NBC might not be the ratings champ it used to be, but it finished first among Remote Access poll voters, with nearly 1 in 3 choosing it over all other networks for this fall’s slate of original programming.

And I can’t say I’d disagree with that. Among series that continue to pump out new episodes, my three favorites—“30 Rock,” “The Office” and “Chuck”—are all Peacock productions. And, well, it doesn’t hurt that one of my childhood friends was just cast on “Saturday Night Live.” So to celebrate, I figured I’d post this sweet 1956 NBC logo. Hotness.

Finishing in a tie for second were ABC and HBO.

ABC has its share of series that I hear are great but have not seen (“Lost,” “Ugly Betty,” “Pushing Daisies”) and one that I have seen but think is a bit overrated (“Grey’s Anatomy”).

Not surprisingly losing ground among RA voters and critics alike is HBO. Yes, it’s got its share of stimulating programs in comedy (“Flight of the Concords,” “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” “Entourage”) and miniseries genres (“John Adams,” “Generation Kill”), but serial dramas, once the pay-net’s stronghold, have been neither so popular nor so acclaimed since “The Wire,” “Deadwood” and “The Sopranos” faded to black.

Check out the rest of the poll results—including which three networks tied for last—and a look at the current poll after the break.

Right in the middle, with two votes apiece, were CBS, Fox, Showtime and The CW.

Finishing in a tie for last place with one vote apiece were myNetworkTV, PBS and FX. I don’t watch a lot of those channels (although I feel guilty about not watching more PBS), so I can’t really speak to the quality of their programming. But most people are probably in the same position, hence the lack of votes.

The new poll is more of a general question, one that I think is appropriate considering how the writers’ strike impacted the number of new series. How many new TV series will you watch at least one episode of this fall? Please vote in the right margin.

(NBC logo courtesy of CBS. Just kidding. Thanks, NBC.)

Seriously, other than the 22 of you to vote so far, do you not know and/or care what TV channels you are watching these days? It was pretty easy to figure out even before cable companies starting posting the names of the network and show on the screen when you channel flip with your remote.

So forgive me if I’m disappointed by the turnout so far for what I figured would be a simple yet volatile poll question: For the 2008-09 TV season, which network has the best original programming?

While I could try to generate reasons for the current breakdown (NBC has the slimmest lead over ABC while Fox and myNetworkTV have yet to score a single vote), it’s wayyyy too small a sample size for me to conduct any legitimate analysis.

So get to it, Accessories! Tally up all your favorite shows, figure out what channels they run on and vote in the poll in the right margin. We’ll leave the poll open through next week.

Recently, however, the runner has stumbled. Earlier this year, he recast PBS’ “A Room With A View”  as a tragic romance — which added a certain poignant urgency, if nothing else, to E.M. Forster’s tale of a young woman who must choose between true love and a safe life. With the misconceived new version of Evelyn Waugh’s “Brideshead Revisited,” however, he’s totally missed the point.

It’s not that a dramatist must be strictly faithful to history or literature. Not everything that fascinates in real life or in a novel works on the screen — particularly the big screen, where time constraints are greater than they are on episodic TV. (One of the reasons that the 1981 miniseries of “Brideshead” remains so magical is that the makers had the time to let a complex narrative unfold.)

Regardless of whether the adapter has two hours or 10, though, he must be loyal to what is psychologically true in someone else’s story. So while Davies’ “Room” had an uncharacteristically unhappy ending, he didn’t mess with the heroine’s — or Forster’s — choices.

Whereas Davies and co-writer Jeremy Brock have totally reimagined “Brideshead” as the doomed romance between Charles Ryder (Matthew Goode), an ambitious middle-class Oxford student in ‘20 England, and Julia Flyte (Hayley Atwell), the jewel in an aristocratic Catholic family. Let’s forget that it takes Julia — an icy beauty very much like Estella in Charles Dickens’ “Great Expectations” — a long time to warm to the virtues of our hero in the book. “Brideshead” isn’t really about Charles’ love for Julia. Nor is it about his intense friendship with Julia’s gay, alcoholic brother, Sebastian (Ben Whishaw, at left below with Goode, courtesy of Miramax) — a relationship that foreshadows the Julia romance.

“Brideshead” is about Charles’ love affair with God. It’s about faith achieved through the memory of love. Or as Waugh once described the story, “Brideshead” is about the “operation of divine grace on a group of diverse but closely connected characters.”

A convert to Roman Catholicism, Waugh pulls no punches about the price of that grace. The Flytes — who live an Arcadian but otherworldly existence on the estate of the title — are a deeply flawed bunch who chafe under the commitment that Catholicism requires, particularly as practiced by the controlled and controlling matriarch of the clan, Lady Marchmain (Emma Thompson in a beefed-up role).

But the family also draws strength from that faith. And it is that strength that remains when Charles — haunted by loneliness, loss and the specter of World War II — revisits Brideshead years later.

There’s none of Waugh’s amazing, complicated grace in the film, though — only a stereotyped view of religion as straitjacket.

Tonight at 10 on WNET-Channel 13 locally, it’s “Dance in America: Wolf Trap’s Face of America,” an unusual, enervating pairing of dance and nature that actually evokes the origins of the art form.

Dance often looks flat on TV. But the cinematography for these modern works — which seem to grow organically out of our national parks — is nothing short of spectacular. More important, the program reasserts the primal essence of dance, which began with man’s connection to the Earth. “Wolf Trap’s America” will leave you uplifted.

At 9 p.m. Wednesday, “National Geographic’s Strange Days on Planet Earth” returns with two new chapters on the ecological imbalances caused by overfishing and coastal development. Actor/activist Edward Norton — who goes green in another way later this spring with “The Incredible Hulk” — is once again the host.

Norton is a favorite of mine. I think I’d be happy to watch him read the phone book, as they say. But you don’t need the excuse of an actor of his intensity and intelligence to experience “Strange Days.” It’s plenty compelling in its own right.

We try to limit the TV our little guys watch; sometimes we’re better at it than others. But Curious George, on PBS Kids, is pretty good. I’ve seen most episodes, and it focuses on math and science concepts has had its share of animal-focused episodes, which our four-year-old looooooooves.

So I can only imagine that tomorrow and Tuesday’s Earth Day episodes will be big hits in the house.

Monday is “Curious George, Sea Monkey” and “Old McGeorgie Had a Farm” and Tuesday is “Curious George Beats the Band”/ “Hats and a Hole.”

Here’s the description of the first half of Monday’s episode:

Clad in a sea monkey scuba outfit equipped with a camera and microphone, George embarks on a submarine trip to retrieve a small weather satellite that crashed from space. Along the colorful ocean floor, George investigates a gigantic coral reef and even makes a few fishy pals—but will the school of small coral sharks he encounters be as friendly? And, with a little help from our friends at EarthEcho International, we’ll travel to the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary in Key West, Florida, where we’ll meet world famous explorers Philippe and Alexandra Cousteau — whose father, Philippe Cousteau Sr., was the famed son of the legendary Jacques Yves Cousteau!

Usually, films romanticize novels, as in the superb 2006 version of “A Painted Veil,” which is far more forgiving than W. Somerset Maugham’s equally haunting novel.

But Andrew Davies — just call him “Mr. Adaptation” — gave E.M. Forster’s “Room” an unhappy ending, which rendered the story of an impressionable young woman who chooses love over money all the more poignant. Still, it had nothing to do with Forster’s book.

Mourning, however, becomes PBS this month. At 9 p.m. Sunday on WNET-Channel 13 locally, “Masterpiece” presents “My Boy Jack,” about author Rudyard Kipling’s 17-year-old son, a soldier who wound up missing in action in World War I. David Haig, who adapted the screenplay from his own stage work, is the gung-ho Kipling, with Kim Cattrall as his independent-minded, American-born wife, Carrie, and David Radcliffe as their son.

It’s a tribute to Cattrall’s and Radcliffe’s performances that you never once think of “Sex and the City” or Harry Potter (or for that matter, Radcliffe in “Equus,” coming to Broadway this fall). “My Boy Jack,” however, is really about Kipling, yet another middle-aged man sending a young one off to war.

Every historical war is seen through the prism of the current or most recent one. And so Iraq informs Kipling’s Great War, particularly in the scenes between the author and his wife, which are no doubt similar to those being played out in homes across America. These moments crackle with the almost unbearable pain and honesty of parents who must cycle through grief, regret and recrimination to acceptance.

Tonight at 8, PBS’ “Great Performances” presents “Primo,” with Anthony Sher as Primo Levi, an Italian-Jewish chemist who survived Auschwitz and wrote about it. It is, of course, a stark story, told with stark effectiveness through Sher’s adaptation and performance of Levi’s “Survival at Auschwitz,” the jangling music and the spare set on London’s Hampstead Theater, an abstraction of the death camp.

Primo Levi died at age 67 on April 11, 1987 after a fall from an interior landing in his apartment building in Turin, an apparent suicide. There may not have been anything apparent about it. As some writers have asked, Why would a chemist take his own life by throwing himself down a flight of stairs? It makes no sense, though suicide is not necessarily a rational act, and anyway, there is a part of each of us that remains a mystery.

Holocaust witness Elie Wiesel may have put it best when he said “Primo Levi died at Auschwitz 40 years earlier.”

“Primo” is hard to watch, but then you ask yourself, How much harder was it to live?

At 8 p.m., the History Channel presents “King” with Tom Brokaw, in honor of the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and remembrance of his assassination 40 years ago today in Memphis.

At 9 p.m. on PBS’ “Masterpiece,” it’s the conclusion of Andrew Davies’ excellent two-part “Sense and Sensibility,” which, while it won’t make you forget the stylishly ironic 1995 film, has the time to explore the characters’ relationships more deeply.

Meanwhile, HBO continues with Part 5 of the equally fine seven-part “John Adams,” which considers not only the brutality of the intramural game known as presidential politics but the poignant private cost of a public life. Any resonance for our own time is, I’m sure, entirely intentional.

What they all have in common is a belief in the power of the written and the spoken word. There’s a terrific moment in “Sense and Sensibility, ” in which Col. Brandon, head- over-heels for the similarly passionate Marianne Dashwood, confronts her sister Elinor about Marianne’s possible engagement to the scoundrel Willoughby. Brandon is the far worthier beau and part of that worthiness is his willingness to put the desires of the woman he loves above his own. To your sister I wish every possible happiness, he tells Elinor, and to Willoughby that he might endeavor to deserve her.

It is at once a noble relinquishment and a stunning put-down — an example of how language, rather than fists, can deliver the coup de grace.

Among King’s many gifts was a capacity for eloquence equal to Austen’s — though applied in a very different way. Indeed, oratory — once an essential part of American politics — has come back into vogue with the ascent of Barack Obama, even if it is still a neglected and suspect form of communication. (Part of our fascination with Obama is not only the grace with which he can deliver a speech or talk extemporaneously but the disconnect between that ability and our skepticism of it.)

Being a preacher, King was well-acquainted with the Gospels and used their brilliant mirror-imagery to vivid effect, particularly in his elegiac “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech, which today certainly reads like a leave-taking. (Did he have a premonition of his assassination?)

“I may not get there with you,” he told striking sanitation workers at Mason Temple in Memphis the day before he died. “But we, as a people, will get to the promised land.”

That’s as good as anything in the King James Bible.

How many people remember, though, that the speech references ancient Greek writers and the Renaissance? (For that matter, how many local readers know of its tribute to the White Plains High School student who wrote King after an earlier attempt on his life in New York City?)

John Adams would’ve appreciated King’s speech. Whatever the personal and political shortcomings of the man whose pompous Federalism earned him the nickname “His Rotundity,” Adams knew the importance of words — thought of, written, spoken, remembered.

The entertainment/gossip site Defamer.com has pronounced “John Adams” boring.

But then, when your life revolves around the wasp waist of Posh Spice it’s hard to expand the mind.

While it won’t make you forget the 1995 Ang Lee-Emma Thompson film, Andrew Davies’ retelling of “Sense and Sensibility” is a thoroughly absorbing affair, despite a very un-Austen-like opening seduction scene that leaves no doubt as to what a rapscallion Willoughby (Dominic Cooper) is.

He will, of course, romance the sensibility of our story, the passionate, impoverished beauty Marianne Dashwood (Charity Wakefield, below right), who is adored by the worthier Col. Brandon (David Morrissey). The sense is provided by Marianne’s older sister, Elinor (Hattie Morahan, at left), who must conceal her love for young cleric-to-be Edward Ferrars (Dan Stevens) and her fear of being separated from him forever.

I have no particular criticism of this miniseries, which is more than I can say for “The Tudors.” If you’ve read this blog before, then you already know that I find the series laughably anachronistic and Jonathan Rhys Meyers wholly unsuitable as Henry VIII. It doesn’t help that this time ‘round Peter O’Toole is aboard as a maliciously witty Pope Paul III — a reminder of how a star can rivet in a costume drama.

And yet, I found the series’ second season oddly compelling, partly because Henry’s increasing disenchantment with bewitching Wifey No. 2, Anne Boleyn (Natalie Dormer) remains great theater and partly because the series has shifted focus to the tragic public consequences of Henry’s lustful private actions. The humiliation of discarded Wife No. 1, Katherine of Aragon (Maria Doyle Kennedy), and daughter Mary (Sarah Bolger); the awful martyrdom of Thomas More (Jeremy Northam) and Bishop John Fisher (Bosco Hogan); the brutal tussle between church and state with a tortured populace caught in the middle — all so Henry could marry Anne — these remain the haunting cautionary lessons of selfish leadership.

There’s a wonderful moment in which Mary, reduced to waiting on baby half-sister Elizabeth, is shown to her nun-like cell — she who once had a palace and servants to command. She begins to weep, then catches herself — a princess still.

Moments like these keep you in the game.

Susan, don’t quit your day job. But when you’re ready to someday, there’s another waiting for you.

Meanwhile, Dana Tyler, who does the “At the Met” spots on WCBS-Channel 2, could use a little art historical seasoning. The beautiful, poised Tyler — a longtime anchor at the station — is to be commended for guiding us around The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s exhibits at a time when there’s so little arts coverage on the networks. But if you’re going to talk about 17th-century French painter Nicolas Poussin, you should learn to pronounce his name correctly. (It’s “POO sin”, not “PO sin.”)

Speaking of well-known anchors and divas, WNBC-Channel 4’s Sue Simmons is hosting “The Amazing Shea” at 7:30 p.m. tomorrow.

As anyone who watches Channel 4 regularly knows, the never-shy Simmons is a huge Mets fan, always exhorting the sportscasters to give them as much coverage as the Yanks. There’s probably no one better to pay tribute to the beloved Shea, which like beloved Yankee Stadium is scheduled to go the way of all flesh after this season. Last week, WNBC saluted Yankee Stadium.

Thanks, Channel 4, for the memories.

At noon Sunday, Thirteen/WNET launches SundayArts, which in effect wraps an arts magazine show around each week’s featured presentation. This Sunday’s main event is “Madama Butterfly” — a New York City Opera production that actually airs on PBS’ “Live From Lincoln Center” tonight. It’s teamed with segments on the Irving Penn show at The Morgan Library & Museum, Jasper Johns at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, sculptor/installation artist Cai Guo Quing at the Solomon R. Guggenheim and the Stephen Petronio Dance Company at the Joyce Theater.

The March 30 featured presentations are the Oscar-winning “Peter and the Wolf” and the Metropolitan Opera’s HD “Hansel and Gretel” — both well-crafted but creepy. (Except for the poignant prayer duet, “Hansel” is a weird blend of religiosity and cannibalism. I’m not a big fan of kids’ stories, so I sometimes forget that the Grimm Brothers were so, well, grim.)

Given our current financial and cultural climate — or lack thereof — I can’t but applaud Thirteen for taking a risk on more arts programming. But I hope the PBS flagship doesn’t fall into the trap of other news organizations that regularly cover the arts — spending too much time on contemporary culture. Frankly, if I were going to the Met Museum, I’d skip the monochromatic Jasper Johns show entirely and concentrate on the Nicolas Poussin and Gustave Courbet exhibits, spotlighting French painters who are on opposite ends of the ravishing-sensuality spectrum. Poussin’s 17th-century Arcadian romps, with their pristine classical geometry, take a dainty approach to eroticism, whereas Courbet’s 19th-century female nudes are definitely in-your-face.

Similarly, if I were going to the Morgan, I’d forgo the Irving Penn portraits of the usual suspects and concentrate on the shows of rarefied Renaissance drawings, in which even a flash of male thigh is fraught with eloquence. The Penn portraits merely remind you that as soon as you stick a camera in someone’s face, he or she gets all self-conscious. I prefer the Johnny Depp-like Courbet’s self-dramatizations. www.themorgan.org

Now on to the Yanks. As we all know, this is the last year of beloved old Yankee Stadium and beloved Shea Stadium, too. And the tributes have begun: At 7 p.m. Saturday, WNBC-Channel 4 reporter Greg Cergol hosts “The Legacy of Yankee Stadium,” with Derek Jeter, former ace Sparky Lyle, former Giant Frank Gifford, writer Pete Hamill and more. I remember the first time I saw Yankee Stadium as a child: I thought it looked like a wedding cake, it was so beautiful.

But as a Yankee fan, I also spend a great deal of time at Shea Stadium when the Yanks played there in the mid-70s. Those were days of magic.

Now both parks are slated to go the way of all flesh. Let’s enjoy the well-deserved salutes while our eyes are still dry.

It reminds of an incident in a book on physicist Marie Curie that I read as a child: Whenever the Russian inspectors came to her Polish school, the teachers would call on her, as she was the only one in her class who spoke flawless Russian. She was the token brainiac.

Now the Philharmonic has blazed a trail in a remote, despairing place for all that’s great about America and New York in particular. Well, good for the Phil and good for the North Koreans: They’re an aesthetic people who deserve more beauty in their lives. And good if it helps pave the way for diplomacy. I just hope the Powers That Be realize that you don’t learn to play Dvorak’s “New World Symphony,” one of the works on the bill, overnight. It takes talent, training, technique and a certain temperament to be an artist. And one more “T”: It takes time.

Time also means money. Perhaps our government could invest more of both in the arts, so that in the future when we want to blaze a cultural trail, we’ll be able to do so as breezily as the Phil plays the Overture to Bernstein’s “Candide.”

Sure, he makes some good points about the dilution of  public television’s programming, the dwindling of dollars that has sent shows like “Masterpiece” packing up its bonnet for the safety of Austen country and the increasing reliance on pop culture, albeit pop culture of another era. I think PBS has just discovered the ‘60s. Witness upcoming salutes to folkies Pete Seeger (on “American Masters” Feb. 27) and James Taylor (on “Great Performances” March 4). Both of these are quite good. The Seeger tribute in particular is very moving. He really is a man for all seasons.

One sentence in the Times’ piece, however, stopped me cold: “The Showtime series ‘The Tudors’ is just the kind of thing — only better produced and with more nudity — that used to make ‘Masterpiece Theater’...so unmissable.”

First off, since when is nudity the hallmark of excellence? We’re not talking Michelangelo-esque nudity or even the daintily erotic nudity of Poussin’s Arcadian romps, now pleasurably on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan. We’re talking R-rated movie nudity in which pretty actors simulate passion unconvincingly. But leave that aside.

“The Tudors,” better than, say, “The Forsyte Saga” or “Prime Suspect”? Really? It’s laughable. “The Tudors” has so compressed the historical timeline that the series has mixed up Henry VIII’s sister Margaret with his sister Mary, marrying Mary, er, Margaret off to the king of Portugal (it was the king of France). She then ludicrously kills him. Ugh!

Though it pains me to write this, the historical liberties wouldn’t really matter — nobody goes to “Richard II” for a history lesson — if the miniseries weren’t so flawed dramatically. The anachronism of the way-too-contemporary writing that depicts courtiers and court ladies as if they were Henry’s posse is exceeded only by the anachronism of the acting. As the blustery, florid, portly Henry, the insidious, hunky, brunet Jonathan Rhys Meyers is completely unsuitable. (Nor do I hold much hope for Eric Bana — another hunky brunet but of a kindlier on-screen demeanor — as Henry in “The Other Boleyn Girl.” What’s with this casting against type? Is Hollywood trying to make palatable a man who was a butcher of priests and women alike?)

There’s more at stake here than miscasting, though. The idea that the author of a Times’ article can equate the trashy “Tudors” with even the worst of “Masterpiece” is one more example of a lack of context in a culture that is both a creator and a reflection of our country as a meritocracy of mediocrity. Time was not too long ago (you only have to go as far back as the Kennedy administration) when our nation was still made up of strivers after excellence. Now we’re a country of strivers for the middle ground. Good enough is, well, good enough as long as it’s fast and preferably, cheap but especially fast.

Let’s round up the usual suspects, shall we? The lack of leadership in government, the corporate sector and houses of worship; the decline in education, particularly arts education; the emphasis on the quick-fix, pop-a-pill, lottery-lapping, YouTube lifestyle; the slavish devotion to a technology that creates more work than it does. (The best invention ever? The washing machine. It actually frees you to read and write.)

But reading and writing, exploring the arts, watching dramas and documentaries unfold on PBS — these take time, and time is the great enemy of a childish society that is afraid of growing up and old and terrified of dying.

Why do we still need PBS, particularly the PBS of its heyday? Because like the arts, PBS helps  teach us how to think — rather than what to think — and provides us with the historical perspective that enables us to understand that in the scheme of great television, “The Tudors” just isn’t very good.

Not that I’m against cable. On March 16, HBO will beginning presenting the promising “John Adams,” based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography by David McCullough, the same David McCullough who’s been a longtime contributor to such PBS programs as the superb “American Experience.”

Watch Laura Linney as Abigail Adams, a woman who spoke Latin and yet could scrub a floor vigorously in the hopes of warding off smallpox in her house.

Abigail Adams had a life and part of that life was a life of the mind.

Gee, maybe Showtime can cast Jonathan Rhys Meyers as her panting hubby.

As “Masterpiece� hostess, she looks tight and obvious reading from a teleprompter. The swirling red backdrop doesn’t help.

The beauty of Alistair Cooke and Russell Baker as the previous hosts — preceded each week by a parade of marvelous souvenirs of “Masterpiece� triumphs, accompanied by “The Prince of Denmark� march — was that you felt they were talking with you.  Perhaps that’s because they were writers. Generally, writers make very good readers, especially of their own material.

This theory has its limits. Actress Diana Rigg was a superb hostess of PBS’ “Mystery!�. Dressed in her own soigné outfits amid the sets of the various “Mystery!� miniseries, Rigg made you feel as if she were entertaining you at home.

I know, I know: “Masterpiece� is trying to be hip and hot for the Internet crowd. But the move betrays a bit of desperation and risks alienating a core audience that will always prefer Classic to New Coke.

GLAAD, the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, announced the nominees for its 19th Annual GLAAD Media Awards. As usual, just the TV nominees are listed here. Go to the GLAAD site for the full list here.

Here’s the TV noms:

Drama Series
Brothers & Sisters (ABC)
Degrassi: The Next Generation (The N)
Dirty Sexy Money (ABC)
Greek (ABC Family)
The L Word (Showtime)

Comedy Series
Desperate Housewives (ABC)
Exes and Ohs (Logo)
The Sarah Silverman Program (Comedy Central)
Ugly Betty (ABC)
The War at Home (Fox)

Individual Episode (in a series w/o a regular LGBT character)
“Boy Crazy” Cold Case (CBS)
“Do Tell” Boston Legal (ABC)
“Free to Be You and Me” Kyle XY (ABC Family)
“The Gangs of Camden County” My Name is Earl (NBC)
“Sin” Law & Order: SVU (NBC)

Television Movie, Mini-Series or Anthology
Daphne (Logo)
The DL Chronicles (here!)
The State Within (BBC America)

Documentary
Camp Out (Logo)
Cruel and Unusual: Transgender Women in Prison (WE tv)
For the Bible Tells Me So (First Run Features)
Freddie Mercury: Magic Remixed (VH1/Logo)
Small Town Gay Bar (Logo)

Reality Program
“Chase/Lane” Trading Spouses (Fox)
Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List (Bravo)
Project Runway (Bravo)
Who Wants to Be a Superhero? (SciFi Channel)
Work Out (Bravo)

Daily Drama
All My Children (ABC)
As The World Turns (CBS)

Talk Show Episode
“Born in the Wrong Body” The Oprah Winfrey Show (syndicated)
“Gay Around the World” The Oprah Winfrey Show (syndicated)
“Gay Athletes & Rappers: It’s Not In to be Out” The Tyra Banks Show (syndicated)
“Growing Up Intersex” The Oprah Winfrey Show (syndicated)
“Transgender Kids” The Tyra Banks Show (syndicated)

TV Journalism – Newsmagazine
Born in the Wrong Body (MSNBC)
“A Church Divided” In the Life (PBS)
“Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” 60 Minutes (CBS)
“My Secret Self: A Story of Transgender Children” 20/20 (ABC)
“A Royal Scandal” Primetime: Family Secrets (ABC)

TV Journalism – News Segment
“The First Casualty” Anderson Cooper 360 (CNN)
“Gay Homeless Teens” Uncovering America (CNN)
“Gospel of Inclusion” Uncovering America (CNN)
“Sent Away to ‘Change’” Good Morning America (ABC)
“Sex Change Controversy” Paula Zahn Now (CNN)

Yes, the “8 random things about me” meme has managed to make the rounds of the Internet for quite some time without hitting me, but Jane over at Jericho Monster got me this weekend.

So I decided that in keeping with this blog’s theme, I’d keep my eight things TV-related:

1. I’ve seen every episode of Charles in Charge. (I’m not proud, just honest.)

2. The original Battlestar Galactica and Galactica 1980 defined my life for two years. I had the biggest crush on Richard Hatch, the original Apollo, who now plays Tom Zarek on the (way better) remake.

3. A few of my colleagues and I have obsessed about Lost the day after each new episode for three years now.

4. I watched the first season of Joe Millionaire religiously. (Again, not proud, just honest.) Second season? No interest.

5. I love The Wire but can’t watch more than one episode at a time. I truly believe it’s one of the finest hours on television. Ever. But its realism sometimes is just too much. I need at least a little break between eps.

6. I loved Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (starring Gil Gerard) when it was first run. In re-runs, I absolutely can’t stand it. Oh, and I had a crush on Gerard, too.

7. I really like Curious George on PBS and happily watch it with my toddler sons.

8. I really enjoyed Jericho when it first aired and was quite disappointed when it was canceled. I never thought it was going to be revived and have never been quite so happy to be wrong. The folks I’ve gotten to know involved in the revival are really interesting, funny and intelligent. Shows  could do a lot worse than to have a fanbase half as much of any of those things as Jericho.

And now I’ll tag:

Adam at The Jack Sack

Nick at Riding With Rickey

Mary at Just Browsing

Linda at In the Middle

Liz at Small Bites

What is the current sub-prime crisis but another example of our need to have — or fix — it all, all at once? Can’t afford a house right now? No prob. There’s always someone to lend you the money, particularly since he’s planning on selling your mortgage to the next guy, who in turn is counting on the fact that you didn’t read the fine print too carefully.

“The Lobotomist” — airing at 9 p.m. Monday on PBS’ “American Experience” (Thirteen/WNET locally) — is America’s need for the quick fix taken to a horrific extreme. It’s the story of Dr. Walter J. Freeman (pictured center below), who is perhaps most famous today for supervising the frontal lobotomy that rendered the mentally challenged Rosemary Kennedy — sister of the late president — severely incapacitated. She, however, was one of thousands who underwent the crude procedure, which often robbed people suffering from anxiety, depression, dementia and psychosis of their personalities and cognitive abilities.

Making stark use of archival footage, which depicts patients in mental institutions as well as the operation Freeman “refined,” “The Lobotomist” is a fascinating tale that’s hard to watch and therefore can’t be recommended for everyone. Those willing to plunge themselves into the darkness, however, will find plenty for the brain’s various lobes to ponder.

How could anything as barbaric and downright nutty as severing the frontal lobe from the thalamus, the place of human emotion, have even been considered, let alone championed by patients, their families, the media and the American medical establishment alike? Producers Barak Goodman and John Maggio, working from Jack El-Hai’s book “The Lobotomist,” do a very good job of explaining the culture of 1920s America, in which Freeman flourished. Back then, doctors were unquestioned gods and the hospitals to which many of the mentally ill were committed, maelstroms of electric-shocking, heartbreaking hopelessness. (I find these images of patients — curled naked into fetal positions or slumped in chairs like rag dolls — even more disturbing than those of Freeman and his associate, the neurosurgeon James Watts, shoving ice picks in the eye sockets of those having quickie lobotomies in the doctor’s office.)

It was amid the Hell that was St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Washington D.C. in 1924 that a 28-year-old Freeman sought to assuage the suffering of the 5,000 anguished souls swirling about him. So when he came upon a 1936 monograph by Portuguese neurologist Egas Moniz , describing a radical new operation, he really believed that this was the answer to so many unanswered prayers.

But Freeman was no mere altruist. He was also a showman, who supervised lobotomies in front of the press as well as medical students. (As a neurologist, Freeman did not perform the surgeries. Watts did.) “The Lobotomist” suggests that Freeman needed the lobotomy and its illusion of a miracle cure far more than his uncontrollable patients and their despairing family members did.

Ultimately, drug therapy would replace the temptation to such a last resort, although the program ends with the chilling statement that modified lobotomies are still performed in the case of some obsessive-compulsives.

“American Experience” executive producer Mark Samels has said of Freeman: “He was not a monster but a tragic figure, incapable of understanding the consequences of his own imperfections.”

But isn’t the failure to dare to think we may be wrong a kind of monstrosity? And what of the acquiescence of an American public that is always looking for the magic pill, the quick cure, the miracle diet, the lottery ticket that will solve all its problems? Is it worth it to be free of suffering if it means sacrificing your very self? Is the brain just a machine or is it the wellspring of the mind and the soul?

“The Lobotomist” offers many questions and one truism: The path to Hell is indeed paved with good intentions.

Winners will be named at a swanky dinner Jan. 26 at the Hyatt Century Plaza Hotel in LA.Here they are:

Movies for Television/Miniseries

JON AVNET
The Starter Wife
(USA)

JEREMIAH CHECHIK
The Bronx Is Burning
(ESPN)

LLOYD KRAMER
Oprah Winfrey Presents Mitch Albom’s For One More Day
(ABC)

MIKAEL SALOMON
The Company
(TNT)

YVES SIMONEAU
Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee
(HBO)

Dramatic Series Night

JACK BENDER
Lost – “Through the Looking Glass”
(ABC)

DAVID CHASE
The Sopranos – “Made in America”
(HBO)

ERIC LANEUVILLE
Lost – “The Brig”
(ABC)

ALAN TAYLOR
Mad Men -”When Smoke Gets in Your Eyes (Pilot)”
(AMC)

TIM VAN PATTEN
The Sopranos – “Sopranos Home Movies”
(HBO)

Comedy Series

MICHAEL ENGLER
30 Rock – “Rosemary’s Baby”
(NBC)

DAVID GROSSMAN
Desperate Housewives – “Something’s Coming”
(ABC)

BETH McCARTHY-MILLER
30 Rock – “Somebody to Love”
(NBC)

DAVID NUTTER
Entourage – “The Resurrection”
(HBO)

BARRY SONNENFELD
Pushing Daisies – “Pie-lette”
(ABC)

Musical Variety

JERRY FOLEY
Late Show with David Letterman – Show #2773
(CBS)

LOUIS J. HORVITZ
The 79th Annual Academy Awards
(ABC)

JIM HOSKINSON
The Colbert Report – #3052
(Comedy Central)

CHUCK O’NEIL
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
(Comedy Central)

GLENN WEISS
The 61st Annual Tony Awards
(CBS)

Reality Programs

CRAIG BORDERS
Who Wants To Be A Superhero – “Episode 208”
(Sci-Fi)

TONY CROLL
Shooting Sizemore – “Episode 101”
(VH-1)

SCOTT MESSICK
Pros vs. Joes – “Episode 201”
(Spike)

TONY SACCO
Project Runway – “Fashion Giant, #403”
(Bravo)

BERTRAM VAN MUNSTER
The Amazing Race – “Episode #1110”
(CBS)

Daytime Serials

LARRY CARPENTER
One Life To Live – “Episode #9947”
(ABC)

CASEY CHILDS
All My Children – “Episode #9669”
(ABC)

CHRISTOPHER GOUTMAN
As The World Turns – “Episode #12971”
(CBS)

SCOTT McKINSEY
General Hospital – “Episode #11228”
(ABC)

ELLEN WHEELER
Guiding Light – “Episode #15221”
(CBS)

Documentary

KEN BURNS & LYNN NOVICK
The War
Florentine Films

ALEX GIBNEY
Taxi to the Dark Side
Jigsaw Productions

ASGER LETH
Ghosts of Cite Soleil
Sony BMG Feature Films

RICHARD E. ROBBINS
Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience
The Documentary Group

BARBET SCHROEDER
Terror’s Advocate
Magnolia Pictures

Children’s Programs

PAUL HOEN
Jump In
(Disney Channel)

KENNY ORTEGA
High School Musical 2
(Disney Channel)

FRED SAVAGE
Wizards of Waverly Place – “The Crazy 10 Minute Sale”
(Disney Channel)

JUDITH VOGELSANG
Going Green – Every Home An Eco-Home
(PBS)

ANDY WOLK
Lincoln Heights – “That Feeling That We Have”
(ABC Family)

This Sunday — while the saga of the Writers’ Guild strike continues with no happy ending in sight — PBS’ “Masterpiece Theatre” launches The Complete Jane Austen — adaptations of her six novels, plus the drama “Miss Austen Regrets,” based on her life.

First up is a new version of “Persuasion” (9 p.m., Thirteen/WNET locally) and while it won’t make anyone forget the quietly ardent 1995 film — arguably the darkest of the Austen adaptations — it is very fine indeed. Sally Hawkins is particularly touching as Anne Elliot, a woman who nearly loses her second chance at love with Capt. Wentworth (a heartfelt Rupert Penry-Jones, pictured above with Hawkins), thanks to her dim, materialistic family. (That’s “Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s” Anthony Head as Anne’s marvelous twit of a father.)

The scene in which Anne runs after her beloved in a last-ditch effort to make a case for their living happily-ever-after is palpable in its breathlessness.

“Persuasion” is followed Jan. 20 by “Northanger Abbey,” the weakest of the new productions. But then, this may be the weakest of her narratives, a sendup of the Gothic novel. Byron simply doesn’t suit her.

Then it’s a solid new “Mansfield Park” on Jan. 27 and “Miss Austen Regrets” on Feb. 3. From Feb. 10 through 24, “Masterpiece” has the definitive “Pride and Prejudice,” with a brilliant script by Andrew Davies — who did some of the other adaptations in the series as well as the stunning “Bleak House” — and Colin Firth as a most delectable Mr. Darcy, matched retort for retort by Jennifer Uhle’s spirited Miss Elizabeth Bennet.

The series continues March 23 with “Emma” — the one starring Kate Beckinsale and not Gwyneth Paltrow — and concludes March 30 and April 6 with a new “Sense and Sensibility.”

It’s a lot of Austen and it still begs the questions, Why Jane? and Why now? Actually, we’ve been in an Austen revival since the mid-’90s, when the “Pride and Prejudice” miniseries, Ang Lee’s “Sense and Sensibility,” “Persuasion” and the Gwyneth Paltrow “Emma” proved the author was reliable box office. That bodes well for the ratings.

Critics will tell you that her elegantly omniscient voice, concise, romantic plots and subtly intriguing characters — not for Austen the colorful bombast of Dickens — make her ripe for adaptation. But I think what makes her especially appealing to our post-feminist age is that she writes astutely about an issue that continues to obsess (some might say, plague) women — marriage. And because her novels are comedies, not tragedies (“Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery,” she offered), she never denies her heroines the satisfaction of marriages in which love and money are also wed.

As the charming film “Becoming Jane” suggested, however, the real Austen had to forgo romantic love and wealth. Still, she had great art.

I think she chose the better part.

“Oswald’s Ghost,” a haunting new documentary by Robert Stone airing on PBS’ “American Experience” at 9 p.m. Jan. 14 (Thirteen/WNET locally) reminds us just how much we remain in the Camelot thrall. The film revisits the assassination of President John F. Kennedy by Lee Harvey Oswald (center below) on Nov. 22, 1963 in Dallas’ Dealey Plaza and especially, the conspiracy theories that mushroomed in the aftermath of the tragedy. Its cast of players — including historian Robert Dallek, reporter Dan Rather, novelist/essayist Norman Mailer and activist Tom Hayden — will be mostly old acquaintances to those who have charted this course before. It is to Stone’s credit that a familiar journey takes some unexpected turns.

Partly this has to do with Stone’s skill as a filmmaker, which gives the narrative a Hitchcockian flavor. (I particularly love the way the conspiracy theorists’ books swirl into a black hole, reminiscent of a silhouetted James Stewart falling during the dream sequence in Alfred Hitchcock’s “Vertigo.”) The score by Gary Lionelli — who collaborated with Stone on “Guerrilla” for “American Experience”— adds a particular urgency.

That urgency frames some arresting imagery. Though I remember watching the aftermath of the Kennedy assassination on TV when I was a child — including Oswald’s murder by nightclub owner Jack Ruby while still in police custody and Kennedy’s Lincolnesque funeral — I don’t recall hearing Oswald speak before (“I’m just a patsy”) or seeing him dead in the ambulence, his bruised face looking oddly at peace. It’s also the first time I’ve seen a still of Kennedy in the morgue — his face wearing a startled cast, his head carefully put back together.

The sounds and images remind us that while children were less shielded from horror years ago that was in part because access to some information was far more limited. There was no YouTube. Today, we are more mindful of what children watch — and parents might want to exercise some caution here — perhaps because information is ubiquitous and unrelenting. Like the Furies.

Stone isn’t trying to shock us, though. Rather, his theme is the conspiracy theory and how it blossoms and multiplies in a landscape of timely mistrust, which was the Vietnam era, and timeless incredulity.

“How could someone as inconsequential as Lee Harvey Oswald have killed someone as consequential as John F. Kennedy?” historian Robert Dallek wonders aloud. It’s easier to think that the Russians/Cubans/Vietnamese/Mafia/President Lyndon B. Johnson/CIA was/were behind it — take your pick of any or all — because if Oswald acted alone, then it is possible that the world is a randomly violent, violently random place — a chilling prospect.

After exploring the main conspiracy theories, however, that’s precisely what “Oswald’s Ghost” concludes. It expands the portrait of Oswald as a slight man of monstrous ego.

“He thought he was more than he was,” historian Priscilla Johnson McMillan observes. “He sought to identify himself with something big.”

The conventional wisdom — which I certainly bought into — is that Oswald lacked the brains and talent for the large gesture on the world stage. That’s why both the U.S. Marines and the Soviets got rid of him. But “Oswald’s Ghost” suggests that he was clever enough to wriggle out of the military and the old Soviet Union when neither suited his purpose any longer.

Our guide here is former conspiracy theorist Norman Mailer, who, as one critic put it, is the Virgil to our Dante as we wind our way through this particular Inferno. Mailer died on Nov. 10, so this must’ve been one of his last projects. As with his fascinating new book, “On God,” it turns out to be quite a swan song.

Like the insightful detective who unravels the crime in the last act, Mailer gets the final word in this nonfiction thriller, exhorting us to let common sense trump fear and daring us to think that what we thought might be true was really the other way around all along.

By now you’ve seen the promos: Out with the double-bill of oldies but goodies, which were often repeated in various combos. In with “Reel 13”:http://reel13.org, which begins with a classic film at 9 p.m., followed by short, selected by visitors to the Web site, and then an independent film that might’ve premiered at Sundance or one of the other film festivals.

This Saturday’s inaugural offering is “The Paper Chase” (1973), the iconic look at the pressures of Harvard Law School that finally made theater great John Houseman a movie (and subsequent TV) star. (Remember him as the haughty Smith Barney pitchman, intoning: “At Smith Barney, they make money the old-fashioned way. They earn it.”?) The indie prod, Maureen Foley’s “American Wake,” considers the effects of expectations —familial and societal — on a group of searching young people, including a Thai immigrant (Elaine Qualter) and a Boston firefighter (Billy Smith) (pictured above).

I’m of two minds about “Reel 13.” As a confirmed old fogey — one who refused even to try New Coke — I despise change for change’s sake and fixing what ain’t broke. For me, relaxing with a double bill of “Guys and Dolls” and “The Magnificent Seven” on Thirteen on a Saturday night was special, because it was one of the few instances in which old movies appeared on broadcast television, unless you counted the annual holiday presentation of “The Sound of Music” on ABC or NBC.

As a longtime arts critic, I’m also suspicious of the power of the Internet to turn regular folks into artists, filmmakers, performers, writers and programmers with a click of a button. All of this, “Let’s let the viewers/readers/voters decide” often smacks as much of desperation as it does of democracy. And it begs the question: What then is the point of professionals/experts who are, after all, paid to write, perform, make movies and program them on the tube?

On the other hand (or the other mind), Thirteen is a flagship station of PBS, which does, after all, stand for public television. PBS built itself on the dollars, sophisticated tastes and passions of an audience that wanted an alternative to commercial TV.

Here’s a chance for Thirteen to put its pledge drive where its mouth is.

Here’s a look at who the (striking) Writer’s Guild of America nominated for its annual awards (just the TV nominees):

Dramatic series:
Dexter, written by Scott Buck, Daniel Cerone, Drew Z. Greenberg, Lauren Gussis, Kevin Maynard, Clyde Phillips, Melissa Rosenberg, Tim Schlattman; Showtime
Friday Night Lights, written by Bridget Carpenter, Kerry Ehrin, Carter Harris, Elizabeth Heldens, David Hudgins, Jason Katims, Patrick Massett, Andy Miller, Aaron Rahsaan Thomas, John Zinman; NBC
Mad Men, written by Lisa Albert, Bridget Bedard, Andre Jacquemetton, Maria Jacquemetton, Tom Palmer, Chris Provenzano, Robin Veith, Matthew Weiner; AMC
The Sopranos, written by David Chase, Diane Frolov, Andrew Schneider, Matthew Weiner, Terence Winter; HBO
The Wire, written by Ed Burns, Chris Collins, Dennis Lehane, David Mills, George Pelecanos, Richard Price, David Simon, William F. Zorzi; HBO

Comedy series:
Curb Your Enthusiasm, written by Larry David; HBO
Entourage, written by Marc Abrams, Lisa Alden, Michael Benson, Brian Burns, Doug Ellin, Alex Gansa, Tim Griffin, Dusty Kay, Stephen Levinson, Ally Musika, Wes Nickerson, Rob Weiss; HBO
The Flight of the Conchords, written by Damon Beesley, James Bobin, Jemaine Clement, Eric Kaplan, Bret McKenzie, Iain Morris, Duncan Sarkies, Paul Simms, Taika Waititi; HBO
The Office, written by Steve Carell, Jennifer Celotta, Greg Daniels, Lee Eisenberg, Anthony Farrell, Brent Forrester, Mindy Kaling, Ryan Koh, Lester Lewis, Paul Lieberstein, B.J. Novak, Michael Schur, Justin Spitzer, Gene Stupnitsky, Caroline Williams, Larry Wilmore; NBC
30 Rock, written by Brett Baer, Jack Burditt, Kay Cannon, Robert Carlock, Tina Fey, Dave Finkel, Daisy Gardner, Donald Glover, Matt Hubbard, Jon Pollack, John Riggi, Tami Sagher, Ron Weiner; NBC

New series:
Damages, written by Jeremy Doner, Mark Fish, Davey Holmes, Glenn Kessler, Todd A. Kessler, Willie Reale, Adam Stein, Aaron Zelman, Daniel Zelman; FX
The Flight of the Conchords, written by Damon Beesley, James Bobin, Jemaine Clement, Eric Kaplan, Bret McKenzie, Iain Morris, Duncan Sarkies, Paul Simms, Taika Waititi; HBO
Mad Men, written by Lisa Albert, Bridget Bedard, Andre Jacquemetton, Maria Jacquemetton, Tom Palmer, Chris Provenzano, Robin Veith, Matthew Weiner; AMC
Pushing Daisies, written by Chad Gomez Creasey, Dara Resnik Creasey, Bryan Fuller, Abby Gewanter, Jim Danger Gray, Lisa Joy, Kath Lingenfelter, Rina Mimoun, Jack Monaco, Scott Nimerfro, Peter Ocko; ABC
The Sarah Silverman Program, written by Dan Fybel, Rich Rinaldi, Rob Schrab, Jon Schroeder, Sarah Silverman, Dan Sterling, Harris Wittels; Comedy Central

Episodic drama (any length – one airing time):
Final Grades (The Wire), Teleplay by David Simon; Story by David Simon & Ed Burns; HBO
The Second Coming (The Sopranos), Written by Terence Winter; HBO
The Round File (The Closer), Written by Michael Alaimo; TNT
Flashes Before Your Eyes (Lost), Written by Damon Lindelof & Drew Goddard; ABC
The Hobo Code (Mad Men), Written by Chris Provenzano; AMC
The Dark Defender (Dexter), Written by Tim Schlattmann; Showtime

Episodic comedy (any length – one airing time):
Pie-Lette (Pushing Daisies), Written by Bryan Fuller; ABC
The Job (The Office), Written by Paul Lieberstein & Michael Schur; NBC
Negotiation (30 Rock), Written by Matt Hubbard; NBC
Local Ad (The Office), Written by B.J. Novak; NBC
Phyllis’s Wedding (The Office), Written by Caroline Williams; NBC
Sally Returns (The Flight of the Conchords); Written by James Bobin & Jemaine Clement & Bret McKenzie; HBO

Long form, original (over one hour – one or two parts, one or two airing times):
Pandemic, Written by Bryce Zabel & Jackie Zabel; Hallmark Channel
The Lost Room, Night One, Teleplay by Laura Harkcom & Christopher Leone; Story by Christopher Leone & Paul Workman. Nights Two and Three, Written By Laura Harkcom & Christopher Leone; Sci-Fi Channel

Long form, adaptation (over one hour – one or two parts, one or two airing times):
The Company: A Story of the CIA, Teleplay by Ken Nolan, Based on the novel by Robert Littell; TNT
Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee, Teleplay by Daniel Giat, Based on the book by Dee Alexander Brown; HBO
The Starter Wife (Nights 1&2), Teleplay by Sara Parriott & Josann McGibbon, Based on the book by Gigi Levangie Grazer; USA

Animation (any length – one airing time):
The Haw-Hawed Couple (The Simpsons), Written by Matt Selman; FOX
The Homer of Seville (The Simpsons), Written by Carolyn Omine; FOX
Kill Gil Volumes 1&2 (The Simpsons), Written by Jeff Westbrook; FOX
Stop or My Dog Will Shoot! (The Simpsons), Written by John Frink; FOX
The Passion of the Dauterive (King of the Hill), Written by Tony Gama-Lobo & Rebecca May; FOX
Lucky’s Wedding Suit (King of the Hill), Written by Jim Dauterive; FOX

Comedy/variety (including talk) series:
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Head Writer Steve Bodow, written by Rachel Axler, Kevin Bleyer, Rich Blomquist, Tim Carvell, J.R. Havlan, Scott Jacobson, D.J. Javerbaum, Rob Kutner, Josh Lieb, Sam Means, Jason Reich, Jason Ross, Jon Stewart; Comedy Central
The Colbert Report, written by Bryan Adams, Michael Brumm, Stephen Colbert, Rich Dahm, Eric Drysdale, Rob Dubbin, Glenn Eichler, Peter Grosz, Peter Gwinn, Barry Julien, Jay Katsir, Laura Krafft, Frank Lesser, Tom Purcell, Allison Silverman; Comedy Central
Late Night with Conan O’Brien, writers Mike Sweeney, Chris Albers, Jose Arroyo, Dan Cronin, Kevin Dorff, Daniel J. Goor, Michael Gordon, Tim Harrod, Berkley Johnson, Brian Kiley, Michael Koman, Brian McCann, Guy Nicolucci, Conan O’Brien, Robert Smigel, Brian Stack, Andrew Weinberg; NBC
Penn & Teller: Bullshit!, written by Penn Jillette, Teller, David Weiss, Jon Hotchkiss, Michael Goudeau, Star Price, Sheryl Zohn, Cliff Schoenberg; Showtime
Real Time With Bill Maher, written by Scott Carter, David Feldman, Lance Crouther, Adam Felber, Matt Gunn, Brian Jacobsmeyer, Jay Jaroch, Chris Kelly, Bill Maher, Billy Martin, Jonathan Schmock, Danny Vermont; HBO
Saturday Night Live, Head Writers Seth Meyers, Paula Pell, Andrew Steele, Writers Doug Abeles, James Anderson, Alex Baze, James Downey, Charlie Grandy, Steve Higgins, Colin Jost, Erik Kenward, John Lutz, Seth Meyers, Lorne Michaels, Matt Murray, Paula Pell, Marika Sawyer, Akiva Schaffer, Robert Smigel, John Solomon, Emily Spivey, Andrew Steele, Jorma Taccone, Bryan Tucker, Additional Sketch By Jim Cashman; NBC

(No nominations this year in the Comedy/Variety – Music, Awards, Tributes – Specials category.)

Daytime serials:
All My Children, written by James Harmon Brown, Barbara Esensten, Megan McTavish, Addie Walsh, Chip Hayes, Stephen Demorest, Michelle Patrick, Amanda L. Beall, Jeff Beldner, Karen Lewis, Rebecca Taylor, Marla Kanelos, Courtney Bugler, Joanna Cohen, Kate Hall; ABC
As the World Turns, written by Jean Passanante, Leah Laiman, Christopher Whitesell, Courtney Simon, Anna Theresa Cascio, Lisa Connor, David A. Levinson, Gary Sunshine, Bettina Bradbury, Richard Culliton, Susan Dansby, Judy Donato, Mimi Leahey, Elizabeth Page Judy Tate; CBS
General Hospital, written by Robert Guza, Jr., Elizabeth Korte, Michael Conforti, Garin Wolf, David Goldschmid, Michele Val Jean, Mary Sue Price, Karen Harris, Susan Wald, Tracey Thompson; ABC
The Young & the Restless, written by Lynn Marie Latham, Scott Hamner, Jeff Gottesfeld & Cherie Bennet, Bernard Lechowick, James Stanley, Natalie Minardi Slater, Lynsey Dufour, Marina Alburger, Sara Bibel, Paula Cwikly, Janice Ferri Esser, Eric Freiwald & Linda Schreiber, Joshua McCaffrey, Sandra Weintraub; CBS

Children’s episodic & specials:
Look Whose Not Talking (Flight 29 Down), Written by D. J. MacHale; Discovery Kids
Nat is a Stand Up Guy (The Naked Brothers Band), Written by Polly Draper; Nickelodeon

Children’s script – long form or special:
R.L. Stine’s The Haunting Hour: Don’t Think About It, Written by Billy Brown and Dan Angel; Cartoon Network
Johnny Kapahala: Back on Board, Teleplay by Ann Austen & Douglas Sloan and Max Enscoe & Annie deYoung, Story by Ann Austen & Douglas Sloan; Disney Channel

Documentary – current events:
The Enemy Within (Frontline), Written by Lowell Bergman & Oriana Zill De Granados; PBS
News War Part 1: Secrets Sources and Spin (Frontline), Written by Raney Aronson-Rath and Lowell Bergman & Seth Bomse; PBS
News War Part 3: What’s Happening to the News? (Frontline), Written by Stephen Talbot & Lowell Bergman; PBS
Return of the Taliban (Frontline), Written by Martin Smith; PBS
Security vs. Liberty: The Other War (America at a Crossroads), Written by Edward Gray; PBS
Spying on the Home Front (Frontline), Written by Hendrick Smith & Rick Young; PBS

Documentary – other than current events:
Alexander Hamilton (American Experience), Written by Ronald Blumer; PBS
Billy Strayhorn: Lush Life (Independent Lens), Written by Robert Levi and Robert Seidman; PBS
Forgotten Genius (Nova), Written by Stephen Lyons & Llewellyn M. Smith; PBS
The War, Episode Four: Pride of Our Nation, Written by Geoffrey C. Ward; PBS

When I was a child, the nuns used to tell us that all evil had its roots in selfishness, which I suppose is a good general way of looking at it. But I think in modern times, evil specifically is the disproportionate rage at rejection.

Read between the lines of TV’s recent sad coverage of the shooters at the Omaha mall and Virginia Tech, then go back and look at the biographies of everyone from Adolf Hitler to Lee Harvey Oswald — who haunts a Jan. 14 exploration of John F. Kennedy’s assassination on PBS’ “American Experience” —to Osama bin Laden even, and you’ll see a pattern emerge. These men experienced some kind of rebuff in life — failure to get into a chosen profession, dismissal by a girlfriend, coldness on the part of the father or a daddy figure — and instead of chalking that up to life experience, they chose to visit a world of hurt on others, turning disappointment into devastation.

This has always been a great theme in the arts, and I’m sure someday some clever college professor is going to create a whole course on “the literature of rejection,” including Achilles in Homer’s “The Iliad”; Iago in Shakespeare’s “Othello”; Lucifer in Milton’s “Paradise Lost,” the pathetic monster in Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” and Heathcliff in Emily Brontë’s “Wuthering Heights,” to name a few.

To these we can add Det. Charlie Crews on NBC’s “Life,” who on the last first-run episode of the year (the series returns in January) came dangerously close to going over the edge in his quest to right the brutal wrong that was done to him. Indeed, part of what kept you transfixed for the hour — I could barely breathe, let alone move — was watching star Damian Lewis and the writers (ah, writers!) dance on that ledge. When Charlie went after Kyle Hollis — the man who actually committed the murders for which he was sent to prison — you feared that Charlie might exact his pound of flesh by burying him alive. The level of ice-cold threat in Lewis’ performance was so riveting at the point that it was like watching in horror as someone you loved revealed a monstrous side you had never seen before. In that moment, I almost found Charlie hateful.

Of course, it all turned out to be a ruse on Charlie’s part to extract a confession from Hollis — a confession that in reality would be inadmissible in court since it was coerced. (Therefore, the other cops clapping for Charlie as the worked-over Hollis was brought into the police station seemed more than a little unrealistic.)

As fascinating as the whole episode was, with some great images — Charlie throwing the Zen tape out the window before his single-minded pursuit of Hollis; the snake with the gun inside it; Charlie cradling the long-lost Rachel (you knew it was her!) “Pietà”-style; Charlie in the car, upside-down after the accident, taking a cool-eyed shot at some bad guys — the single most important scene was the one in which Charlie met with his ex-wife and asked for her forgiveness.

In a way, it was an odd moment: She abandoned him, not vice versa. She loved him but not enough.

But forgiveness is not about the person who’s being forgiven. It’s about the person extending the forgiveness. At that moment, with Hollis in the trunk of his car, Charlie thought he might do something that would send him back to the slammer and so, decided to get right with the ex at least.

It turned out to be a step in the right direction. Another was retrieving the Zen tape from the highway. Charlie has a long road ahead. But when I think of him, I think of those lines from William Wordsworth’s “Imitations of Immortality”:

“Shades of the prison-house begin to close

“Upon the growing Boy,

“But He beholds the light, and whence it flows,

“He sees it in his joy.”

Here’s a link to the official list of all the nominees and past nominees and winners, too). Variety also reported that Mad Men won a special achievement award for best ensemble cast, but I couldn’t find that on the official list.

Miniseries:
Jane Eyre, BBC/WGBH
The Starter Wife, USA Network
The Company, TNT
Five Days, HBO
The Amazing Mrs. Pritchard, BBC/Kudos Productions

Motion picture made for television (otherwise known as the made-for-TV movie, or, now, MPMFT):
The Wind And The Willows, Masterpiece Theater, PBS/BBC
Mitch Albom’s For One More Day, ABC
Longford, HBO/Channel 4
Life Support, HBO
The Trial Of Tony Blair, Channel 4
Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee, HBO

Actress in a miniseries or MPMFT:
Ruth Wilson, Jane Eyre
Ellen Burstyn, Mitch Albom’s For One More Day
Samantha Morton, Longford
Queen Latifah, Life Support
Debra Messing, The Starter Wife
Sharon Small, Inspector Lynley Mysteries, PBS/BBC

Actor in a miniseries or MPMFT:
Toby Stephens, Jane Eyre
Jim Broadbent, Longford
Robert Lindsay, The Trial Of Tony Blair
Aidan Quinn, Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee
David Oyelowo, Five Days, HBO
Tom Selleck, Jesse Stone: Sea Change, CBS

Supporting actress in a series, miniseries or MPMFT:
Vanessa Williams, Ugly Betty, ABC
Judy Davis, The Starter Wife
Chandra Wilson, Grey’s Anatomy, ABC
Jamie Pressly, My Name Is Earl, NBC
Polly Bergen, Desperate Housewives, ABC
Rachel Griffiths, Brothers & Sisters, ABC

Supporting actor in a series, miniseries or MPMFT:
Andy Serkis, Longford
Michael Emerson, Lost, ABC
Masi Oka, Heroes, NBC
Justin Kirk, Weeds, Showtime
T.R. Knight, Grey’s Anatomy
Harry Dean Stanton, Big Love, HBO
G. David Zayas, Dexter, Showtime

Television series, drama:
The Riches, FX
Dexter, Showtime
Mad Men, AMC
Friday Night Lights, NBC
Grey’s Anatomy
Brothers & Sisters

Actress in a series, drama:
Minnie Driver, The Riches, FX
Kyra Sedgwick, The Closer, TNT
Ellen Pompeo, Grey’s Anatomy
Sally Field, Brothers & Sisters
Jeanne Tripplehorn, Big Love
Glenn Close, Damages, FX

Actor in a series, drama:
Eddie Izzard, The Riches
Michael C. Hall, Dexter
James Woods, Shark, NBC
Hugh Laurie, House, Fox
Bill Paxton, Big Love
Denis Leary, Rescue Me, FX

Television series, comedy or musical:
Ugly Betty
The Flight of the Conchords, HBO
Extras, HBO
Chuck, NBC
Weeds
Pushing Daisies, ABC

Actress in a series, comedy or musical:
America Ferrera, Ugly Betty
Tina Fey, 30 Rock, NBC
Julia Louis-Dreyfus, The New Adventures Of Old Christine, CBS
Felicity Huffman, Desperate Housewives, ABC
Anna Friel, Pushing Daisies
Patricia Heaton, Back to You, Fox

Actor in a series, comedy or musical:
Lee Pace, Pushing Daisies
Alec Baldwin, 30 Rock
Steve Carell, The Office, NBC
Stephen Colbert, The Colbert Report, Comedy Central
Ricky Gervais, Extras, HBO
Zachary Levi, Chuck

DVD release of a TV show:
The Office, Season 3 (Universal)
Twin Peaks, Season 2 (Paramount Home Video)
Rome, Season 2 (HBO Home Video)
Ugly Betty, Season 1 (Buena Vista Home Entertainment)
Nip/Tuck, Season 4 (Warner Home Video)
Daniel Deronda (BBC/Warner)
Muppet Show, Season 2 (Walt Disney)
Lost: The Complete Third Season (Buena Vista Home Entertainment)
House Of Elliot, Complete Collection (Acorn Media)
Dexter, Season 1 (Showtime Entertainment/Paramount)

Last night’s tremendous installment — which featured all kinds of creepy, controlling daddy figures — began with the story of a murdered teenage girl and ended with a teenage boy, called Nate, who befriended her. Turns out he had been kidnapped years ago by a guy who was obviously a pedophile and who kept his “son” a psychological prisoner. This, of course, immediately spoke to Charlie (Damian Lewis), who knows that the bars people place on their souls can be as powerful as the ones they put on cells. And it led to an understated but no-less-haunting finale, in which Charlie — hinting at the sexual abuse he undoubtedly endured in prison — reached out to the boy, suggesting by his very presence that while Nate would always be an individual set apart because of his traumatic experience, there was nonetheless a way through it.

I’m of two minds about “Life’s” treatment of the prison rape Charlie must’ve endured. (I say must’ve, because I don’t think it would be possible for such a man — a good-looking cop — not to be assaulted in prison, even if he were ultimately placed in solitary confinement. As one of the characters in Spike Lee’s disturbing “25th Hour” says of the handsome drug dealer brilliantly embodied by Edward Norton, he doesn’t have the face for prison.) On the one hand, I think “Life” should acknowledge the 800-pound-gorilla in the room and address the issue psychologically. On the other hand, with all the exploitative sex and violence on the tube, the series’ restraint and ironic distance might be the best approach.)

In any event, scenes like last night’s closer have clearly given NBC the confidence to order a full complement of episodes of “Life” for this season and to begin to showcase the program with a two-parter airing at 10 p.m. Monday and Wednesday (on Channel 4 locally). This does not, however, bode well for “Journeyman,” which currently occupies the 10 p.m. Monday time slot and has not received the same vote of confidence from the Peacock Network. While I like “Journeyman” and think it’s getting stronger, it’s not as compelling as “Life” and may wind up losing its time slot to the better show. Survival of the fittest. Such is life.

Now a word about Damian Lewis’ performance as Charlie, which looks all the more remarkable when you have the pleasure of contrasting it — as I did over Thanksgiving weekend — with his turn as Soames Forsyte on WNET-Channel 13’s marathon airing of “The Forsyte Saga,” part II.

Soames Forsyte — the constricted, possessive scion of a wealthy British family at the dawn of the 20th century — would so hate the free-wheeling Charlie Crews, even though they have more in common than meets the eye. (Watch Charlie interrogate a suspect. Like Soames, he has a killer instinct.)

Soames’ dark secret — the thing he can scarcely bring himself to discuss, he’s so ashamed — lies with the cruelty he visited on the wife who betrayed him. Yet such is the genius of Lewis’ performance that he makes the sometimes villainous Soames totally intelligible. Indeed, it’s worth watching the entire series on DVD to revel in the stiff way Lewis’ Soames comports himself — speech clipped, shoulders hunched, arms close to the body.

His Charlie has a whole different verbal and kinetic rhythm — looser but still edgy. Like an Olivier, Lewis can create a character from the outside in. But like a good Method actor, he can also express the internal, as in that scene with that lost boy, in which he says and does little and yet conveys so much compassion.

The documentary really demonstrated to what extent character is destiny. I couldn’t help but think about this over the weekend as NBC’s telecast of “Skate America” featured rising ice-skating star, 14-year-old American Caroline Zhang. This girl has it all, including the musicality and fluidity of a real dancer. After her performance to Schubert’s “Ave Maria,” one of the commentators said she was reminiscent of Michelle Kwan. I always adored Kwan, but the comparison was like a stab to the heart. In three tries, she failed to win Olympic gold, despite being a golden girl herself.

It got me thinking, particularly with the media being all over Alex Rodgriguez’s decision to opt out of his New York Yankees’ contract: Why do otherwise larger-than-life people shrink on the world stage in crucial moments?

I think it has something to do with perfectionism and fear of failure. When you’re in familiar surroundings — say a 162-game season or day-to-day practice — you’re in a comfort zone you can control. But the post season and the Olympics offer a small all-or-nothing chance. It throws the perfectionist off his or her game, because the margin of failure is that much greater. There’s no tomorrow and no time for refinement.

Now, how do you overcome this self-conscious fear? You have to have the hunger, the drive, all of that. But really, you have to love what you’re doing more than you’re afraid to do it. When love trumps fear, the moment is always golden.

I haven’t seen the program yet, but it couldn’t be more timely, not only because of the recent publication of the controversial Schulz biography by David Michaelis but because of what that controversy says about the way we perceive art and human nature.

It will be very interesting to see what tact the documentary takes. Apparently, the book, written in cooperation with the Schulz family, portrays the creator of Charlie Brown, Snoopy, et al. as something of the proverbial tortured artiste. (I just loved the cartoon that ran in The New York Times’ Oct. 14 “Week in Review” section, depicting Charlie Brown as Vincent van Gogh in the self-portrait he created after he cut off part of his ear. He, too, never seemed to win a ballgame.)

Once the Schulz book hit the fan, so did the criticism, with son Monte calling the bio “preposterous.” First of all, you will always get as many impressions of a subject as their are people looking at it. We are multifaceted creatures, shimmering prisms as we rotate in this world. It’s possible Monte Schulz and David Michaelis each caught different facets of Schulz as he spun on his axis.

The larger issue to think about as you watch “American Masters,” though, is the real nature of art. An artist, a writer, only has to be funny, compassionate, brilliant, noble — in other words, what we think of as “good” — on paper. Believe me, it’s a lot easier to be good on paper — where it costs you nothing but time and may afford you a handsome living — than it is to be good in the real world. If you don’t think so, ask yourself one simple question: Would you rather read a book about Mother Teresa or be one of her nuns working with the poor in India? I’d rather read a book.

There is another deeper, darker way of looking at this: It’s quite possible that the very qualities that made Schulz seem moody and misanthropic to some are precisely the qualities that made him a memorable cartoonist. For without some misery, where would he find the longing to create that ultimate yearner, Charlie Brown, whose reach, to paraphrase poet Robert Browning, always exceeds his grasp?

There are plenty of artists who are happy and lead structured lives; others, less so.

The one true thing is that we are, like cartoon figures, a product of shadow and light. How we are perceived by the viewer may depend less on character than on context of the panel.

Associated Press photo, 1997, by Ben Margot.

The seven-part, 15-hour series, which airs on PBS (Channel-13 locally) at 8 p.m. Sunday-Sept. 26 and Sept. 30-Oct. 2, has all the elements of Burns’ signature style — the use of archival images and period music; letters and news accounts read by familiar voices; talking heads offering sage perspectives. This time, however, the experts are not historians and pundits but the men and women who served on the front-lines and the home-front. Few are recognizable faces.

The images of these faces are not just still black-and-white photographs but motion pictures, often in color. They’re accompanied by jazz-flavored standards, coupled with Wynton Marsalis’ original score, that are sometimes a bit too insistent, unlike the well-integrated folk songs of “The Civil War.”

If “The War” lacks the elegiac tone of that landmark work that may be less a flaw in the filmmaking than the effect of time itself. To paraphrase the play “The History Boys,” there’s nothing deader than the recent past.

That said, “The War” plumbs a number of fascinating ironies by concentrating on four American towns beginning with the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December of 1941 and ending with the defeat of the Axis in the spring and summer of 1945. The towns — Waterbury, Conn.; Mobile, Ala; Luverne, Minn.; and Sacramento, Calif. — cut a wide swath geographically, though not wide enough for some. Hispanic critics have charged Burns with ignoring their contributions. But to be fair to him and them, why stop there? Why not tell the story of the Navajo code-breakers? Or the war efforts of, say, Franco-Americans?

The truth is that World War II is an amorphous topic, and it is Burns’ gift to us that he conveys its virtually unfathomable enormity by narrowcasting. He makes us understand that for the gunner in the belly of a bomber; the African-American who had to use the “colored only” drinking fountain on the way to his job in the shipyard; the Japanese-Americans playing ball in an Arizona internment camp; the starving American child lying on a mattress in a Japanese prison camp in the Philippines; the war was an entirely claustrophobic experience. Particularly for the men who fought it, the war was the comrade in front of you, the buddies on the right and left, the guys bringing up the rear and the enemy always over the ridge. Stay with those perimeters, and maybe, just maybe, you would live another day.

As Burns turns a laser-like focus on his subjects, he paints the broader canvas of America’s hasty development from agricultural backwater to military/industrial juggernaut. It’s not just that we were an insular and (thanks to the disaster that was World War I) gun-shy nation with an army the size of Romania. It’s that we were totally unfit for war — no modern uniforms and weapons and little in the way of reliable intelligence, effective strategy and Alexandrian leadership. (Even the vaunted Gen. Douglas MacArthur comes off as someone who cared more about saving his family and staff in the Philippines than he did for his men.) As depicted in “The War,” we were bush-leaguers suddenly called up to The Show, with even the Brits wondering if we’d ever get our game on.

But we did, quickly and superbly but not without great cost. Burns uses the country’s geopolitical transformation as a mirror of its seismic psychic change. Scores of choirboys had to abandon the Judeo-Christian notion that killing is wrong and discovered, unnervingly, that that was not as difficult a shift as they thought. One such soldier was Daniel Inouye (yes, the senator from Hawaii and one of the few “celebrities” in the documentary). He was a Sunday School teacher, of Japanese descent, who chafed at the treatment he and other loyal Americans received, because they shared an ancestry with the enemy. Eventually, he became part of one of two elite Japanese-American units dispatched to Europe. When he killed his first German, he was pleased with himself, and his men — he was a sargeant — applauded.

Then he tells the story of finding a German soldier hiding in a barn, his arms raised in surrender. The soldier reaches for something in his pocket, and Inouye hits him with the butt of his rifle. But all the soldier wanted to do, Inouye says, was show him pictures of his family. At that moment, Inouye pauses. The stoic restraint of “the Greatest Generation” makes their stories all the more poignant.

But this isn’t Tom Brokaw’s “The Greatest Generation.” “The War” debunks the mystique of the war, and in so doing — and this may be its greatest irony — enlarges the event and those who chose the side of the angels.

In the series, you’ll meet Glenn Frazier, sort of an ornery cuss from Mobile, Ala. And a good thing, too, for he survived the Bataan Death March in the Philippines and all kinds of horrors in Japanese slave-labor camps. At one point, a Japanese soldier put his bayonet through his knee, and in order to stave off the possibility of amputation, for Frazier says he would rather have died, the American doctor in the camp had to keep opening the wound and pouring iodine into it.

I watched this with my own knee throbbing with pain and thought, If he could take that, what do I have to complain about?

That’s the beauty of history, its comforting lesson that others have suffered and made it. You can too.

“The War” is a testament to the American youth of that time and to humanity’s wondrous, terrifying, heartbreaking will to endure.

Viewer’s note: As a prelude to “The War,” Channel 13 is airing two documentaries featuring those from our area who served at home and abroad. The two-part “New York Goes To War” (9:30 tonight and 8 p.m. Sept. 27) features the letters of Phil Wood, raised in Hastings-on-Hudson. He was in his first year of Yale Law School when he enlisted in the Marines. His letters speak of his pride in the Marines, the rigor of their training and how combat transformed his life.

Sadly, he was killed in the Pacific. But Mort Simmons of Yonkers is still with us. In “New York War Stories” (9 p.m. Saturday), Simmons recalls how he was too young to fight, and his parents refused to let him. But after four months, his brothers, already overseas, wrote to their folks: “If he wants to go, let him go, but tell him to join the Navy. At least if he goes into battle, he’ll have a dry bed and a hot meal…providing the ship didn’t get sunk!”

Even in dire circumstances, it helps to keep your sense of humor.

Do you have a war story to share? Feel free to tell it on this blog. And thanks in advance for the gift of conversation.

Each week, Sesame Street will turn out a five-minute podcast that includes clips from old and new episodes. The episodes will each have a theme and will extend Sesame Street’s focus this season on vocabulary and literacy.

Anyhow, if you want to subscribe to the weekly video podcasts, you can go to iTunes or go here.

Sigh.

At least it’s Sesame Street and not, say, Barney or the Power Rangers (do any children watch that anymore or am I so tragically stuck in the ‘90s?)

AP Photo/Giles Communications, Ron Thomas

They were last night, and HBO and NBC were the big winners — HBO with 15 Emmys and NBC leading the broadcast networks with 12.

My favorite wins?
1) Battlestar Galactica. Should have been nominated for a whole lot more and won for anything it’s been nominated for. One of the best shows on TV today.
2) The Justin Timberlake/SNL original song, “D**k in a Box.” When I saw this skit on SNL in a rerun this summer, I was almost speechless. And laughing hysterically. Go find it on YouTube. I’m sure it’s there.
3) South Park for its World of Warcraft episode. If you know anyone who plays WOW and don’t find South Park too offensive to watch, you’ve gotta see this one. I promise, your time won’t be wasted.

My least-favorite win? Why do the Oscars ever win anything at the Emmys? OK, maybe they do a really good job, but giving an award to an awards show just seems stupid to me. It’s like saying, “Hey! You did a great job giving those awards to those other people. Here’s an award for that.” Or in this case, two.

Oh, and the Tony awards also got a nod, for “Outstanding Special Class Program.” What’s that about? “Hey! You did a really nice job giving those awards to those other people, but not as nice a job as the Academy Awards, so we’ll give you this condolence prize. But it’s still an Emmy, so good job!”

And then those Grammy Awards had really nice lighting. And the Emmy to prove it.

Oddest win to me? The 10 — count ‘em, TEN — awards for individual achievement in animation. OK, so you can’t decide on just one winner. That’s fine. Even not just two winners. OK, could happen. But 10? Why not just hand ‘em out as party favors?

‘Nuff said. Here’s a look at who won what:

OUTSTANDING CASTING FOR A DRAMA SERIES
NBC, Friday Night Lights:
Linda Lowy, Casting
John Brace, Casting
Beth Sepko, Location Casting

OUTSTANDING CASTING FOR A MINISERIES, MOVIE OR A SPECIAL
AMC: Broken Trail:
Wendy Weidman, C.S.A., Casting
Coreen Mayrs, C.S.A., Canadian Casting
Heike Brandstatter, C.S.A., Canadian Casting
Jackie Lind, C.S.A., Calgary Casting
Fiorentino/Mangieri/Weidman Casting, Casting

OUTSTANDING CASTING FOR A COMEDY SERIES
ABC, Ugly Betty:
Libby Goldstein, Casting
Junie Lowry Johnson, C.S.A., Casting

OUTSTANDING GUEST ACTRESS IN A COMEDY SERIES
NBC, 30 Rock:
Elaine Stritch as Colleen Donaghy

OUTSTANDING COSTUMES FOR A MINISERIES, MOVIE OR A SPECIAL
PBS, Jane Eyre (Masterpiece Theatre), Part I:
Andrea Galer, Costume Designer PBS
Sally Crees, Assistant Costume Designer

OUTSTANDING COSTUMES FOR A SERIES
Showtime, The Tudors, Episode 103:
Joan Bergin, Costume Designer
Ger Scully, Costume Supervisor
Jessica O’Leary, Costume Supervisor

OUTSTANDING COSTUMES FOR A VARIETY/MUSIC PROGRAM OR A SPECIAL
(Juried award: Possibility of one, more than one or no award). This is a juried award determined by a panel of judges from the Costumes peer group. Recommendation(s) from the jury are brought to the Board of Governors for ratification. This award was previously announced.
NBC, Tony Bennett: An American Classic:
Colleen Atwood, Costume Designer
Kendall Errair, Wardrobe Supervisor

OUTSTANDING PROSTHETIC MAKEUP FOR A SERIES, MINISERIES, MOVIE OR A SPECIAL
(Area Award: Possibility of one, more than one or, if none has a majority approval, no award.)
Fox, House, Que Sera Sera:
Dalia Dokter, Department Head Prosthetic Makeup Artist
Jamie Kelman, Prosthetic Makeup Artist
Ed French, Prosthetic Makeup Artist

OUTSTANDING MAKEUP FOR A MINISERIES, MOVIE OR A SPECIAL (NON-PROSTHETIC)
HBO, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee:
Gail Kennedy, Department Head Makeup Artist
Rochelle Pomerleau, Key Makeup Artist
Joanne Preece, Key Makeup Artist

OUTSTANDING MAKEUP FOR A SERIES (NON-PROSTHETIC)
HBO, Deadwood, I Am Not The Fine Man You Take Me For:
John Rizzo, Department Head Makeup Artist
Ron Snyder, Assistant Department Head Makeup Artist
Bob Scribner, Key Makeup Artist
Jim Scribner, Additional Makeup Artist

OUTSTANDING HAIRSTYLING FOR A SERIES
HBO, Rome, De Patre Vostro (About Your Father):
Aldo Signoretti, Department Head Hairstylist
Stefano Ceccarelli, Key Hairstylist
Claudia Catini, Additional Hairstylist
Michele Vigliotta, Additional Hairstylist

OUTSTANDING HAIRSTYLING FOR A MINISERIES, MOVIE OR A SPECIAL
PBS: Jane Eyre (Masterpiece Theatre):
Anne Oldham, Department Head Hairstylist
Fay de Bremaeker, Key Hairstylist

OUTSTANDING PICTURE EDITING FOR NONFICTION PROGRAMMING
HBO, When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts:
Sam Pollard, Supervising Editor
Geeta Gandbhir, Editor
Nancy Novack, Editor

OUTSTANDING PICTURE EDITING FOR REALITY PROGRAMMING
CBS, The Amazing Race, I Know Phil, Little Ol’ Gorgeous Thing:
Jon Bachmann, Editor
Steven Escobar, Editor
Eric Goldfarb, Editor
Julian Gomez, Editor
Andy Kozar, Editor
Paul Nielsen, Editor
Jacob Parsons, Editor

OUTSTANDING MAIN TITLE DESIGN
Showtime, Dexter:
Eric Anderson, Creative Director
Josh Bodnar, Editor
Lindsay Daniels, Designer
Colin Davis, Main Title Producer

OUTSTANDING ORIGINAL MAIN TITLE THEME MUSIC
Showtime, The Tudors, Episode 5:
Trevor Morris

OUTSTANDING ART DIRECTION FOR VARIETY, MUSIC OR NONFICTION PROGRAMMING
(Area Award: Possibility of one, more than one or, if none has a majority approval, no award.)
ABC, 79th Annual Academy Awards:
J. Michael Riva, Production Designer
Gregory Richman, Art Director
Tamlyn Wright, Art Director
AND
NBC: Tony Bennett: An American Classic:
John Myhre, Production Designer
Tomas Voth, Art Director
Barbara Cassel, Set Decorator

OUTSTANDING ART DIRECTION FOR A MULTI-CAMERA SERIES
CBS, How I Met Your Mother, Aldrin Justice, Something Borrowed, Something Blue:
Steve Olson, Production Designer
Susan Eschelbach, Set Decorator

OUTSTANDING ART DIRECTION FOR A MINISERIES OR MOVIE
(Area Award: Possibility of one, more than one or, if none has a majority approval, no award.)
PBS, Jane Eyre (Masterpiece Theatre):
Renville Horner, Production Designer
Patrick Rolfe, Art Director
Clare Andrade, Set Decorator

OUTSTANDING ART DIRECTION FOR A SINGLE-CAMERA SERIES
HBO, Rome, Heroes of the Republic, Philippi, Deus Impeditio Esuritori Nullus:
Joseph Bennett, Production Designer
Anthony Pratt, Production Designer
Carlo Serafini, Art Director
Cristina Onori, Set Decorator

OUTSTANDING GUEST ACTRESS IN A DRAMA SERIES
NBC, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit:
Leslie Caron as Lorraine Delmas

OUTSTANDING SINGLE-CAMERA PICTURE EDITING FOR A COMEDY SERIES
NBC, The Office, The Job:
David Rogers, Editor
Dean Holland, Editor

OUTSTANDING SINGLE-CAMERA PICTURE EDITING FOR A DRAMA SERIES
Showtime, Dexter, Dexter:
Elena Maganini, Editor

OUTSTANDING SINGLE-CAMERA PICTURE EDITING FOR A MINISERIES OR A MOVIE
HBO, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee:
Michael Ornstein, A.C.E, Editor
Michael Brown, A.C.E., Editor
AND
ABC, The Path to 9/11, Night 2:
Geoffrey Rowland, A.C.E., Editor
Eric Sears, A.C.E., Editor
Bryan Horne, Editor
David Handman, A.C.E., Editor
Mitchell Danton, Editor

OUTSTANDING MULTI-CAMERA PICTURE EDITING FOR A SERIES
CBS, Two and a Half Men, Release the Dogs:
Joe Bella, Editor

OUTSTANDING PICTURE EDITING FOR A SPECIAL (SINGLE OR MULTI- CAMERA)
Bravo, Cirque Du Soleil: Corteo:
Sylvain Lebel, Editor

OUTSTANDING CHOREOGRAPHY
(Area Award: Possibility of one, more than one or, if none has a majority approval, no award.)
Fox, So You Think You Can Dance, Ramalama (Bang Bang):
Wade Robson, Choreographer
AND
Fox, So You Think You Can Dance, Calling You:
Mia Michaels, Choreographer
AND
NBC, Tony Bennett: An American Classic:
Rob Marshall, Choreographer
John Deluca, Choreographer

OUTSTANDING MUSIC DIRECTION
ABC, 79th Annual Academy Awards:
William Ross, Music Director

OUTSTANDING ORIGINAL MUSIC AND LYRICS
NBC, Saturday Night Live, Host: Justin Timberlake, Song title: “Dick In A Box”:
Justin Timberlake, Composer & Lyricist
Jorma Taccone, Composer & Lyricist
Katreese Barnes, Composer
Asa Taccone, Composer
Akiva Schaffer, Lyricist
Andy Samberg, Lyricist

OUTSTANDING MUSIC COMPOSITION FOR A SERIES (ORIGINAL DRAMATIC SCORE)
Discovery Channel, Planet Earth, Pole to Pole:
George Fenton, Composer

OUTSTANDING MUSIC COMPOSITION FOR A MINISERIES, MOVIE OR A SPECIAL (ORIGINAL DRAMATIC SCORE)
TNT, Nightmares & Dreamscapes: From the Stories of Stephen King, Battleground
Jeff Beal, Composer

OUTSTANDING ANIMATED PROGRAM (FOR PROGRAMMING ONE HOUR OR MORE)
(Area Award: Possibility of one, more than one or, if none has a majority approval, no award.)
Cartoon Network, Where’s Lazlo? (Camp Lazlo):
Joe Murray, Executive Producer/Story by/Writer/Director
Brian A. Miller, Executive Producer
Mark O’Hare, Supervising Producer/Story by/Writer/Director
Jennifer Pelphrey, Supervising Producer
Janet Dimon, Producer
Brian Sheesley, Supervising Director/Director
Won Dong Kun, Animation Director
Merriwether Williams, Story by
Russell Calabrese, Timer
Phil Cummings, Timer
Lindsey Pollard, Timer
Swinton O. Scott III, Timer

OUTSTANDING ANIMATED PROGRAM (FOR PROGRAMMING LESS THAN ONE HOUR)
Comedy Central, South Park, Make Love, Not Warcraft:
Trey Parker, Executive Producer/Director/Writer
Matt Stone, Executive Producer
Anne Garefino, Executive Producer
Frank C. Agnone II, Supervising Producer
Kyle McCullouch, Producer
Eric Stough, Director of Animation

ENGINEERING PLAQUE TO TM SYSTEMS QC STATION (TM SYSTEMS, LLC)
(This award was previously announced.)

OUTSTANDING INDIVIDUAL ACHIEVEMENT IN ANIMATION
(Juried award: Possibility of one, more than one or no award.) This is a juried award determined by a panel of judges from the Animation peer group. Recommendation(s) from the jury are brought to the Board of Governors for ratification. This award was previously announced.
Nickelodeon, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Lake Logai
Sang-Jin Kim, Animator
AND
Cartoon Network, Moral Orel, The Lord’s Prayer:
Sihanouk Mariona, Animator
AND
Cartoon Network, Robot Chicken, Lust for Puppets
Thomas Smith, Animator
AND
Cartoon Network, Camp Lazlo, Squirrel Secrets
Sue Mondt, Art Director
AND
Cartoon Network, Good Wilt Hunting (Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends)
Dave Dunnet, Background Key Designer
AND
Cartoon Network, My Gym Partner’s a Monkey, The Big Field Trip:
Narina Sokolova, Background Painter
AND
Cartoon Network, Class of 3000, Eddie’s Money,
David Colman, Character Designer
AND
Cartoon Network, Billy & Mandy’s Big Boogey Adventure (The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy):
Phil Rynda, Character Designer
AND
Starz Kids and Family, Eloise, Me, Eloise:
James McDermott, Character Designer
AND
Fox, Family Guy, No Chris Left Behind:
Steve Fonti, Storyboard Artist

GOVERNORS AWARD
HBO: The Addiction Project
Fox: American Idol’s “Idol Gives Back”

OUTSTANDING STUNT COORDINATION
CBS, CSI: Miami, Rush
Jim Vickers, Stunt Coordinator

OUTSTANDING SPECIAL VISUAL EFFECTS FOR A SERIES
Sci-Fi Channel, Battlestar Galactica, Exodus, Part 2:
Gary Hutzel, Visual Effects Supervisor
Michael Gibson, Senior VFX Coordinator
Doug Drexler, CG Supervisor
Adam “Mojo” Lebowitz, CGI Sequence Designer
Jeremy Hoey, Lead Matte Painter
Tom Archer, Lead Compositor
Andrew Karr, CGI Supervisor
Alec McClymont, Lead CGI Artist/Animator
Brenda Campbell, Lead Compositor

OUTSTANDING SPECIAL VISUAL EFFECTS FOR A MINISERIES, MOVIE OR A SPECIAL
TNT, Nightmares & Dreamscapes: From the Stories of Stephen King, Battleground:
Sam Nicholson, Visual Effects Supervisor
Eric Grenaudier, Visual Effects Supervisor
Mark Spatny, Visual Effects Producer
Adalberto Lopez, CGI Supervisor
Michael Cook, Lead CGI Model Maker
Daniel Kumiega, Lead CGI Animator
Megan Omi, Lead Visual Effects Compositor
Ryan Wieber, Lead Visual Effects Compositor
Marc Van Buuren, Visual Effects Producer

ENGINEERING CERTIFICATE OF ACHIEVEMENT TO VARICAP VARIABLE VOLTAGE CAPACITATOR (SYCOM)
(This award was previously announced.)

OUTSTANDING SOUND MIXING FOR A COMEDY OR DRAMA SERIES (ONE HOUR)
CBS, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Living Doll:
Mick Fowler, Production Mixer
Yuri Reese, Re-Recording Mixer
Bill Smith, Re-Recording Mixer

OUTSTANDING SOUND MIXING FOR A MINISERIES OR A MOVIE
HBO, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee:
George Tarrant, Production Mixer
Rick Ash, Re-Recording Mixer
Edward C. Carr III, Re-Recording Mixer

OUTSTANDING SOUND MIXING FOR A COMEDY OR DRAMA SERIES (HALF HOUR) AND ANIMATION
(Area Award: Possibility of one, more than one or, if none has a majority, no award.)
HBO: Entourage, One Day in the Valley:
Steve Morantz, C.A.S., Production Mixer
Dennis Kirk, Re-Recording Mixer
Mark Fleming, Re-Recording Mixer
AND
NBC, Scrubs, My Musical:
Joe Foglia, Production Mixer
John W. Cook II, Re-Recording Mixer
Peter J. Nusbaum, Re-Recording Mixer

OUTSTANDING SOUND MIXING FOR A VARIETY OR MUSIC SERIES OR SPECIAL
(Area Award: Possibility of one, more than one or, if none has a majority approval, no award.)
NBC, Tony Bennett: An American Classic:
Dae Bennett, Recorded & Mixed By
Sue Pelino, Re-Recording Mixer
Christopher Koch, Additional Audio Post Mixer

OUTSTANDING SOUND MIXING FOR NONFICTION PROGRAMMING (SINGLE OR MULTI-CAMERA)
PBS, American Masters, Atlantic Records: The House That Ahmet Built:
Ed Campbell, Re-Recording Mixer

OUTSTANDING SOUND EDITING FOR A SERIES
Fox, 24, 10:00 PM – 11:00 PM
William Dotson, Supervising Sound Editor
Catherine Speakman, Supervising ADR Editor
Jeffrey R. Whitcher, Sound Effects Editor
Pembrook Andrews, Sound Editor
Shawn Kennelly, Sound Editor
Rick Polanco, Sound Editor
Vic Radulich, M.P.S.E., Sound Editor
Jeffrey Charbonneau, Music Editor
Laura Macias, Foley Artist
Vince Nicastro, Foley Artist

OUTSTANDING SOUND EDITING FOR NONFICTION PROGRAMMING (SINGLE OR MULTI-CAMERA)
Discovery Channel, Planet Earth, Pole to Pole
Kate Hopkins, Sound Editor

OUTSTANDING SOUND EDITING FOR A MINISERIES, MOVIE OR A SPECIAL
HBO, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee:
Stephen Flick, Supervising Sound Editor
Avram Gold, Supervising Sound Editor
Steffan Falestich, Dialogue Editor
Eric Hertsgaard, Dialogue Editor
Patricio Libenson, Dialogue Editor
Denise Horta, Dialogue Editor
Adam Johnston, Sound Effects Editor
Paul Berolzheimer, M.P.S.E., Sound Effects Editor
Dean Beville, Sound Effects Editor
Jeff Sawyer, Sound Effects Editor
Kenneth Young, Sound Effects Editor
Mike Flicker, Music Editor
David Lee Fein, Foley Artist
Hilda Hodges, Foley Artist

OUTSTANDING CINEMATOGRAPHY FOR A MULTI-CAMERA SERIES
CBS, Two and a Half Men, Release The Dogs:
Steven Silver, Director of Photography

OUTSTANDING CINEMATOGRAPHY FOR A SINGLE-CAMERA SERIES
HBO, Rome, Passover:
Alik Sakharov, A.S.C., Director of Photography

OUTSTANDING CINEMATOGRAPHY FOR A MINISERIES OR MOVIE
HBO, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee:
David Franco, Director of Photography

OUTSTANDING CINEMATOGRAPHY FOR NONFICTION PROGRAMMING
Discovery Channel, Planet Earth, Pole to Pole:
Doug Allan, Cinematographer
Martyn Colbeck, Cinematographer
Paul Stewart, Cinematographer
Simon King, Cinematographer
Michael Kelem, Cinematographer
Wade Fairley, Cinematographer

OUTSTANDING CINEMATOGRAPHY FOR REALITY PROGRAMMING
CBS, The Amazing Race, I Know Phil, Little Ol’ Gorgeous Thing:
Per Larsson, Director of Photography
John Armstrong, Camera
Sylvester Campe, Camera
Petr Cikhart, Camera
Tom Cunningham, Camera
Chip Goebert, Camera
Bob Good, Camera
Peter Rieveschl, Camera
Dave Ross, Camera
Uri Sharon, Camera
Alan Weeks, Camera

ENGINEERING PLAQUE TO TERANEX VIDEO COMPUTER (SILICON OPTIX, TERANEX DIVISION)
(This award was previously announced.)

ENGINEERING PLAQUE TO DVNR IMAGE PROCESSING HARDWARE-DVO IMAGE PROCESS SOFTWARE (DIGITAL VISION)
(This award was previously announced.)

OUTSTANDING CREATIVE ACHIEVEMENT IN INTERACTIVE TELEVISION
ABC Family, The Fallen
The Fallen Alternate Reality Game, ABCFAMILY.com, Double Twenty, Xenophile Media

OUTSTANDING GUEST ACTOR IN A DRAMA SERIES
NBC, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip
John Goodman as Judge Robert Bebe NBC

OUTSTANDING TECHNICAL DIRECTION, CAMERAWORK, VIDEO FOR A
SERIES
NBC, Saturday Night Live,Host: Alec Baldwin and Musical Guest: Christina Aguilera
Steven Cimino, Technical Director
John Pinto, Camera
Richard B. Fox, Camera
Brian Phraner, Camera
Barry Frischer, Camera
Eric A. Eisenstein, Camera
Susan Noll, Senior Video
Frank Grisanti, Senior Video

OUTSTANDING TECHNICAL DIRECTION, CAMERAWORK, VIDEO FOR A
MINISERIES, MOVIE OR A SPECIAL
Fox, American Idol’s “Idol Gives Back”:
John Pritchett, Technical Director
Damien Tuffereau, Camera
Suzanne Ebner, Camera
John Repczynski, Camera
George Prince, Camera
Easter Xua, Camera
Alex Hernandez, Camera
Dave Eastwood, Camera
Bobby Highton, Camera
Ray Gonzales, Camera
Vince Singletary, Camera
Bert Atkinson, Camera
Brian Reason, Camera
Ed Horton, Camera
Rick Edwards, Camera
Richard Strock, Camera
Rob Vuona, Camera
Mike Tribble, Camera
Hector Ramirez, Camera
Brad Zerbst, Camera
Garrett Hurt, Camera
Danny Bonilla, Camera
Dave Hilmer, Camera
Marc Hunter, Camera
Mark Sanford, Video Control

OUTSTANDING LIGHTING DIRECTION (ELECTRONIC, MULTI-CAMERA) FOR VARIETY, MUSIC OR COMEDY PROGRAMMING
CBS, 49th Annual Grammy Awards
Robert A. Dickinson, Lighting Designer
Matt Firestone, Lighting Director
Andy O’Reilly, Lighting Director

ENGINEERING PLAQUE TO OSRAM HMI METAL HALIDE LAMP TECHNOLOGY (OSRAM SYLVANIA PRODUCTS, INC.)
(This award was previously announced.)

OUTSTANDING DIRECTING FOR NONFICTION PROGRAMMING
HBO, When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts
Spike Lee, Director

OUTSTANDING WRITING FOR NONFICTION PROGRAMMING
PBS, American Masters, Andy Warhol: A Documentary Film:
James Sanders, Writer
Ric Burns, Writer

OUTSTANDING NONFICTION SPECIAL
(Area Award: Possibility of one, more than one or, if none has a majority approval, no award.)
HBO, Ghosts of Abu Ghraib:
Rory Kennedy, Producer
Liz Garbus, Producer
Jack Youngelson, Producer
Diana Barrett, Executive Producer
Sheila Nevins, Executive Producer
Nancy Abraham, Senior Producer

OUTSTANDING NONFICTION SERIES
(Area Award: Possibility of one, more than one or, if none has a majority approval, no award.)
Discovery Channel, Planet Earth:
Maureen Lemire, Executive Producer
Alastair Fothergil, Series Producer
Mark Linfield, Producer

EXCEPTIONAL MERIT IN NONFICTION FILMMAKING
(Juried award: Possibility of one, more than one or no award.)
PBS, A Lion in the House (Independent Lens):
Steven Bognar, Producer
Julia Reichert, Producer
Sally Jo Fifer, Executive Producer
Lois Vossen, Series Producer
AND
HBO, When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts
Sam Pollard, Producer
Spike Lee, Producer
Sheila Nevins, Executive Producer
Jacqueline Glover, Supervising Producer

OUTSTANDING CHILDREN’S PROGRAM
(Area Award: Possibility of one, more than one or, if none has a majority approval, no award.)
Nickelodeon, Nick News with Linda Ellerbee, Private Worlds: Kids and Autism:
Rolfe Tessem, Executive Producer
Mark Lyons, Producer
Martin Toub, Producer
Kara Pothier, Producer
Wally Berger, Supervising Producer

OUTSTANDING COMMERCIAL
American Express — Animals
Hungry Man, Production Company
Ogilvy & Mather, Ad Agency

OUTSTANDING SPECIAL CLASS PROGRAM
(Area Award: Possibility of one, more than one or, if none has a majority approval, no award.)
CBS, The 60th Annual Tony Awards
Ricky Kirshner, Executive Producer
Glenn Weiss, Executive Producer

OUTSTANDING REALITY PROGRAM
Bravo, Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List:
Marcia Mule, Executive Producer
Bryan Scott, Executive Producer
Lisa M. Tucker, Executive Producer
Kathy Griffin, Executive Producer
Lenid Rolov, Supervising Producer
Beth Wichterich, Supervising Producer
Kelly Luegenbiehl, Supervising Producer
Cori Abraham, Executive Producer
Frances Berwick, Executive Producer
Amy Introcaso-Davis, Executive Producer

OUTSTANDING GUEST ACTOR IN A COMEDY SERIES
USA, Monk:
Stanley Tucci as David Ruskin

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Now, why was I trying to cross Fifth Avenue on St. Patrick’s Day? Why, to get to the old Uris Theatre to see Nureyev, of course. In those days, toward the end of his career, he was touring four works associated with the legendary early-20th century ballet dancer Vaslav Nijinsky. The last of these was “Petrouchka,” the poignant story of a little clown puppet cruelly treated by his maker, who nonetheless gets his revenge. It’s a bit of a Frankenstein tale.

I can still see Nureyev in his clown costume with his stiff arm gestures and “Oh, no, Mr. Bill” facial expressions. At the end of the evening — which as it turned out was also Nureyev’s birthday — he came out for a series of curtain calls. For what seemed like forever, flowers, applause — love — rained down on that stage. The only experience I ever had that came close to this was a concert by Liza Minnelli in the early ‘70s that ended with the title song from “Cabaret.” As she hit the final chorus, a great wave of humanity came crashing toward the stage. I’ll never forget those moments as long as I live. I think Nureyev — and Minnelli, for that matter — deserved that kind of adulation. Put aside the courageous leap of faith he took in defying the Soviet Union to come the West — a move that cost his family and friends dearly, as you’ll see in “Nureyev: The Russian Years.” Nureyev was one of the few classically trained artists of the 20th century to transcend and cross over to pop culture. In the West — where male ballet dancing was, and probably still is, considered effete and effeminate — he demonstrated that a male dancer could be a clown or a prince or even a flower and still be a man. He was brilliant, beautiful, sexy, passionate, charismatic, dramatic and dynamic, and he totally rejuvenated the career of Margot Fonteyn, one of history’s greatest ballerinas and one of the loveliest women I ever met.

I knew Nureyev slightly, which is to say I didn’t know him at all. Perhaps none of us really ever knows anyone else. I can tell you what he was like in interviews: He was cultured, sophisticated and widely read, with superb taste in art, music, books, food, fashion, wine—you name it. “The Russian Years” points out that he was born on a train — a good metaphor for his questing mind.

For someone who was genuinely famous, he was also truly humble, which is to say he knew exactly who and what he was. He knew that the critics thought he had danced past his prime, that he was over the hill.

In other words, that he had stayed too long at the fair. But you know what? I’m glad he did.