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Sunday, September 16 is the broadcast date for the 59th Annual Emmy Awards. I basically hate the Emmys. I watch the show every year and kick myself afterward for wasting my time. The show is long and boring and they give out way too many awards, usually to the same shows and people they awarded the year before. Still, I keep hoping that each year will be different. Rather than predict the winners, which I basically stink at, I will tell you what shows and performers I think should win, even if most of them won’t. All are available on DVD, most of them are just recently released.

For best drama series my choice is Heroes, one of the most original shows to come down the pike in decades. It plays like a street-smart comic book brought to life on one hand, and an acutely observed human drama on the other. It also boasts the most eclectic cast on television.

We’ve seen stories about various characters with special powers before, most recently the X-Men and Fantastic Four film series, but this is different. For one thing, the characters with special powers don’t all get together, and for another, they don’t all live to fight the bad guys. Among the intriguing characters, none of whom are drawn as perfect human beings, are the artist who can paint the future (Santiago Cabrera), the Jekyll-and-Hyde mom (Ali Larter), the politician who can fly (Adrian Pasdar), the ex-con who can walk through walls (Leonard Roberts), the kid who can make non-working telephones and elevators run with the touch of his hand (Noah Gray-Cabey), the schoolgirl who can regenerate her dead body parts (Hayden Panettiere), the cop who can hear people’s thoughts (Greg Grundberg), the office worker who can transport himself through time and place (Masi Oka) and the superhero who can absorb all of their characteristics (Milo Vertimiglia). Intertwined among them are a few fascinating characters without special powers, including a second generation geneticist (Sendhil Ramamurthy), a best friend (James Kyson Lee) and a mysterious businessman (Jack Coleman). If you’ve never seen the show and discover it on DVD, be sure you have the time to do nothing else until you’ve watched every fascinating episode back to back. It’s that addictive.

My choice for best actor in a drama series is Hugh Laurie in House. He deserved to win this award last year when they gave it to Kiefer Sutherland for 24. He deserved to win it the year before when they gave it to James Spader for Boston Legal. He sure as hell deserves to win it this year when they will probably give James Gandolfini his fourth for The Sopranos. Week after week, Laurie does his best to win our enmity as well as our admiration playing a mean misanthrope who is also a brilliant doctor. What other leading man on series TV could earn both our empathy and disgust as he stands there doing his job while his catheter bag bursts open and its contents pour out all over the floor next to a patient’s bed?

For best actress in a drama series, I’m a bit torn. I love Kyra Sedgwick’s quirky detective in The Closer, but she was my choice last year, so this year I’m spreading the wealth and giving my support to Sally Field in Brothers and Sisters. Field grew up on television. She was The Flying Nun and Gidget before she became a serious actress, which she became in one fell swoop playing a woman with thirteen separate personalities in Sybil. Then she went and became a two-time Oscar-winning actress in Norma Rae and Places in the Heart. Now she’s back on TV playing the funny, warm, but not always wise mother of three sons and two daughters in Sunday night’s best new drama series.

In the supporting actor in a drama series category I like Masi Oka, the sweet-natured, reluctant swordsman from modern Tokyo in Heroes. The guy’s a constant delight.

Among the nominees for best supporting actress in a drama series I would single out Rachel Griffiths in Brothers and Sisters. Not only do the ladies from Grey’s Anatomy cancel one another out in my mind, all three of them had better story arcs in previous seasons, Sandra Oh in the first and Chandra Wilson and Katherine Heigel in the second. I wouldn’t mind seeing Lorraine Bracco finally winning for The Sopranos but Griffiths had the tougher role, playing the most complex of all the complex characters in Brothers and Sisters. She has to juggle running her late father’s business as well as deal with a crumbling marriage and the sibling rivalry that all the characters have to deal with. Besides, she’s overdue, not having won in prior years for Six Feet Under.

My favorite among the nominees for best comedy series is Ugly Betty, though like Desperate Housewives, the hour long format allows for as much drama as it does comedy.

The basic premise of the show is that the main character is ugly on the outside but beautiful on the inside, while the people she works with at a fashion magazine are beautiful on the outside and ugly on the inside, but not really. Betty is not ugly, just plain, with no fashion sense despite her glamorous surroundings. While she may not always do the right thing, whatever she does she does from the heart. Her co-workers, who are often mean, are shallow more than they are inherently evil. The cast is the best ensemble on television, led by America Ferrera as Betty, Eric Mabius as her immature boss, Vanessa Williams as the scheming department head who wants his job, Michael Urie as Williams’ gay assistant, Becki Newton as the bimbo receptionist, Ashley Jensen as the wardrobe lady, Christopher Gorham as the accountant with a crush on Betty, Alan Dale as the publisher, Judith Light as his unstable wife and Rebecca Romijn as their daughter who used to be their son. Betty’s family at home consists of her illegal-alien father (Tony Plana), her sexpot sister (Ana Ortiz) and her show tune-singing nephew (Mark Indelicato). All are given episodes in which they shine.

For best actor in a comedy series you’d have to go a long way to find an actor with Alec Baldwin’s impeccable timing as the new corporate boss in 30 Rock. Writer-producer Tina Fey is the star, but she wisely allows Baldwin to take center stage whenever he’s on screen. The best shows of the first season evolve around his character and the guest stars who interact with him, most notably Isabella Rossellini as his ex-wife and Elaine Stritch as his mother.

If they give the best actress in a comedy series award to anyone other than America Ferrera in Ugly Betty, it will the worst moment of the evening, but as stupid as the Emmy voters are at times, I don’t think they’re that dumb. It’s the breakout role of the decade and she gives great speeches as evidenced by her Golden Globe win back in January. They’re always a sucker for people who can give great speeches.

No one deserves the supporting actor in a comedy series Emmy more than Neil Patrick Harris in How I Met Your Mother. I haven’t watched very many episodes of this show, but like Alec Baldwin in 30 Rock, he seems to be a secondary character who is the show and like Baldwin, his timing is impeccable. Like Sally Field, Harris grew up on TV as Doogie Howser, M.D. Although he has made forays into movies ( The Proposition and Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle) and Broadway ( Assassins), like Field, he seems most at home on TV.

For supporting actress in a comedy series my vote goes to Vanessa Williams in Ugly Betty. The former Miss America is a constant hoot as the show’s villainess thwarted at every turn.

In the world of television movies, I have yet to catch up with Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, in which case I have to go with Longford with its literate script by Peter Morgan ( The Queen, The Last King of Scotland) and the superb performance of Jim Broadbent. Broadbent plays the seventh Lord of Longford and one-time Leader of the House of Lords whose lifelong support of rehabilitated prisoners is put to the test by Samantha Morton as Myra Hindley, one of Britain’s most notorious serial killers. Broadbent, who ages from 62 to 92 during the course of the 90-minute film, has never been better, especially in the last few heartbreaking scenes as he realizes he has been made a fool of. The always fascinating Morton is superb as well as the cold, calculating killer and Lindsay Duncan has a nice role as Lady Longford. The one sour note is Andy Serkis’ over-acting as Morton’s accomplice.

I’ll go with Broken Trail for best mini-series by default. It’s beautifully photographed, with superb performances by Robert Duvall and Thomas Haden Church but moves at a snail’s pace. Still, it’s eons better than The Starter Wife, Brian Grazer’s ex-wife’s sour grapes saga of a dumped Hollywood wife.

For best actor in a made for television movie or mini-series, I choose Broadbent over Duvall, though either would be a good choice.

Though I generally don’t like to see the same actors win for playing the same roles, Helen Mirren’s work as Jane Tennison in the Prime Suspect series has been so superb over so long a period of time that it would be criminal not to give her another award for best actress for in a TV movie or mini-series for Prime Suspect: The Final Act.

For supporting actor, I pick Thomas Haden Church in Broken Trail and for supporting actress let’s give it to Samantha Morton in Longford.

Peter J. Patrick (September 11, 2007)

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Top 10 Rentals of the Week

(September 2)

  1. Blades of Glory
              $9.47 M ($9.47 M)
  2. Wild Hogs
              $5.12 M ($22.9 M)
  3. Perfect Stranger
              $4.64 M ($9.97 M)
  4. Vacancy
              $4.6 M ($16.5 M)
  5. Fracture
              $4.55 M ($16.8 M)
  6. Disturbia
              $4.31 M ($27.6 M)
  7. 300
              $2.91 M ($34.7 M)
  8. Hot Fuzz
              $2.64 M ($22.2 M)
  9. Are We Done Yet?
              $2.61 M ($18.1 M)
  10. I Think I Love My Wife
              $2.3 M ($12.3 M)

Top 10 Sales of the Week

(August 26)

  1. Wild Hogs
  2. 300
  3. Perfect Stranger
  4. House M.D.: Season Three
  5. Fracture
  6. Disturbia
  7. South Park: The Complete Tenth Season
  8. TMNT
  9. The Holiday
  10. Vacancy

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(September 11)

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