[Televisionary]

Oh, Hollywood Foreign Press Association, you do love to make me laugh. The HFPA this morning announced their nominations for the 68th Annual Golden Globes, which will be telecast on Sunday, January 16th. Among the recipients, such worthy nominees as Mad Men, The Good Wife, Modern Family, Boardwalk Empire , and others. But as always, the voting board--which tends to be relentlessly populist and/or follows certain Emmy trends--went off-track completely in some categories, such as the nomination of Piper Perabo. Yes, Piper Perabo. The star of USA's espionage drama Covert Affairs was nominated for Best Actress in a Drama Series, where she will be competing against the likes of The Good Wife 's Julianna Margulies, Mad Men 's Elisabeth Moss, Sons of Anarchy 's Katey Sagal, and The Closer 's Kyra Sedgwick. It's really a case of which one of these things just doesn't belong? It's not a slam against Perabo or her USA series, but it's also indicative of the f...

Welcome to your Thursday morning television briefing. Cast changes are afoot at Showtime's upcoming Matt LeBlanc-led comedy Episodes , with Thomas Haden Church pulling out of the project due to a scheduling conflict with a film and Claire Forlani being recast after the recent table read earlier this week. But with Forlani out, Showtime has had the luck of landing British actress Tamsin Greig ( Black Books, Green Wing, Love Soup ) to replace her. [Editor: I think Greig is a much better fit and is a comedy genius. Showtime is beyond lucky to have nabbed her. Grieg's Black Books character, Fran Katzenjammer, remains a perennial favorite.] Greig will step into Forlani's role, as the female half of a husband-and-wife writing team whose British series is adapted for American television... and ruined in the process. Showtime has ordered seven episodes of the series, which is created by David Crane and Jeffrey Klarik, who executive produce alongside Jimmy Mulville. ( Variety ) Ste...

Just a few quick words about last night's Golden Globes. I spent the evening watching the (thankfully) live telecast from home and then went over to the Beverly Hilton for HBO's Golden Globes after-party at Circa 55. As usual, HBO did an incredible job transforming the outdoor space (right at the poolside)... but, rather sadly, the network's handiwork was undone by the weather, rendering the glass-enclosed firepits and open-air seating unusable. But the party must go on and it was moved under the tents and inside Circa 55 itself, where executives, celebrities, and bon vivants sipped Copper-tinis and Moet et Chandon champagne. Those celebrities included Mad Men 's January Jones and Entourage 's Jeremy Piven, Modern Family 's Eric Stonestreet, Big Love 's Chloe Sevigny (Golden Globe-winner Chloe Sevigny, I should say), Ginnifer Goodwin, and Mary Kay Place, True Blood 's Anna Camp, Hung 's Natalie Zea (with whom I chatted about her role in FX's upco...

Another December, another batch of Golden Globe nominations. I got up very early on this very brisk Los Angeles morning to watch the nominations live as they were announced on-air by John Krasinski, Diane Kruger, and Justin Timberlake. (The latter of whom stole the show a little bit with his comment to Krasinski, "Someone's gonna have a good night tonight," after Emily Blunt earned a nomination for her role in The Young Victoria .) But onto the nominations themselves. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association this morning announced its nominees for the 2010 Golden Globes, which will be handed out at a live telecast on NBC on January 17th. Glee was the clear favorite this year, walking away with four nominations this morning, followed closely by 30 Rock, Big Love, Damages, Mad Men, and Dexter , each of which garnered three nominations in their respective categories, along with telepics Georgia O'Keeffe and Grey Gardens . I'm thrilled, first off, that so many fanta...

Welcome to your Tuesday morning television briefing. Entertainment Weekly 's Michael Ausiello is reporting that Bones ' 100th episode will in fact be a flashback episode to reveal the first time that Emily Deschanel's Temperance Brennan and David Boreanaz's Seeley Booth worked together. "We’ll be there for the first time those two personalities clashed, Bones executive producer Stephen Nathan told Ausiello. "Events will conspire to make them come out of the case hating each other and vowing that they will never work together again... We’ll also see the introduction of Angela and the genesis of her friendship with Brennan." ( Entertainment Weekly 's Ausiello Files ) Maggie Grace is confirmed to be returning for Lost 's sixth and final season, according to TV Guide Magazine . She'll return to Oahu next month to reprise her role as Shannon Rutherford, who was last seen on the series in 2005. "Producers had invited Maggie back earlier, but t...

Is it just me or was it positively inspirational to see 30 Rock rack up so many statuettes last night at the 66th Annual Golden Globe Awards? The NBC comedy, which many predicted would be canceled as soon as it launched, racked up three awards including Best TV Comedy, Best Actress in TV Comedy (Tina Fey), and Best Actor in a TV Comedy (Alec Baldwin), all three of the categories in which it was nominated. Likewise, HBO's miniseries John Adams cliched all seven awards in all of its nominated categories (go Laura Linney, Paul Giamatti, and Tom Wikinson!) and Mad Men took home the top spot for TV Drama... even though series leads Jon Hamm and January Jones were cruelly overlooked for their superlative performances this season. What did I think of the awards and what burning questions do I still have? Let's discuss. I'm not quite sure why Jeff Zucker looked quite so displeased when 30 Rock took home the award for Best TV Comedy but the man could barely muster a smile for th...

Another December, another batch of Golden Globe nominations. This year, however, there's at least hope that the show will go on. (If you remember, last year's telecast was plagued by, uh, issues even greater than force majeure : namely the 100-day WGA strike in which everyone boycotted NBC's Golden Globe telecast, resulting in a 3-hour press conference to announce the winners.) The Hollywood Foreign Press Association this morning announced its nominees for the 2009 Golden Globes, which will be handed out at a live telecast on NBC on January 11th. While I am beyond thrilled that Mad Men and 30 Rock got some much needed love, with 30 Rock justly landing nominations for Best Comedy, Best Actress in a Comedy (Tina Fey), and Best Actor in a Comedy (Alec Baldwin), I'm pleased as punch that an awards committee has finally given recognition to Mad Men 's January Jones, who landed her first nomination as the embattled Betty Draper on AMC's period drama. The women of ...

After all of the verboten red carpets, will-they-or-won't-they picketing, and anti-climactic decisions about televised press conferences, I wasn't even going to write about the winners of this year's Golden Globe awards. Of course, being the complete and utter television junkie that I am, I couldn't help but go online to find out who the winners were. At least there were a few pleasant surprises, though there was, sadly, no love for Televisionary obsession Pushing Daisies , which depressed me a bit, but I can't fault Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant's sublimely brilliant Extras for walking away with the top comedy prize, especially after its heartbreaking series finale, an astute meditation on the price of fame . While Mad Men has its devoted adherents, I was hoping that somehow Damages would be crowned the winner in the television drama race... or, through some strange stroke of luck, that Big Love would find itself the prettiest girl at the prom. No such...

All anyone has been talking about for the last 24 hours here in Hollywood is whether or not the Golden Globes would in fact go on. The discussion, of course, reached its zenith yesterday following a protracted back-and-forth between the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, dick clark prods (the production company producing the ceremony), NBC, and the WGA. The answer? There will be something on Sunday night that has to do with the Golden Globes, but don't expect any pomp, circumstance, or likely even any acceptance speeches. When dick clark prods was unable to secure a WGA waiver for the event, the various elements involved in Sunday's award show tried to reach a proposition that would grant them the necessary waiver, one that involved a mix of elements, such as a red carpet pre-show, a press conference/announcement "ceremony," and party-based telecasts. After the WGA threatened to picket this proposed three-hour block of Golden Globes coverage, the HFPA announced at t...

Ah, awards season is upon us, but I can't seem to muster the same enthusiasm this year, what with the strike still going on and no sign of resolution anywhere to turn to. Still, it's a little bit of comfort to know that the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, in handing out their nominations, did decide to include some of my favorite series this year around, including Pushing Daisies, Big Love, 30 Rock, and Damages. So thanks to the HFPA for recognizing creative genius and innovative television. My hat is off to you! So which series and actors got nominated and which ones got left out in the cold? Below is a list of the TV award categories and their nominations, along with my reactions to the major categories. BEST TELEVISION SERIES – DRAMA: BIG LOVE (HBO) DAMAGES (FX NETWORKS) GREY’S ANATOMY (ABC) HOUSE (FOX) MAD MEN (AMC) THE TUDORS (SHOWTIME) While I loves me some Big Love (and I am absolutely pickled that the HBO polygamy drama has gotten some much-deserved recognit...

Another year, another awards show snafu. It's getting hard to keep track of the slights, overthrows, and sure things that have become sure fire also-rans. But one thing is for sure with this year's Golden Globes, while white may have been the color du jour for many of the ladies' attire, plenty were seeing red. The Golden Globes has always been a rare beast. Handed out to the US entertainment community by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, it's one of the few televised awards shows that's table, rather than theatre, seating, enabling stars the chance to stay in one's cups publicly, and combines film along with television awards in one single ceremony, allowing members of those rarefied worlds the opportunity to mingle and coalesce over a catered meal. It also manages at times to get it so right (Helen Mirren for The Queen ) and so wrong (no Steve Carell or The Office ), sometimes at the very same moment. While I thought that the TV nominations managed to ...

I woke up early this morning in order to catch the Golden Globe nominations (which are announced at 5 am here on the West Coast). Well, okay, I overslept a little bit but 5 am is pretty darn early for me! Read on to get my thoughts on the major category nominations and click here to get the full list of both feature film and television nominees. BEST TELEVISION SERIES – DRAMA 24 (FOX) - Imagine Television and 20th Century Fox Television i.a.w. Real Time Prods. BIG LOVE (HBO) - Anima Sola and Playtone Prods. i.a.w. HBO Entertainment GREY’S ANATOMY (ABC) - Touchstone Television HEROES (NBC) - NBC Universal Television Studios i.a.w. Tailwind Prods. LOST (ABC) - Touchstone Television As expected, drama bigwigs 24, Lost , Grey's Anatomy , and Heroes are duking it out with newcomer Big Love (easily one of my favorite new series of the year), which I'm pleased as punch to see nominated in this category. Not everyone loves the polygamists in HBO's gripping drama, but we here in ...