I am rooting for Hugh Laurie, although I admit that it would be mighty interesting if Ian McShane won and thanked the academy in character as Al Swearengen.
When he won the Golden Globe, he remained pretty true to his Deadwood character, although he cleaned up his language a tad to accept the award.
Obviously he can’t utter the word “cocksucker” without incurring the wrath of the FCC, but surely he could include a thank-you to all the hoopleheads who made this award possible.
There’s a category for commercials now? Travesty! That is worse than a “reality” category!
I just really hope Arrested Development sweeps since it would stave off cancellation fears for another year (yes, I know it’s been renewed, but Fox could always drastically cut the season short or choose not to run the filmed eps at all, and it wouldn’t be the first time that happened), and AD is practically the only non-animated show I watch anymore. Go Jason Bateman!
The Four Seasons of Death episode of Samuari Jack was nominated. Cool, but the following episode (X9, the assassin robot with a cute puppy) was better.
Commercials have been getting Emmys since 1997, 4 years longer than Reality shows.
You put way to much faith in Fox on that count. They’ve given AD a final reprieve, but if it doesn’t start delivering a larger audience, and quickly, then I can’t think of a reason why they wouldn’t cut the season (and its losses) short.
Well, the producers of the animated series self-select the single episode they want considered for competition. I know The Simpsons lost an award or two for selecting a staggeringly misguided ep as their representative submission.
“Seasons of Death” had the advantage of showing off a variety of storytelling techniques and styles, focussing on Jack, with a theme of changing seasons, and extremely compressed storytelling between commerical breaks, whereas the “Tale of X9” was ‘merely’ well-done noir pastiche with robot narration. Both were good but there was more characterization and dialogue in “X9.” There was more plot, action and humor in “Seasons of Death.”
So weird. What’s the rationale behind an Emmy for commercials? The Emmy are (ostensibly) supposed to reward artistic achievement, and there’s no redeeming value in commercials, even the ones that are “funny” or “well-directed.” They’re just ads, designed to sell you something. What is next, a literary award for the best instruction manuals?
I figure that AD is going to get cancelled after this season no matter what; I guess a part of me is hopeful that Fox will be compelled to at least show most of the run this time if they can add “five-time Emmy winner” to the show promos. Even Fox has to show a little bit of class to balance out all the reality crap.
What, and they can’t do that with artistic vision, humor, good writing, good acting, good cinematography, good directing, and all the other skills required to make any other visual production? Aren’t they generally in the same unions and guilds as other people involved in television? Why shouldn’t they qualify for awards for achievement? I don’t get it. There has been some incredibly memorable television done in commercials. And we’re forced to watch a lot of them… We should reward them when the people who make them try to entertain and amuse and inspire us while trying to sell their products.
Well, if commercials are so great, someone wouldn’t have invented a device (Tivo) designed to eliminate them from the viewing experience. (Yes, I know Tivo has other uses, but everyone I know who has one always zips past commercials, they never watch them just to watch them, which leads me to think they are expendable.) And aren’t the Cleos supposed to be the big commercial award?
The only problem I have with commercials being there is that there’s already an award for commercials. I think it’s called the Cleo.
My favorite bit of trivia about these nominations is that Desperate Housewives and Justice League Unlimited are up against each other in one of the categories. Best title music or something like that.
One could argue that many television shows themselves are designed to sell you something. Hell, the last three seasons of MASH were all about trying to sell me Alan Alda’s political philosophy.
I saw that! So weird, but cool at the same time. I think it may have been best title sequence and they both have great ones.