Wireless

The 2007 Emmy Nominations were announced earlier today. Hurray for Robot Chicken getting a nod for Outstanding Animated Program! (I have no idea what I’m talking about).

HBO leads the pack with 86 nominations; 17 going to the Western TV movie Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, which focuses on events leading up to the massacre of the Sioux at the tail end of the 19th Century, and 15 for the final season of The Sopranos.

The third and final season of Deadwood scrapes in with a handful of technical awards when it obviously deserves much more. Once again The Wire gets bupkis, which is just simply astonishing.


Aren’t these awards supposed to celebrate the best in television rather than cough up the same old perennial favourites? Looking through the list of nominations, a lot of them seem to be left over from last year and even the year before.

Why are voters still fixated on James Spader and William Shatner for Boston Legal? I’ve watched the first season and it was typical, frothy David E Kelley fun and games slathered over the “serious issue”. But enough, already. Rather than play characters, the pair seem to fall back on parodies of their own manufactured personas.

Wouldn’t those spots be better served honouring the contributions made by Ian McShane or James Earl Jones, or Michael Hogan? Or Mary McDonnell instead of previous winners Mariska Hargitay or Patricia Arquette, whose particular acting style seems to have gone from limited to dormant?

At least Battlestar Galactica has been recognised in other categories. Ronald D. Moore gets an Outstanding Writing For A Drama Series nomination for Occupation/Precipice, the two-part opener set on New Caprica, which deals with prisoner abuse and suicide bombers. He’s up against three episodes of The Sopranos, including the finale, Made in America, and the third season finale of Lost.

On his commentary for Exodus, Part 2, between the whiskey and the smokes, Moore declares “We better win the fucking Emmy this year, I swear to God!” right about the time this happens:


It’s also the one where the Pegasus goes out in a stunning blaze of glory. Gary Hutzel and his team are nominated for that particular episode for Special Visual Effects and hopefully should walk away with the trophy. Unless they give to Heroes for the episode Five Years Gone.

Remarkably Felix Alcala also gets a look in with an Outstanding Directing For A Drama Series for Exodus, Part 2, as well. With one final season of The Wire coming next year, maybe there is still time for some factions of the voters to look beyond the familiar and put things right. Yeah, right.