Mad Men

One of my favorite shows.
If you have not seen this,you are missing something.


Just for a change of pace, let's try giving voters the benefit of the doubt.
Granted, that won't be easy with the Emmys, as raising doubts about the voters' intentions — not to mention, in some years, their sanity — is one of the few things the system does reliably well. Too often in years past, their choices have seemed to be driven by name recognition, ad campaigns and studio self-interest, with no regard for which shows or performers might actually merit the recognition.



PRINTABLE BALLOT: Keep score at home
BIANCO'S BALLOT: Critic makes the case for who should, will win
MEET THE NOMINEES: Vote for your favorites
'MAD MEN': Its time has come
PLAY ALONG: Our Suduko-inspired Emmy puzzle

Still, while we have yet to approach any Emmy promised land, the folks behind the awards have made an effort to reform and improve the system, if only to avoid the embarrassment caused when the voters do things like nominate movie stars for 15-second TV appearances. The result of their tweaks this year is a notably better slate of nominations, with more recognition for freshman and basic-cable series and fewer total head-scratchers. So it seems reasonable to hope that the awards themselves, when they arrive Sunday, will be better as well.

That has never been the safe way to bet. Most years, when it comes to making predictions, the easiest method is to look for the worst possible pick and assume that's the one the voters will choose. And structural problems do remain, the largest being that people who work in TV never seem to watch TV. Even so, we're going to inaugurate this new era of Emmy good feelings by predicting that they'll do their best, instead of our worst.

So, for example, in the best actor in a drama series category, let's take it on faith that the voters have sufficiently expressed their love for James Spader with three Emmys and will not just blithely hand him his fourth. And if they do, we'll stay calm and resign ourselves to the idea that there's just something about his performance that appeals to them more than the subtle work being done by Jon Hamm or the bravura style of Hugh Laurie.


As for the movies and miniseries, we're going to figure the voters have followed their own rules and actually watched them — a leap, to be sure. That means they've finally seen A Raisin in the Sun and Cranford, which were swamped in the nominations by HBO's well-funded campaigns for John Adams and Recount. And of course that means they'll realize that Cranford and Raisin are much better picks.

That, at least, is beyond a doubt.