Will rule changes reboot Emmys?

When the Emmy nominations are announced Thursday morning, expect to hear some names that haven’t been within shouting distance of television’s highest honor. Names like Lauren Graham, who plays the feisty single mom on WB’s “Gilmore Girls,” Kristen Bell (pictured), the crime-solving teen namesake of UPN’s “Veronica Mars,” Denis Leary of FX’s “Rescue Me” and Treat Williams from the now-canceled WB drama “Everwood.” They’re all reportedly in the running for the first time.

All you need to know about the sameness of the Emmy Awards is this: From 2001 to 2005, there were 25 nominations for best female supporting actress in a comedy series. Half were claimed by three women, with Doris Roberts and Megan Mullaly making the ballot all five years.

Not even Meryl Streep made the Oscar short list five years in a row, probably because she had to keep finding new roles to play. But this is the Emmys, where one actor playing one part can park on the ballot for years at a time.

That’s because the 12,000 members of the industry group that hands out the awards has been shackled to an archaic nomination system. Devised during the three-network era, it has favored big broadcasters and a handful of cable channels, notably HBO, that are willing to shell out for large voter-influencing campaigns.

But all that appears ready to change.

When the Emmy nominations are announced Thursday morning, expect to hear some names that haven’t been within shouting distance of television’s highest honor. Names like Lauren Graham, who plays the feisty single mom on WB’s “Gilmore Girls,” Kristen Bell, the crime-solving teen namesake of UPN’s “Veronica Mars,” Denis Leary of FX’s “Rescue Me” and Treat Williams from the now-canceled WB drama “Everwood.” They’re all reportedly in the running for the first time.

What happened?

The Academy of Television Arts and Sciences is trying to transform the voting contest from one tilted toward old favorites and popular choices into one that has undergone what awards supervisor John Leverence calls a “quantitative and qualitative freshening of the pool.”

That’s a welcome change, because quantitatively and qualitatively, television has outgrown its grandest honor. You are just as likely to find outstanding original TV shows on cable as on broadcast, on a small network as on a large one.

And the people running the academy know it. Leverence told the New York Times that the Emmys have suffered from “a same-old same-old situation,” with disinterested members turning out “a 60 percent to 80 percent repetition of the prior year’s nominees.”

Look, for instance, at the nominees for actress in a comedy series. Just eight women, out of a possible 25, have been contenders over the last five years.

If you follow TV at all, you know that Debra Messing of “Will & Grace” (a nominee from 2000 to 2003) did not have a better year than “Gilmore Girls” star Graham four years in a row.

Nor, in the best drama actor category, was Martin Sheen automatic all those years on “The West Wing,” though the nominations were. And you know that “Battlestar Galactica” is overlooked, except in technical categories, not because it’s not worthy, but because it’s on the SciFi channel.

The two key adjustments the academy made this year:

•A new step whereby a peer group chooses a longer “finalists’ list” of 10 to 15 potential nominees.

•A new screening round wherein a specially chosen panel rates one episode from each of the finalists’ shows, with the top five finishers getting on the ballot.

The finalists were determined late last month, and a list posted to the Internet by Tom O’Neil, the country’s foremost authority on TV award shows, is loaded with new faces.

O’Neil, who runs the GoldDerby.com Web site, last week published a list of finalists based on partly confirmed reports he collected from Emmy voters. Depending on the category, 10 or 15 finalists are competing for five nominations.

In addition to Graham, Leary, Bell and Williams — who would be fine additions to an Emmy ballot any year — O’Neil believes that Matthew Fox is in the running for a best actor nomination for ABC’s “Lost,” as are Kyra Sedgwick for “The Closer” on TNT, Fred Goss for the short-lived ABC sitcom “Sons & Daughters,” Steve Carell for NBC’s “The Office” and the three women who play Bill Paxton’s wives on HBO’s “Big Love” (and Paxton, too).

The academy has been unusually secretive about how the revamped procedure is going. But don’t be surprised if in 2007 we start seeing lists not just of nominees, but the finalists in each category before the Emmy nominations. That, of course, would raise the anticipation for the Emmys even higher than this year.

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Comments

[Alex Rosenburg]

Please do not act as if it is a fact that Lauren Grayhem was better than Debra Messing for four years running, because it isn't. Debra Messing is a fantastic actress and those Luicelle Ball comparisons have nothing to do with long red hair. You may be bitter about who these people champion as the best but it is THEIR awards, not yours. If they feel that Debra Messing is a better actress, then how is that any concern of yours?

[inturnaround]

Dear Mr. Rosenburg,

As someone who appears to be Ms. Messing's publicist, I'm sure you really know that while Messing is a pretty good actress, she could in no way deliver the dialog that a well-written show like "Gilmore Girls" has. The rapid fire words are the signature of the show. While Messing may be a fine actress, I don't believe I ever saw anything on W&G that was ever deserving of a Emmy. Well, that is unless they now have an Emmy for best upstaging by a supporting actor and actress in a series.

I don't ever recall anyone seriously making a comparison between Lucille Ball and Debra Messing other than hearing someone comment, "Oh geez, here comes a physical comedy attempt. Who does she think she is? Lucille Ball?"

[Jessica]

A lot of these names sound very refreshing Lauren Graham's Emmy nom is a long time coming! She's amazing! Plus, you can't go wrong with Kristen Bell! Of course, Steve Carell is amazing and the cast of Big Love is hands down my favorite it be nominated.