Emmys, aka the awards you don't care about

Normally Conan O'Brien has no problem making himself the center of attention — I mean that in a good way! — but this afternoon's session with the press to promote the upcoming Emmy Awards telecast found him uncharacteristically sitting on his hands. Instead, it was fellow panelist Dick Askin, president of the academy that hands out the Emmys, who did most of the  talking, as unhappy critics fired questions at him about the recently completed and allegedly reformed Emmys nominations process.

Askin, who apparently hasn't been reading our clips, at first tried to deflect questions about the supposed changes to the process that resulted in few changes in the nominees' names. "When you only have five slots," began a typical response, "there are always going to be people who deserve blah blah blah."

After a couple more exchanges like this, Dick got an audience member involved: namely, John Leverence, who oversaw the nominations "reform" this year, who said perhaps the most sensible thing in the session, regarding the possibility of letting judges view entries from home so as to give every entry a fair shake: "This year we lost 23 administrative days in the competition, from June 1st to the presentation of the awards on August  27th.  And the opportunity, therefore, to expand perhaps to an at-home judging for that second part of the nominating process simply was not there this year, but maybe it will be next."

So that seemed to settle us down. And then Ken Ehrlich, who will produce the Emmys this year along with Conan's producer Jeff Ross, went and stepped in it:

         QUESTION:  Ken, you touched on this a second about the viewers seeing some different names.  There's going to be all kinds of things written probably Monday in the press.  How does this controversy, so-called controversy, help promote the show?  Or does it?  Do you think the viewer really cares about the inside voting?

KEN EHRLICH:  I'm not sure that the viewer really does care.  I think the viewer tunes in a show like this because of the entertainment value, because of the star quality, because of what they're going to see over the course of that three hours.

Oh, yes, the star quality of Stockard Channing, Martin Sheen, Debra Messing, Jane Kaczmarek, Peter Krause, and other oft-nominated stars of shows that are off the air mostly because people stopped watching them. Yes, that is ratings adrenaline right there.

Askin didn't ingratiate himself to anyone in the room, either, when, in response to a critic who recited some of the complaints about the nominations, retorted, "How do you know that the viewers think this?" When the critic replied, "E-mail, phone calls, letters," Askin continued, undaunted: "Number one, you can always do -- this is a situation where you're really never going to make everybody happy because you only have five nominations to work with." Again with the five nominations.

Just as this was going on, I received this email from a reader:

I want to know what happened to The Shield this year and how was Forrest Whitaker overlooked.  Every episode I watched I kept saying he's going to win an Emmy award and then he wasn't nominated and the show was overlooked.  I'm really upset about the same tired old people being nominated again after all the promises about Lauren Graham, Kristin Bell and some of the others.  I think I'm still reliving the sorrow of never seeing Buffy, the Vampire Slayer properly recognized. I think if a program wasn't good enough to stay on an entire season (Gina Davis' show-I can't even remember the name of it) how can the star be so great.  Nothing against Gina Davis or Alison Janney, but I don't think they deserved to be nominated.

Quarrel with the spelling but the observations are dead-on accurate. The viewer cares.

Comments

[cgeye]

Let's break it down:

No non-tech nominees for BATTLESTAR GALACTICA.
None, for THE SHIELD.

[greentara]

Yes, in an era when viewership for awards ceremonies keeps dwindling, let's completely disregard any feedback from the public. Nice. When nobody watches the Emmys, I'm sure they're going to wonder why. Hint: don't care to watch the same people win the same awards for shows I quit watching 3 seasons ago.
Not nominating Battlestar Galactica, a show with a frakkin' Peabody, is ridiculous.

[Candice]

Lauren Graham (that girl's been ignored for 6 years...does somebody have a grudge on her or something??), Kirsten bell, Battlestar galactica....the list goes on

i'm not even asking them to win. Just being mentioned would surprise me