THE GOOD: After three seasons of inexcusable Emmy snubs, Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton, the remarkable hearts and souls of FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS (which by the way is currently the reigning title-holder of “best show you’re not watching”) finally got some much-deserved Emmy love scoring nods for Outstanding Actor and Actress in a Drama respectively. Also falling under the category “Good” is the fact that for the most part, it’s hard to argue with the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, who for the first time in as long as we can remember, may have [for the most part] gotten things right! Aside from awarding the usual suspects, which include always deserving nominations for the likes of anyone involved in 30 ROCK and MAD MEN (Tina Fey, Alec Bladwin, John Hamm, Elisabeth Moss among others), HOUSE’s Hugh Laurie, and THE BIG BANG THEORY’s Jim Parsons, Academy members rightly deemed it necessary to acknowledge six remarkable seasons of LOST with multiple nominations including Outstanding Drama, Actor (Matthew Fox), Supporting Actors (Terry O’Quinn and Michael Emerson) and Guest Star (Elizabeth Mitchell). More exciting still was the often slow-to-change Academy’s embrace of both newcomers (GLEE! MODERN FAMILY! THE GOOD WIFE!) and relative newcomers (Amy Poehler! Julianna Marguilies! Betty White!) by awarding a plethora of nods to the likes of THE GOOD WIFE’s Christine Baranski and Archie Panjabi, MODERN FAMILY’s Sofia Vergara, Julie Bowen, Ty Burrell, Eric Stonestreet, Jesse Tyler Ferguson and GLEE’s Lea Michele (Outstanding Actress), Chris Colfer (Outstanding Supporting Actor), Jane Lynch (Outstanding Supporting Actress), and Outstanding Guest Actors Kristin Chenoweth, Neil Patrick Harris and Mike O’Malley. Which brings us to…
THE BAD: While we certainly don’t begrudge Michele, Colfer, Lynch and O’Malley their nominations, the only thing funny about Outstanding Actor in a Comedy nominee Matthew Morrison’s work in the hit FOX show’s freshman season was that it took him half of it to clue into the fact that his wife was faking her pregnancy! Not so much bad, but rather disappointing was the lack of recognition for anyone related to UGLY BETTY’s truly ground-breaking final season, THE LIFE AND TIMES OF TIM’s exclusion from the Outstanding Animated Program category and the complete snub of both John Noble (FRINGE) and Courteney COX (COUGAR TOWN), two actors without whom their shows wouldn’t be on the air. Oh, and while we’re on the subject of actors whose show would be nothing without them, it may be “so 2007,” but we for one still love WEEDS and contend that the always epic Mary-Louise Parker was robbed!
THE UGLY: In a word, well two: Tony Shalhoub. That said, if there is a silver lining to the MONK star’s inexplicable eight consecutive nomination it’s that, like Michael Jackson’s career: This is it. To our knowledge, 2010 marks the final year the actor will be eligible to rob a far more deserving one (cough*Joel McHale*cough) of a nomination! Oh how we wish the same could be said for the cast of TWO AND A HALF MEN. 