I just need to vent to ...
Question: I just need to vent to someone who understands. As I watched you Thursday morning on
Good Morning America, I was so glad they had an expert to analyze the noms. After they announced the names, and I stopped screaming at the TV (never more so than at
Lost's omission), I was trying to read on your face all the things I was feeling. It seems like what was supposed to be an experiment for good (the new voting system) was a catastrophe. It was finally going to give the Lauren Grahams and Kristen Bells a real shot. In the end, not only did they not benefit, but
Lost, James Gandolfini, Edie Falco, Hugh Laurie and a host of others that would surely have been nominated under the old system were excluded. It seems ridiculous that a show that won last year's Emmy for best drama, and was generally just as well-received by critics in its sophomore year, was totally snubbed. I was already nervous the night before when
Tom O'Neill predicted that
Lost would not be nominated because that panel didn't "get" the episode that was submitted. It seems really unfair that out of up to 24 hours of compelling television, a show can submit only one episode for judging by a jaded panel that is not really familiar with the show. I really think it should be up to people like yourself,
Robert Bianco and others who watch and discuss TV all year long. Thanks for listening.
Answer: Thanks for writing. And for watching. (I admit I was in complete shock and panic during the live
GMA broadcast. As they handed us slips of paper with the various nominees on them, I kept thinking, "Surely this is a misprint. This can't be right.") One of the flaws of the Emmy process, as we've often said, is that the people doing the judging are the people who watch less TV than almost anyone else in the country, because they're all too busy making TV. If it's true that an episode of
Lost was judged as too dense and baffling to be appreciated, then woe to all shows that step outside the box and into the genre of the weird and fantastic.
