Friday Night Lights
And here is where we get to the “dream” part of the ballot. Half and half is a solid deal, right? I can’t imagine many critics or die-hard fans of FNL that would disagree with this one, though. Season three is probably the series’ high-point, but season four has accomplished many things, especially with so many different balls in the air. Though they haven’t nailed it every time, I have never seen a series that’s balanced the departure of main characters with the building up of new ones so well. And of course, I cannot mention Friday Night Lightswithout mentioning how in tune it is with the American family. The emotions, the psychology, it’s all here in every scene.
Fringe
This is the longest shot of them all considering the Emmy voters won’t touch overt science fiction series with a 40-foot stick. However, I’d consider myself a geek and I watch a lot of genre programming, so I felt like I should acknowledge one series from that bracket. But even if I wasn’t, it’s hard to deny the strides Fringe made throughout its stellar second season. The series fixed all its season one problems by re-focusing on the characters, avoiding listless standalone episodes and making the mythology permeate even the most simplistic of premises. And although it’s a sci-fi procedural, Fringe does just as good of a job at creating a distinct place as all the other series on this list. The odd mash-up between super-advanced science and old-school analog technology is a delight to watch.
Justified
I gotta be honest: If I had finished season two of Sons of Anarchy by this point, it would probably be the FX series holding down the final slot. I don’t mean to take anything away from Justified, though, because if SoA would have been on here, I might have had to pull an Emmys and put seven nominees here. Anyway, Justified is a series that debuted with an extremely strong pilot that promised many things — and then didn’t deliver most of those things for four episodes. That was a little frustrating, but by the time the series started telling stories that were more personal to Raylan and began analyzing what the hell it would be like to come home to this kind of community, it stepped into another level of awesome. I think the new FX drama has an outside chance of grabbing a nomination, but it’s probably 9th or 10th on the list.
Well, that’s it! I’ll be back with more Emmy chatter once we get closer to the nominations being released. Thanks for reading everyone.
At the point where you didn't mention Dexter in your ballot for Outstanding Drama Series was when you lost all credibility in my eyes. You just selected shows you watch pretty much. Dumbass. Shouldn't be reporting.
So you would rather him talk about shows you watch?
Maybe you didn't read the whole "Some shows won't be on here because I don't watch them" part at the beginning. I saw the first four episodes of S4 and wasn't overly impressed. I'm sorry Dexter didn't make the list, but not sure that deserves name-calling. Thanks for reading though.