House, “Broken” (written by Russel Friend, Garrett Lerner, David Foster & David Shore)
House has actually walked away with a win in this category previously — for “Three Stories” in 2005, which Shore penned — and as a two-hour event that feels more like a feature film, this seems like another obvious choice. It also shows that despite all the staff’s issues throughout season six, this group of folks can really write a damn good story when necessary.
Mad Men, “The Gypsy and the Hobo” (written by Marti Noxon & Cathryn Humphris and Matthew Weiner)
It will be interesting to see which Mad Men episodes get the nods when the real nominees come out, but I’d imagine that the race will come down between this episode and “Shut the Door. Have a Seat.” I like this one better from a writing perspective because of the intense conversation between Don and Betty that caps off the episode. There’s a lot of plotting involved with “Shut the Door.,” and the Emmy voters might be entranced by its caper-like quality, but I remember thinking that this was one hell of a written episode of television.
Justified, “Fire in the Hole” (written by Graham Yost)
This might be an interesting and surprise choice to some and it probably doesn’t have a chance to be nominated, if only for the sheer of Breaking Bad and Mad Men episodes to deal with. Moreover, my quick research involving Wikipedia and my own brain tells me that the Emmys don’t tend to vote teleplays onto the ballot. However, I think Graham Yost did a wonderful job adapting the Elmore story into a script. He was able to converge the dialogue into the story without it seeming too hokey and the script covers a lot of ground in little over an hour. I love Justified the more I talk about it and this script is probably the furthest from the realm of possibility. But hey, it’s MY dream Emmy ballot.
Tomorrow: performance categories begin!
What do you think? Are my picks totally off?
I am glad for the LOST love. I hope that the Emmy voters give other shows the opportunity to be nominated in the writing category and not only just one show (I'm looking at you Mad Men)
its like you read my mind I was gonna put all the picks from the comedy list in my list and with drama Its about BREAKING BAD got nominated for writing plus LOST & mad men deserve nods too and I also think each show should only get one nom in the writing category because its not suspensefulotherwise
*hangs head* I don't watch any of those shows :(
Even though I though Lost was brilliant and I would love to see it getting some Emmy love this year I think I'm going to have to go with Mad Men on this one as it was an exceptional episode. Wonder if it will be the same as last year with all Mad Men nominations bar one Lost one. Think you're right on The Office episode, it was so well done and showed that a 'will they/won't they' couple can have a happy ending. I still need to see Parks and Recreation and Breaking Bad (yes I suck), both are on my list of shows to catch up on.