Nominations for the 62nd Primetime Emmy Awards will be announced Thursday, July 8, at 5:40 a.m. (PT) from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences’ Leonard H. Goldenson Theatre in North Hollywood, Calif.
Let's pump some life into Emmys with new, improved categories
By Lisa de Moraes
Wednesday, July 7, 2010;
You know how when you were about two hours into last year's Emmy Awards broadcast, you came to the definite decision that what the show needed was about 16 fluid ounces of weed killer scientifically administered to all the winners? Because if there's one thing worse than an hours-long trophy show in which well-heeled hams regale us with stories of their profound gratitude to their agents, it's watching a rerun of that show. Which, coincidentally, perfectly describes last year's Emmy Awards, in which:
-- "30 Rock" won its third consecutive Emmy for best comedy.
-- "Mad Men" logged its second consecutive best-drama Emmy.
-- "The Amazing Race" nailed its seventh win for best reality series.
-- "The Daily Show" copped its seventh win as best variety series.
-- Alec Baldwin, Bryan Cranston and Glenn Close all bagged their second consecutive best-acting wins.
Nominees for this year's Primetime Emmy Awards will be unveiled Thursday morning -- and, if we're lucky, an infusion of interesting new shows, such as ABC's "Modern Family," Fox's "Glee" and FX's "Sons of Anarchy," will break up the logjam at the Emmy ceremony in late August. But why leave it to chance? What this trophy show needs is -- new categories! Here are some to get us beyond the usual suspects.
Best "Tonight Show"
Conan O'Brien has submitted his work on NBC's "The Tonight Show" for Emmy consideration in the category of best variety series, supported by a major marketing campaign financed by his new employer, TBS. But NBC submitted Jay Leno on "Tonight Show" in the same category. We'll find out Thursday if both men are nominated. If they are -- ratings gold on Emmy night!
Sadly, the odds are slim, given that the field is congested with perennial nominees, including Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report," CBS's "Late Show With David Letterman" and NBC's "Saturday Night Live." This new category would have fixed that.
Best Swan Song
"Lost" fans are like volcanoes that need to be fed virgins periodically to keep them from erupting. The cult show's final season might get nominated for best drama series, but why chance it? Safer to give "Lost" its own category, where it will be competing in a lightweight field including the likes of "Ugly Betty," a lousy season of "24," "Law & Order" and " 'Til Death."
Best Use of a World War It's a well-known fact that the TV academy has a soft spot for war, bestowing a plethora of Emmys to gorgeously shot, emotionally charged movies and miniseries, including 1989's "War and Remembrance" and 2002's "Band of Brothers," to name two.
So this year, CBS's "The Amazing Race" is playing the world war card in an insidious bid to maintain its death grip on the Reality Competition Series category, which it has won every year since the category was created. The move anticipates the slim chance that another program could take "Amazing Race" down.
"American Idol" has submitted its glutinous season finale episode for consideration, and academy members are also known to have a weakness for glutinous Very Special Episodes. This one features not only a spectacular array of performing pop singers who you thought were dead, but also a tremulous farewell to judge Simon Cowell that includes a stunning performance by Paula Abdul, playing a Fairly Normal Woman.
"The Amazing Race" has submitted an episode in which competing teams were sent to France, near Champagne, where they were compelled to dress up like World War I doughboys and crawl on their bellies in barbwired trenches, as squib bombs went off around them and biplanes buzzed them. The episode is sure to squash the "American Idol" finale, unless the academy sends it off to battle Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks's HBO epic, "The Pacific."
Best Use of Product Placement
You love your DVR, right? Then product placement is here to stay. Instead of grousing about it, let's elevate it to an art form. Then maybe "American Idol" will stop subjecting us to those idiotic Ford Music Videos, and "Gossip Girl" will stop ruining delicious, sexually charged moments by having one of its hot party girls shout, "I'll Bing that!"
Best Use of Neil Patrick Harris
The Emmys, the Tonys and the Oscars all put Harris to work goosing their ratings during this year's Emmy eligibility period. He hosted the first two trophy shows and was the opening act at the Academy Awards, and in each case got mostly rave reviews. But the poor guy has never won a major Hollywood trophy. The Emmys can't even cough up a category in which Harris can compete this year to secure the statuette he so richly deserves for all his hard work resuscitating the trophy-show genre. Instead, the TV academy last year killed the very category in which he might have competed -- Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program. This wrong needs to be righted.
Best Swanking Around Achievement Award, a.k.a. Who Died and Made Her Queen?
It's a cinch that "Grey's Anatomy's" Katherine Heigl would win in this category.
Back in 2007, Heigl's chick-flick career was just getting off the ground when she surprisingly won the Emmy for best supporting actress in a drama series. The next year, she announced that she would not waste her time running for best supporting actress in a TV drama because the "Grey's" material written for her that season was not good enough. This year, Heigl appeared in a mere seven episodes before deciding that she no longer wanted to work full time on the drama.
ABC and "Grey's" finally agreed to let her go -- without getting the chance to send/kill her Izzie character off with one of those glutinous ratings-grabbing swan song episodes. Instead, Heigl's parting gift to her "Grey's" colleagues was to toss her hat into the supporting-actress ring one last time, on the strength of those seven episodes. How much better to create a new queenly category to more accurately acknowledge her special talent
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NBC will broadcast the 62nd Primetime Emmy® Awards live on Sunday, August 29 (8-11 p.m. ET; other time zones delayed).
Jimmy Fallon will host.
