Little Miss Sunshine's Steve Carell, Dexter's Michael C. Hall and The Closer's Kyra Sedgwick
Nominations for the 64th Annual Golden Globe Awards, to be held Jan. 15, 2007, were announced Thursday morning in Beverly Hills. Powered by Grey's Anatomy and Desperate Housewives, ABC (with 11 nods) edged out NBC (9) to lead the broadcast-networks pack, while Babel had the most movie kudos, netting seven noms from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. A complete list of who's in the running and for what can be found here.
In the days after the nominations came out, TV Guide rounded up reactions from some of your favorite stars.
Gregory Itzin,
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Question: Out of all the fall-finale cliff-hangers out there, the one that left me with more baited breath and heated anticipation than any other was not the heavily hyped Heroes, Prison Break or Jericho, but Ugly Betty. Now this is how you build suspense! Not only was the episode's drama countered with some of the funniest moments on TV this season (thank you, Becki Newton's Amanda, for a whole season's worth of hilarity, especially when you gag at the sight of Betty's unattractive shoes), but all of a sudden we were witness to one of the sweetest love stories on all of television. Betty and Henry from Accounting are perfect for each other and they make the cutest couple, but naturally something has to get in their way before they can be happy together. I hope the holdup isn't too long, especially if it means not ever having to see the annoying Walter again!
Answer: Thanks for the shout-out to another of my top-10 finalists and to America Ferrera, the cover girl for our "My Big Year" ...
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The best thing you can say about the Golden Globes nominations is that the Hollywood Foreign Press Association isn't afraid about welcoming new kids to the party, especially if they've made a little noise along the way.On the plus side, that means shining some love on deserving candidates like America Ferrera and Ugly Betty, a show and a performance that would seem tailor-made to the Foreign Press's presumed concerns about diversity in entertainment. Likewise Masi Oka, who gives one of the most endearing supporting performances in all of television as Hiro of Heroes (which also got a nod as best drama series).Other freshman acts in the nominee pool include: Michael C. Hall (yay!) of Showtime's Dexter, Alec Baldwin (yay!) of NBC's 30 Rock, Julia Louis-Dreyfus (yay!) from The Old Adventures of New Christine, Bill Paxton and Big Love from HBO (beating out The Sopranos and The Wire, among other more deserving HBO dramas; and besides, where are Paxton's wives in the grabbag supporting ca...
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Every season there are shows that I worry are too good for TV: too offbeat, perhaps too real, maybe too smart. I'm hoping my heart won't be broken if these shows don't catch on, but for now, they're making my heart soar.
I'm in love with Ugly Betty (Thursdays, 8 pm/ET on ABC), a show and a heroine larger than life, twice as colorful and infinitely more adorable. This giddy story of a grotesquely unfashionable but genuinely sweet and wise young woman hired by a high-fashion magazine is a fairy tale as comic book, with each exaggerated emotion painted in garish bold strokes.
It veers wildly and freely from slapstick to sentimentality, as hissable villains (including Vanessa Williams in elegantly campy Cruella mode) shower poor Betty with contempt. As Betty, the wondrous
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Question: I've seen a bunch of news items recently about Ugly Betty, and I was wondering what your opinion of it was. To me, the premise just seems awful. Like in The Devil Wears Prada, we've got an attractive woman who we're supposed to pretend is "ugly," and then we've got the cutting-edge topic of the fashion industry. Wow, it's not like anyone's made fun of them before. What's next, a sock-hop-and-ice-cream-social comedy? I like America Ferrera, but previous shows along this theme, such as Veronica's Closet and Less than Perfect, have just been shrill and annoying.
Answer: The worst sin in writing about or analyzing TV seriously is to judge a show simply by its premise. While it's entirely likely that you are predisposed not to enjoy Ugly Betty, it's always all about the execution. Ugly Betty is not a traditional sitcom, it's a hybrid of comedy and soap, and Betty herself is nothing like the heroine of Prada (Betty is much more extreme), except perhaps for her inexperience in this
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Vanessa Williams and Michael Urie, Ugly Betty
Question: I'm very happy (and surprised) about Ugly Betty's move from Friday to Thursday nights. I'm a huge fan of America Ferrera and the original Spanish series, so I'm throwing my full support into this show. Who knows, maybe I'll even stick around and catch Grey's Anatomy afterwards. Thanks for the great column, Matt!
Answer: You're welcome, but if you really want to thank me for something, stay tuned for Grey's. You won't regret it. And if enough people follow your lead, ABC will feel justified in making this move, which I praised in the Dispatch I filed after learning of the time switch from the dead zone of Fridays at 8 pm/ET to the competitive hotbed of Thursdays at 8. On paper (or, I guess, on computer screen), Ugly Betty looks like a hard sell, but maybe there's something about this premise that will strike a chord in the U.S. audience the way it has in other cultures. We can only hope. If it holds its own and delivers at least some audience to Grey's (which will probably be a
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America Ferrera, Ugly Betty
It's nice to see that ABC wised up and invited Ugly Betty to the Thursday-night ball.
The new show — which will now be paired with Grey's Anatomy this fall — has been getting raves from those who have seen it. Executives from other networks have called it the best pilot they saw from their competition this year. Adapted from a telenovela that's been wildly popular for years in Latin America, Ugly Betty stars America Ferrera as a glamour-challenged woman from an immigrant family trying to make it at a flashy fashion magazine.
Salma Hayek and producer Ben Silverman have been trying to sell a U.S. version of Betty
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Question: I've heard nothing but good things about ABC's upcoming Betty the Ugly. However, I think it has a huge obstacle to overcome: the mean-spirited, degrading and, yes, ugly title. This is even more of an issue now that the name has been changed to Ugly Betty, an even less poetic and more derogatory description. I realize that we're supposed to empathize with Betty and recognize her talent, intelligence and "inner beauty." But when the very name of the show is an insult, how can we set that aside? It certainly doesn't help that the perfectly attractive America Ferrera (who's had to play variations on this role in virtually every movie she's acted in) is made up to look like such a caricature. Do you think the show's quality can overwhelm its reductive title? In short, what's in a name?
Answer: Excellent question, and during ABC's press-tour presentation this week it came up a couple of times. The producers insist the new title is closer in translation to the title of the original
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Today's big news: I woke up to find a zit the size of a Vespa parked on my face. Good times....EXECUTIVE SESSION9:04 am: ABC Entertainment president Stephen McPherson is wearing blue jeans that scream "rock-star network executive!"9:06 am: McPherson announces that he's going to pressure the TV Academy to let us, the nation's top TV critics, decide next year's Emmy nominees. Hey, that was my idea! (And not to split hairs, but it's only supposed to be Matt Roush and me.)9:08 am: McPherson admits if he had to do Commander in Chief over again, he wouldn't have impeached Rod Lurie and replaced him with Steven Bochco. "We would probably bring it on later in the season and let Rod prep for it a lot longer than he had a chance to. He was the voice of that show." 9:08 am: I ask McPherson what he's doing behind the scenes at Desperate Housewives to address last season's "creative collapse." Although he disagrees with the "creative collapse" part — I was going to say implosion — he c...
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Question: Which fall pilots would you deem worthy of my time?
Answer: I finished watching the last of the pilots over the weekend and I have fantastic news: For the first time in recent memory, the good fall shows easily outnumber the bad ones — at least based on the pilots I saw. As Desperate Housewives taught us, the second and third episodes tell us much more about a show's creative bones than a season premiere. With that said, here are the fall offerings that have the most FauxVo potential.
* Vanished (Fox) and Kidnapped (NBC): Among the things these two thrillers share in common: They both&
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