Emmy Love! or How they got SOME things right, at least

So the nominations came and went without much fanfair, but now it's on to some analysis. There were some good things (Two and a Half Men ceded its "CBS comedy spot" to How I Met Your Mother in the Outstanding Comedy Series lineup) and there were some not so good things (Battlestar Galactica has now joined Buffy as one my favorite shows that can boast the label "Emmy overlooked critical darling"). Some categories look thrilling (Guest Actress in a Comedy Series has Betty White, Tina Fey, Elaine Stritch, Jennifer Aniston, Christine Baranski and Gena Rowlands duking it out!) while others just look pretty much the same (Lead Actor Drama, anyone?). On the plus side, no Jeremy Piven in the Supporting Actor Comedy category might just mean that NPH will have the night of his life hosting and potentially winning his first Emmy!

Things I love about the Emmy nominations:

- Tina Fey nominated for her turn as Liz Lemon (yay) BUT ALSO for her "spoof" of Sarah Palin on SNL! (Guest Star Comedy)

- John Hamm also got a double nomination for his Don Draper (yay!) BUT ALSO for his Liz-love interest, 'bubble-inhabiting' Dr Drew from 30 Rock! (Guest Star Comedy)

- Jeanne Tripplehorn may have missed on a nod as Lead Actress Drama, but got some love for her turn as Jackie O in Grey Gardens

- Pushing Daisies garnered some love for its techs but also for its Suppporting Lady Ms Kristin Chenoweth!

- Amy Poehler and Kristin Wiig both got in as Supporting Actresses in a Comedy Series for their SNL (array of) characters!

- Flight of the Conchords and its leading man Jemaine Clement got some love!

- Jane Krakowski, Tracy Morgan and Jack McBrayer broke their respective lineups (is there any surprise in the fact that 30 Rock led the nominations with 22?)

- Elisabeth Moss! John Slattery! Love for Mad Men!

- United States of Tara's Toni Colette got a nom (though the show was overlooked elsewhere other than in stuff like "main title" and "title song" and "casting"...)

Random Thoughts/Trivia

- Big Love only got one nom (!) ... but it was in the Best Drama category. Weird, but welcome.

- Battlestar Galactica may have missed on big noms (sigh) but it still gathered one of the coveted "Best Directing" spots.

- Mad Men (in Drama) and 30 Rock (in Comedy) got 4 out of the 5 "Best Writing for..." spots!

- The vampire-curse lives on: no top noms for HBO's ratings-hit True Blood

- Did you know there was an "Oustanding Special Class Short Format Live Action Entertainment Program" category? And that it nominated Joss Whedon's Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog? Yep and yep!

- Name the category that pits Justin Timberlake against Oscar's host Hugh Jackman against Xmas Muppets against Flight of the Conchords against Colbert against the 2008 ESPYS... no? It's "Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics."