Diana Dares

Foiling Chicanery with Boundless Intelligence, Fashionable Outfits, Moxie, and One Sporty Blue Roadster.

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

...and the Mystery of All the Vanishing Hours of My Day

I have discovered that it is difficult to be either a detective or a writer while one's cover takes up 14 hours a day. Note to self: in future, showrunner asst makes for lousy cover job, as you spend large chunks of the day tied to desk, away from enticing mysteries, and will probably not have time to buy food, take out the garbage or brush your hair, much less solve a case.

Emmy nominations? Yes, that was over a week ago, but if you think I'm running late, you'll have to get in line behind my laundry, my cats, my mechanic, my friends, and my landlord to scold me about it. I'm trying, y'all.

Right. The Emmys. If you personally are nominated for an Emmy, then I imagine they are pretty exciting. Otherwise, I think no one in the world, including people working in television, care at all about the Emmys. Like the Oscars, they tend to play it safe, award old favorites, and award based on past work rather than the actual submission. Unlike the Oscars, Clooney doesn't attend these days and the gift bag does not include a trip to a Caribbean island.

Speaking of the Caribbean, I had spam in my email account labeled "Pirate Survey" this morning -- it was a survey for people who had seen the latest Pirates of the Caribbean movie. But just for a second, my heart had leapt, thinking that someone had sent me the results of their survey of pirates. Wouldn't that be wonderful? What do you suppose the questions would be: how many striped shirts do you own? What is the name of your parrot? And of course: what's your favorite letter of the alphabet? (answer: ARRRRRRRRRRR!)

The Emmys. Right. There are always a few people around who manage to get their knickers twisted about the crime against mankind that is the omission of this show or that actor, but I so fully expect the nominations list to suck that i'm just happily surprised when those doing the nominating get it right. Yeah, Lauren Graham unjustly continues to be the primetime version of Susan Lucci, but without even the nominations to console her, and Battlestar Galactica is a much better show than West Wing, but come on, what are you expecting?

So let's celebrate the happy surprises this year:

* "Trapped in the Closet" was nominated for Outstanding Animated Feature.

* Not a damn housewife in the bunch, whew. (yeah, yeah, Alfre Woodard is nominated, but she's not one of the original monsters whom we all loathe. Alfre, like Felicity, we merely pity for being leagues above the material in terms of talent and class.)

* Jaime Pressly - yaay, girl! I've loved you since "It's already been brought-en." And after that New Yorker article on you a couple of years ago that bluntly pointed out that you had another 24-30 months to make it or not at all, I'm even more glad that you got a role you could really knock out of the park.

* Allison Janney - she doesn't really deserve an Emmy this year at all for CJ, mostly because the writing for her this year kinda blew, but I still want her to win every award for which she is ever nominated, especially every award having to do with CJ Cregg.

* Andre Braugher - I think it's weird that Thief is defined as a miniseries, but boy howdy, he is one good actor and likewise deserves to be nominated for and to win every award that he possibly can. Here's hoping he can beat the Pope and Gandhi.

* Kate Winslet for Extras. So awesome. She does drama so well that it's easy to overlook the great comic moments she has in most of those roles, and how well she does them. It really makes me want to see her in a Christopher Guest movie.

* Best Comedy nominations for Arrested Development, Scrubs, and The Office. I thought the chances of all three getting nominated were non-existent, and seeing all three right up there where they should be makes me glow.

A couple of random thoughts:

* How on earth do they pick the nominees for Best Lighting for a Sitcom?

*As great as he is on Boston Legal, if I had to pick one award for William Shatner, I think I would prefer that he win for the History Special 'How William Shatner Changed the World', because REALLY??!!! There's a documentary produced by The History Channel about HOW WILLIAM SHATNER HAS CHANGED THE WORLD? Did Esperanto catch on while I wasn't looking? Is his horrible Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds THAT horrible? Whuh? And yet, as floored as I am, it'd be so awesome to see him win that. Especially given that we could have to hear Rosie O'Donnell yammering on and on about her dumb inclusive family cruise.

And even though not two paragraphs ago I mocked anyone who cares about the Emmys enough to feel disgust, I must put myself in that category long enough to add:

* Truly, Emmy voters, what the hell is with you and Two and a Half Men?

* Find me a writer outside of the Grey's Anatomy staff who thinks the second half of It's the End of the World, As We Know It belonged on television, much less a list of the best episodes on television. Even Shonda knows it was bad. She does. She wrote it while she was sick as a dog, in virtually no time at all, and I mean this quite sincerely, that is an Impressive and Amazing and Incredibly Difficult to Do. But everyone knows that it was awful, including her. She had to explain what happened in the episode to about 1/3 of the people who wrote to her about the episode. One out of every three people could not tell what had happened during the episode. That alone should get you knocked off a list of contenders.

All right, my cover job demands that I go take some notes now.

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