EMMYS AGAIN FAIL TO RECOGNIZE
THE BEST OF TV

July 14, 2006

They told us things were going to be different this year with the Emmy Awards. They insisted a major change in the nomination process would ensure that performers and shows unjustly overlooked in the past would finally be rewarded. Who knew they were talking about Kevin James?

Yes, the "King of Queens" star's inclusion in the Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy category was one of the many surprises when the 2006 Emmy nominations were announced last week - a shock not unlike finding a hair in your food. (Keep in mind that while James was nominated, "My Name is Earl"'s Jason Lee was somehow not.) When the Television Academy of Arts and Sciences decided to revamp their own award system, I'm pretty sure a nomination for Kevin James wasn't the result they had in mind.

Sadly, the James nom was barely worth a glance compared to some of the more egregious screw-ups that littered the list of Emmy hopefuls. Consider this: FOX's "House" was nominated for Outstanding Drama Series, yet its star, Hugh Laurie, was not nominated in the lead actor category. That's not an oversight -- it's a disgrace. With Hugh Laurie, "House" is one of TV's most compulsively watchable shows. Without him, it's a good reason to change the channel. A nomination for the show without a matching one for Laurie is so brain-twisting that I fear for the very fabric of the space-time continuum.

Same thing with "Scrubs," NBC's hilarious, under-loved hospital comedy. Again, the show was rightfully nominated for Best Comedy, but yet neither Zach Braff nor Sarah Chalke nor John C. McGinley nor Donald Faison - all four deserving of praise - were nominated in any acting categories. If the show is one of TV's five funniest, as the Emmy voters insist, where exactly are all those laughs coming from? The ingenious scripts, I guess? (Whoops, sorry. "Scrubs" also failed to earn a single nomination in the comedy writing category.)

It used to be that the Emmy nominations were bad, but at least consistently so. You could always count on old standbys like "ER" and "Law & Order" to earn a windfall of honors no matter how many years past their prime the shows were. This year, on top of being awful, the nominations also lacked any rhyme or reason. And as for the underappreciated yet brilliant performers who were finally supposed to get their due this time, can I ask where are the names of "The Shield"'s Forest Whitaker for his awesome work opposite Michael Chiklis this past season, "Veronica Mars"' Kristen Bell for her incredible range and charisma, "Gilmore Girls"' Lauren Graham for her precision comic timing, "Weeds"' Mary Louise-Parker for giving TV's best female performance in the last year, "Arrested Development"'s Jason Bateman for making us laugh all the way to the end, and "The Office"'s John Krasinski and Jenna Fischer for making us all weepy when their romantic yearnings finally bubbled to the surface? I'll tell you where those names are - not included on the list of nominees.

Heck, the new Emmy nomination process - which featured a blue-ribbon panel that would whittle a larger list of Academy nominees down to the final five - was actually nicknamed "the Lauren Graham rule," under the assumption that she would finally be recognized for her always stellar work. Her absence makes one want to repeatedly smack your head against the remote.

Honestly, I wish the Emmys would just go away forever, and we could all look back and laugh - "Remember what a joke the Emmys were?" Instead, the television industry continues to play up the awards like they are a definitive record of the best TV has to offer, a notion that continues to be laughable, misguided and a bit insane.

As for me, I'll be doing the only thing a sensible TV fan can do on Emmy night, complaining about this stuff all over again and rooting loudly for "24"'s Kiefer Sutherland, Gregory Itzin, and Jean Smart, three great actors who somehow snatched deserved nominations. Wonder how they pulled that off?