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The Hollywood Foreign Press Association has announced its nominees for the 67th annual Golden Globe awards. On the TV side, the most noteworthy nominations were comedy slots for first-year shows Glee and Modern Family (at the expense, apparently of 2008 nominees Californication and Weeds—ouch, Showtime!).
Really, though, given the Globes’ history of being quicker to recognize new series, I’m not especially surprised by either. If anything, I might have expected the Globes to clear away a little more dead wood.
Entourage, for instance, continues to stay among the comedy nominees, being the kind of sexy, insidery showbiz story that Hollywood awards-givers love. But I can’t see the argument for its having had a stellar 2009; likewise for House, which had a few outstanding and/or shocking individual episodes, but has had far better years as a series overall.
In the end, though, it never pays much to overanalyze the Globes; they’re an idiosyncratic list that may or may not reflect much actual TV-watching. Like all awards, they tend to gravitate toward big names. That led them this year to give deserved nominations to Toni Colette and Edie Falco in the comedy actress category (but also an undeserved one for Courteney Cox’s screechy performance in Cougar Town); throw in leather-lunged newbie Lea Michele and perennial fave Tina Fey and that’s an interesting category this year.
I also perversely enjoy that the Globes’ supporting categories throw comedy and drama performances together: how exactly do you measure Jane Lynch against Chloe Sevigny?
Beyond that, I’ll take the small victories—like a well-deserved drama nod for Big Love—and accept the letdowns, like the fact that Sons of Anarchy is never going to have the glam factor (compared with, say, True Blood) to win over Globes voters. (Ditto Breaking Bad vs. Mad Men.)
And I’ll keep in mind that the Globes are mainly an arbitrary excuse to watch TV and movie actors drink and have a party party on national TV in January. At least we have Ricky Gervais to look forward to. Gripes? Thumbs up? Share them in the comments.