Now, our list of Emmy shoulda-beens

Now, our list of
Emmy shoulda-beens

'Bernie Mac,' 'Alias' and 'Buffy' all deserve nods

By Dan Jewel

    When the Emmy nominations were announced last week, it seemed as if the voters had finally learned how to use their remotes.
Those lumbering dinosaurs, “NYPD Blue” and “ER,” were rightfully passed over. “Six Feet Under,” the morbidly hilarious HBO hit, won a whopping 23 nominations. (“The Sopranos” has been on hiatus for so long that it didn’t qualify for this year’s awards.)
   But although voters are branching out a bit, they’re still stuck on some old, odd habits. When it came to the acting nods, they showed the usual penchant for one-note performances.
    Matt LeBlanc’s blank-faced stares on “Friends” earned him a place, while the excellent ensemble casts of NBC’s “Scrubs” and ABC’s now-defunct “Once and Again” were entirely overlooked.
   And even in the two major categories, the voters persisted in their blind spots.
   Here’s a look at this year’s nominees and the shoulda-beens.

Outstanding Comedy Series
The nominees:
“Curb Your Enthusiasm” (HBO)
“Everybody Loves Raymond” (CBS)
“Friends” (NBC)
“Sex And The City” (HBO)
“Will & Grace” (NBC)

   The state of sitcoms these days is so dreadful that it’s hard to come up with five genuinely funny shows. “Curb Your Enthusiasm” is often more grating than amusing, but the voters deserve credit for picking something without a laugh track. But perennial favorite “Will & Grace” has devolved into a series of stale, smug, self-congratulatory gay jokes and stereotypes. “Scrubs” and Fox’s "Andy Richter Controls the Universe" and “Malcolm in the Middle” are more deserving, though they all have their share of off nights.
   The most consistently funny half-hour on TV right now is Fox’s “The Bernie Mac Show,” which presents fatherhood as equal parts joy and absolute agony.
   As Bernie struggles to raise his sister’s three kids (a surly adolescent girl, a young boy with a never-ending assortment of maladies, and an adorable but demanding kindergartner), the standup comic confesses his real feelings to the viewers--feelings that often center around the terrible things he’d like to do to the kids.
     With a good-natured mean streak, and no trace of treacle, the show captures child-rearing with an honesty that hasn’t been seen since the early years of “The Cosby Show.”

Outstanding Drama Series
The nominees:
“CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” (CBS)
“Law & Order” (NBC)
“Six Feet Under” (HBO)
“24” (Fox)
“The West Wing” (NBC)

     On the basis of the insultingly simple-minded post-Sept. 11 episode alone, “The West Wing” should never be nominated for anything ever again. And throughout the season, the petty political machinations of the White House staffers seemed truly irrelevant against the backdrop of a changed world.
    But the real travesty in this category is “24,” a show that began as one of the most innovative, exciting programs in recent memory, then ran out of ideas and energy halfway through the season.
    The second 12 episodes either borrowed embarrassing plot twists from daytime soaps (Jack Bauer’s wife develops amnesia!) or, even worse, from the first 12 episodes. (Finally rescued from a kidnapping, Bauer’s daughter gets kidnapped! Again!)
   So what belonged in their places?
    ABC’s “Alias” followed the opposite path of “24.” It started out in a repetitive rut, then built brilliantly into a complex, endlessly surprising and suspenseful series.
   And while UPN’s “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” alienated some of its core viewers this year with its relentlessly dark, adult tone, it managed to provide the most provocative season of any show in recent years.
     Like “Six Feet Under,” it dealt with, of all things, sex addiction, but in a much more compelling, honest and subtle way than HBO’s bludgeon-us-over-the-head approach.
And like “Six Feet Under,” characters we like did terrible things, severely testing our loyalties. Caught up in self-loathing, our heroine spent the season having meaningless sex with a vampire and wishing she were dead, while her best friend, Willow, went on a vengeance spree and committed the show’s ultimate no-no: killing a human (more specifically, skinning a human, then setting him on fire).
   Of course, after failing to acknowledge “Buffy” for years now, it was too much to hope that Emmy voters might go for its equally dark spinoff, the WB’s erratic “Angel.”
   But what about “The Gilmore Girls,” which seems perfectly suited to Emmy tastes? The WB’s mother-daughter dramedy features some of the wittiest, sharpest writing on television, couched in the form of a wholesome, good-for-the-whole-family hour.
    Kinda makes you wonder: If “Six Feet Under” were on the WB, would it wind up buried under the competition?

-Dan Jewel is a senior editor at Biography Magazine in New York.

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