Flaming Orbs of Sigmund aka The Golden Globes

The Golden Globe nominations came down today and here is a quick overview with some selected commentary on who I think will and/or should win.

BEST DRAMA TV SERIES
24
Big Love
Grey's Anatomy
Heroes
Lost

"Heroes" is definitely the best new series out this year, but it might be too new to take the win. Not to mention it's going up against what was probably the best season of "24" so far and "Lost" which had a killer second season and a pretty good start to it's third. I'd probably vote for "Lost", but I have a feeling "24" will win.

BEST ACTOR IN A DRAMA SERIES
Patrick Dempsey, Grey's Anatomy
Michael C. Hall, Dexter
Hugh Laurie, House
Bill Paxton, Big Love
Kiefer Sutherland, 24

BEST ACTRESS IN A DRAMA SERIES
Patricia Arquette, Medium
Edie Falco, The Sopranos
Evangeline Lilly, Lost
Ellen Pompeo, Grey's Anatomy
Kyra Sedgwick, The Closer

I'm gonna go with Kyra Sedgwick in this category. Though "The Closer" can be a little formulaic in its structure, its a good show and she is a well developed multidimensional character. Not to mention pulling off that accent week after week.

BEST MUSICAL OR COMEDY TV SERIES
Desperate Housewives
Entourage
The Office
Ugly Betty
Weeds

Hands down it has to be "The Office". There is no funnier show on TV right now.

BEST ACTOR IN A MUSICAL OR COMEDY TV SERIES
Alec Baldwin, 30 Rock
Zach Braff, Scrubs
Steve Carrell, The Office
Jason Lee, My Name Is Earl
Tony Shalhoub, Monk

Hands down it has to be Alec Baldwin. There is no funnier guy on TV right now. See one of my earlier posts for my rationale.

BEST ACTRESS IN A MUSICAL OR COMEDY TV SERIES
Marcia Cross, Desperate Housewives
America Ferrera, Ugly Betty
Felicity Huffman, Desperate Housewives
Julia Louis-Dreyfus, The New Adventures of Old Christine
Mary-Louise Parker, Weeds

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A SERIES, MINISERIES, OR TV MOVIE
Thomas Haden Church, Broken Trails
Jeremy Irons, Elizabeth I
Justin Kirk, Weeds
Masi Oka, Heroes
Jeremy Piven, Entourage

I like Oka here. His character Hiro is a fan favorite because of his ability to play him with a certain naive giddiness a comic book geek would have if he found powers of his own. He is also able to give him enough gravity when needed without taking himself to seriously.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A SERIES, MINISERIES, OR TV MOVIE
Emily Blunt, Gideon's Daughter
Toni Collette, Tsunami, the Aftermath
Katherine Heigl, Grey's Anatomy
Sarah Paulson, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip
Elizabeth Perkins, Weeds

I'm a little disappointed that some actors or shows didn't get recognized, but there you go. Tune in January 15th to see the winners.

Get Yer Ra Ra's Out!

Just read an interesting article in the Washington Post about Prince being selected as the half-time performer for this year's Super Bowl. The article's main focus was on how since "Nipplegate" happened, it's been all male performers during half-time. Guess it's less likely anything will slip out, especially if a button fly is involved.

Anyway it got me to thinking. Not about how ridiculously puritanical this country can be at times, but rather why the producers of the Super Bowl broadcast don't come up with something a little more entertaining than their run of the mill, completely un-hip half-time musical performance. Not only are these performances overblown, over rehearsed, dull-fests, but could they get less relevant artists at this point to do the show? Prince, Paul McCartney, the Rolling Stones, Janet Jackson, and Britney Spears and Aerosmith are the most recent acts I can remember and aside from Britney, I don't think any of them has had a hit record so far this century. Who are they trying to appeal to with this crap? Granted I own albums by almost all of the performers listed above, but their heydays have come and gone and I don't see how any of them appeal to a mass audience in 2006.

Super Bowl producers you can do better. Why not have the kid's Pass, Punt, Kick finals or a Pop-Warner league super bowl go on during half-time? Better yet, put the cheerleaders from each team out on the field for 30 minutes of touch football. You couldn't peel guys away from the TV for that!

Lost in the Shuffle

When it returns in February, "Lost" will be moving from 9pm to 10pm on Wednesdays. The full story can be found here. I hope we aren't getting into slippery slope territory, because there is nothing more annoying than having one of your favorite shows get shuffled around more than once or twice. I used to be a devoted "Scrubs" watcher the first two seasons, until NBC moved it so many times I didn't know where to find it. I eventually gave up looking. Only recently, thanks to Comedy Central reruns, have I developed a renewed interest in the show; which is still very good by the way. Anyway, ABC made similar moves with "Alias", and with increasingly annoying frequency as the show started struggling. Not that "Lost" is struggling. In fact, I have a feeling this move might be to make sure that it doesn't start struggling. Regardless, I'll be there at 10pm with bells on.

But I'll take the bells off come 11. The article suggests that a later start may help out the local newscast on ABC affiliates at 11pm. This is an interesting statement in light of a recent Washington Post article which talks about ratings troubles for 11 o'clock news broadcasts in the D.C. area. Maybe if local news wasn't the absolute skankiest form of journalism more people would watch it. At least in my case, moving a favorite show to a lead-in spot for the local news affiliate is not going to make me anymore inclined to stay tuned for what has essentially become the nightly crime report, with a story about a bear that wandered into a swimming pool tacked on to lighten things up.

Who Needs a Cape?!

So "Heroes" was AWWWWESOME last night! Really, that's all there is to say about it. Though if you would like to hear someone more eloquent then me explain why it was so great, you can do so here. I have never felt so satisfied, yet still intrigued by a cliffhanger finale. (The season two finale of "Lost" is a very close second.) Anyone have any theories on Peter's flu-like symptoms? Whatever their cause they made for some pretty freaky (and cool) fever dreams. Can't wait 'til January!!

In other news TV Gal has a quick rundown of her ten favorite current TV characters. It's definitely worth a glance.

Roundup and Recap

Reports of the Sitcom's Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated
USA Today this week had a great interview with producers from the shows making up NBC's revamped must-see-tv block on Thursday nights. Among the topics are ratings, the new style of sitcom, and as always, whether the sitcom is dead; to which Bill Lawrence, exec. producer of "Scrubs", has the best answer I've heard in a while:

The only thing really dead about comedy right now is that everybody has so many options about what to watch that crappy comedy is dead. Crappy television is dead. The days of putting anything on at 8:30 just because it's after a hit and expecting people to watch it, I think that's over with.

Of course crappy television isn't quite dead yet (somebody put "Twenty Good Years" on the air after all), but his point is a good one.

Shielded Cable
Also in USA Today, speculation that broadcast decency standards may be applied to basic cable in the not too distant future. I'm a still on the fence about that. There's a lot of questionable stuff on some cable channels even during the middle of the day. But nobody's forcing me to buy basic cable, and most cable boxes these days have more parental control options than they do channels. Plus, the only chance I get to watch "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report" is when they're rerun at 8am, and I'm pretty sure a change in the rules would take that away from me.

Fake News Alert!
Speaking of the "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report"; executive producer for both shows, Ben Karlin, has decided it's time to move on. Luckily he will stick around as a consultant. Get the whole skinny from the NY Times here.

30 + 60 = 90 Minutes of Quality TV
Alessandra Stanley compares "30 Rock" and "Studio 60" in an interesting piece in the New York Times. She likes both shows, but notices many of the same annoyances with "Studio 60" that I do.

"30 Rock"s on!
Good news for fans of "30 Rock", which includes me. NBC has picked up the show for a full season. Details are here at zap2it.com.


Quick Recap
Solid episodes this week from "The Office" (of course), "Heroes" and "3o Rock". I didn't get a chance to watch "Studio 60" yet. First there was Monday Night Football, and after that I was a little busy with the Superman box set that came out this week.

I saw my first broadcast of Thursday Night Football. Not only wasn't I really interested in the match up (though I do have Baltimore's defense in my fantasy league), but I had a hard time with Bryant Gumbel doing play-by-play. There's something off-putting in his nasally, high-pitched delivery that doesn't really go too well with football. I'll take Greg doing a game any day.

Friday night marked the first on-screen appearance of my brother-in-law Ken. Usually he works behind the scenes, but last night he got some face time and stole the show, leaving at least one viewer (his sister) asking for more. Nice work Ken!