress
We all know that the best thing about Gossip Girl is Leighton Meester.  But not all of us know that she is so good that she is deserving of an Emmy nomination.  Well, for those of you who don’t know, she is.  She simultaneously embodies and subverts the quintessential nighttime soap teen queen role, and she always looks great doing it.

Supporting Actor
The cast of Lost was aware that this was their last season, and they stepped up their games accordingly.  Terry O’Quinn went balls-to-the-wall and had his best season yet in a dual role as Locke and Fake Locke/Smokey.  Josh Holloway brought Sawyer down to a dark side with gumption following the death of Juliet.  In the beginning of the season, I feared that Ben Linus’ prominence would be diminished, but Michael Emerson ultimately had as much as usual to chew on and could make it two in a row.  On Fringe, Joshua Jackson’s quietly confident work has gone unheralded for too long.  Now that Boston Legal is over, that means no more William Shatner in this category.  So who will fill the token nomination of a role on a drama that is more comedic than dramatic?  How about the loopy Fran Kranz of Dollhouse?  (Too bad he can only fill it for only one year since Dollhouse is already off the air.)  If we want to fill this category out with a sixth, we can go back to Lost, either with Nestor Carbonell, who dug deep into the psyche of Richard Alpert, or Henry Ian Cusick as Desmond, who deserves a spot here if only for being the only person ever who sounds cool when calling people, “brother.”

Supporting Actress
The best part of the somewhat promising remake of V? That would be the profoundly chilling leader of the Visitors, Anna, played to icy perfection by Morena Baccarin.  For a more matronly and friendlier version of icy, there is the very English Olivia Williams of Dollhouse.

Guest Actor and Actress
Jacob and the Man in Black ultimately did not appear often enough on Lost to fit into the supporting category, so Mark Pellegrino and Titus Welliver will have to duke it out here.  I am not as enthusiastic about them as I would like to be, since they gave their best performances in the season 5 finale.  But they were still freakishly solid.  Leonard Nimoy was appropriately regal on Fringe.  And Alan Tudyk went completely insane as one of the V’s.  As for guest actress?  Umm … Summer Glau on Dollhouse?  Pam Grier on Smallville?  Katey Sagal on Lost?  Actually, there was at least one female guest appearance whose quality I can attest to without hesitation: Martha Plimpton as the multilayered (surprisingly so for a guest role) Sheriff Mathis on the “Northwest Passage” episode of Fringe.

The Emmy nominations will be announced this upcoming Thursday, July 8, and as those of you who follow my blog and/or know me personally can attest, I follow a lot of TV shows.  Therefore, unsurprisingly enough, I have some thoughts on how the Emmy nominations should turn out.  This is not what I would call a “dream ballot,” because the Emmys are rather strange and not worth predicting or dreaming about.  Among the choices for nominees are usually some legitimate contenders, some not-so-deserving contenders, and some out-of-left-field, I’m-not-really-sure-if-they-are-deserving contenders.  Thus, I have no dreams that my choices could match those of the nominators.  But I still feel strongly enough to share my thoughts.  Today, I will start off with the comedy categories.  Tomorrow, drama.

Best Comedy
30 Rock has deservedly won the statue for best comedy the past three years, so I was shocked – shocked! – when I discovered that Parks and Recreation (a show I started watching mainly because I watched whatever was on NBC’s Thursday night comedy block) turned out to be the most consistently funny show of the year.  Last year, Family Guy entered itself in the Comedy category instead of the Animation wing and was awarded with a nomination.  I agreed with the move on principle but did not believe that the season was strong enough for a nomination; this season, however, was.  Modern Family always makes its viewer feel good, mainly due to laughter, never due to schmaltz.  And Community is just too idiosyncratic for any of the remaining contenders to beat it out for that final spot.
1. Parks and Recreation
2. 30 Rock
3. Family Guy
4. Modern Family
5. Community

Lead Actor
Last year, I actually thought that Jim Parsons should win over Alec Baldwin.  This year, I think they were equal.  I am sort of leaning towards Jim, since Alec already has 3 wins and Jim has 0 … how about a tie?  Though The Office turned off some of its fans this year, Steve Carrell’s performance was as strong as ever.  Because Joel McHale was surrounded by such a wild supporting cast, it took me a while to appreciate his work on Community, but he does deserve a spot.  I would have picked Ty Burrell here, but the entire Modern Family cast entered in the supporting categories, so that leaves a spot for Matthew Morrison, who was funny enough to not be hampered by Glee’s status as a dramedy.
1. Alec Baldwin, 30 Rock/Jim Parsons, The Big Bang Theory
3. Steve Carrell, The Office
4. Joel McHale, Community
5. Matthew Morrison, Glee

Lead Actress
I wish I had more to say in this category, but there are only two sitcoms I watch with lead actresses.  I would have put Julie Bowen here, but see the explanation about Ty Burrell above.  Anyway, I do not need to be familiar with any other female-led comedies to know that this is Amy Poehler’s category all the way.  Tina Fey was as iconic as ever as Liz Lemon, but she was upstaged by her former SNL cast mate.
1. Amy Poehler, Parks and Recreation
2. Tina Fey, 30 Rock

Supporting Actor
This has easily been the most crowded Emmy category for the past several years, and it remains so, even though Arrested Development has been off the air for four years!  There better be at least six nominees this year, and I would even recommend ten (and I am having trouble even sticking to that).  Tracy Morgan must win this category at some point in his 30 Rock tenure, but this year belongs to Danny Pudi, who has crafted the role of a lifetime in Abed Nadir.  Ty Burrell makes things even more crowded by entering as supporting instead of lead.  Nick Offerman has a beautiful mustache as Ron Swanson.  I hear that Chevy Chase is a jerk in real life; on TV, he is hilarious, jerk or no.  Eric Stonestreet is the funniest gay family member ever.  And Aziz Ansari can be somewhat annoying as a stand-up, but he has put together an enjoyably balanced performance as Tom Haverford.
1. Danny Pudi, Community
2. Tracy Morgan, 30 Rock
3. Ty Burrell, Modern Family
4. Nick Offerman, Parks and Recreation
5. Chevy Chase, Community
6. Eric Stonestreet, Modern Family
7. Aziz Ansari, Parks and Recreation
8. Neil Patrick Harris, How I Met Your Mother
9. Ed O’Neill, Modern Family
10. Jack McBrayer, 30 Rock
11. Rainn Wilson, The Office

Supporting Actress
I would be completely behind the absurdly idiosyncratically deadpan Aubrey Plaza winning here, if not for Jane Lynch, whose Sue Sylvester has already reached icon status and is obviously the best part of Glee.  Aubrey is the strongest number 2 in any of the comedy categories.  Alison Brie pulls off cute, prudish, earnest, annoying, endearing, guilt-inducing, and consoling – often in the same sentence – as Annie on Community.  And in the category of “why not,” let’s go with Retta Sirleaf as Donna on Parks and Recreation, who transcends the stereotype of the “mm-hmm”-ing sassy black woman.
1. Jane Lynch, Glee
2. Aubrey Plaza, Parks and Recreation
3. Alison Brie, Community
4. Jane Krakowski, 30 Rock
5. Retta Sirleaf, Parks and Recreation

Guest Actor and Actress
This category has lately been dominated by SNL guests, so let’s go with the two best hosts of the season – Jon Hamm and Betty White.  We can also go with current SNL cast members making appearances on other shows, such as Will Forte on 30 Rock.  Then there is Judy Greer, who guest starred on at least three sitcoms this year (The Big Bang Theory, How I Met Your Mother, and Modern Family) and two of them (BBT and HIMYM) within two weeks of each other.  Then we can mix it up and go with a non-big name guest star: Melissa Rauch as Bernadette, Wolowitz’s main squeeze on BBT.  And though she only appeared in the last two minutes of the season, Mayim Bialik provided one of the most indelible moments on BBT as a maybe potential love interest for Sheldon.
1. Jon Hamm, Saturday Night Live
2. Zach Galifianakis, Saturday Night Live
3. Michael Sheen, 30 Rock
4. Will Forte, 30 Rock
5. John Oliver, Community

1. Betty White, Saturday Night Live
2. Judy Greer, Modern Family
3. Melissa Rauch, The Big Bang Theory
4. Mayim Bialik, The Big Bang Theory
5. Christine Baranski, The Big Bang Theory