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Trooping for an Emmy, fighting off The Simpsons

The 2009 Emmy Award nominees were announced today, and the big news is that the picks are slightly more diverse and interesting than in past years. Big Love, Breaking Bad, Flight of the Concords, and Family Guy, idiosyncratic all, were nominated in the Outstanding Drama and Comedy categories, while underappreciated supporting players like John Slattery of Mad Men and this year's brilliant Emmy host, Neil Patrick Harris of How I Met Your Mother, were deservedly recognized for Outstanding Supporting Actor in the Drama and Comedy categories, respectively I hope that NPH wins, and that he has a song and dance number already planned for his victory speech, and that he will rhyme something with "sucks to be Rainn Wilson."

While it's nice to see these shows and actors acknowledged, somehow their victories feel slighted by the fact that the number of nominees in each category has expanded, with seven nominees in the show categories, and six in the acting categories. The Emmy voters didn't replace the old standbys; they just globbed on some extras in an attempt to draw a wider array of viewers and thus bring in more advertisers. The point surely, is to bring in a cooler demographic without jettisoning the loyal viewers who want to see House and Lost nominated every year that they're on the air. Heaven forbid we don't nominate Steve Carrell or Alec Baldwin for best actor in a comedy-as much as we love them, shouldn't there be term limits on these things? After all, do their roles really change that much from year to year? If Meryl Streep played that scary nun in every movie, would they keep nominating her for Oscars? Maybe that's a bad example. The Oscars are going to have ten nominees for Best Picture this year because they were worried that too many Meryl Streep holocaust pictures were being overlooked.

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